Made in Belgium
In his latest exhibition, 'Made in Belgium' at the Yarra Sculpture Gallery, sculptor John Marshall uses cigarette paper boxes to develop a series of works that respond to the language of high modernist sculpture.
Using the empty Rizla packet as the sole material, Marshal constructs small carapace-like forms that recall the shell of a lobster or the caterpillar tracks of a tank. These modules, occasionally supplemented by the protrusion of tiny paper antennae, are then positioned into precise linear sequences on top of long white plinths. This purposeful but ambiguous sequencing and the clinical nature of its presentation combine to create the effect of a strange assembly line or a hatchery for some curious scientific experiment.
In the post September 11 world, the utopianism of high modernism and the belief in a work of art unhinged from the political and social exigencies of the world seem as remote as the work of medieval masons. Instead, it is the approaches of the Minimalists, artists who used repetition to establish an artwork entirely embedded in the world, that seem to be most useful, offering a ritualised model for art in times of trouble. The repetitive action provides a means by which art might be renewed, now positioned as a kind of self-styled catharsis. The meticulous carvings of Ricky Swallow or the crocheted sheaths of Louise Weaver are good examples of this, using obsessive, repetitive action as a means by which the products of the post-Humanist world might be redeemed. Marshall's work emerges from a similar place, as an automatic manual action (perhaps a means of fending off nicotine withdrawal pangs) drives his sculptural program.
But to view Marshall's work as simply a