Just got the latest Other Criteria newsletter and even though I confess I haven’t heard of Gary Webb before I liked the look of what I saw on offer, even if the prices are beyond the reach of mortal man. Each piece is a completely unique sculpture, what I first noticed was how much of Webb’s particular sense of humour comes through in his work, artistically performing something like a DJ mixing a ‘mash-up’. At first glance you feel you’re expected to pass your critical eye over works that seem to address the formal interplay of geometric and organic shapes you can find in a lot of 1960s Modernist sculpture. Thankfully Webb pushes the envelope a lot further than that, be it use of materials, a plethora of kitsch and pop references, manufacturing techniques, and even to a degree, scale.

Offering far more than a reproduction of retro style, it’s intriguing how the objects in question give off a veneer of functionality, perhaps it’s all down to the creative process, but unlike much of sculpture Webb’s pieces assume an illusion of purpose beyond that of the metaphysical or emotionally evocative. The thin line that Webb walks between the world’s of art and design provides an avenue of discussion so prevalent in the arts community, the death of form and function. Purpose is questionable, rationality is ultimately subjective when brought into a wide enough arena of debate. 

The deceptively lightheartedness of some of Webb’s references and titles ironically adds weight to the artist’s oeuvre of perceptual and practical decision making processes, the sculptures stand true to themselves, self-serving in their raison d’aître, the viewer is immediately entangled in a mesh of contradictory critique and logic. The shapes and forms registering subconsciously as something approaching a modern-day primal consensus, biology, childhood memories, the artificiality of the modern manufactured reality we live in, the instinctive urge for both solace and acceptance, conception of life, the list is endless. 

Somewhere in the Middle – £10,000

2009 – Cast aluminium, car spray paint – 930 x 190 x 280 mm. The geometry of this work reminds me somewhat of the early limitations of computer game graphics, in particular how 3D environments tended to reduce down to a series of polygons. Furthermore I find it rather amusing, perhaps merely due to my particular childhood, essentially a similarity in shape and form to Rubik’s Snake. I waited rather a long time to dive into the Rubik’s Cube craze of the 1970s – in fact I waited a few years until cheap copies began to appear at the local market. I struggled for a week or two but by the time I had mastered the puzzle it was over for me, I wasn’t desperate as some kids at the time, willing to impress the playground by achieving the once impossible in fewer and fewer seconds at a time. The Rubik’s Snake was far less popular, at that age I and many other school kids needed concrete reality, hard and fast answers, the feeling of accomplishment. The purpose of The Snake was dubious to say the least, something more ethereal, open to interpretation, incapable of forming another ‘craze’. The notion of an ambiguity of purpose has followed me to the present day, however now ironically it is a feeling I relish, entrancement in an ideological bubble, space to think and breathe. To me this is what great sculpture should do, function as a door, a gateway to a new space unmeasured or quantified by Newtonian Physics. Beyond this is the idea of vibration, the flicker of recognition laced with a frequency of doubt. The title imbues the piece further, accentuating the idea of ‘vague space’, indecipherable dimensions. Rather like those of the inside of the body, even with the reassurance of science on our sides, most of us try not to imagine our unseen biology, leaving it to the imagination always being the first preference. For such dimensions mark out the height, width, depth and breadth of death rather than life. One eats, one digests, one defecates, the process in between remains invisible. If I were to pin point the exact position of a recently digested piece of food, I would most likely give as vague description as ’somewhere in the middle’.

Golden Virginia – £10,000

2009 – Cast aluminium, brass and steel – 550 x 680 x 500 mm. Another vaguely biological piece. I don’t mean that in a derogative way, it not only physically ‘hangs’ in mid-air, so does it’s interpretation, flitting between corporate iconography and biological function. I can appreciate the use of colour as marking some semblance to the packaging and branding of Golden Virginia tobacco. However the shapes form, in my opinion, something of a ribcage and lungs, however abstract they maybe. Fusing the reality of the physical implications of smoking and corporate mythology in a way that almost enforces the flawed adage that ‘what does not kill me makes me stronger’. Instead of poor health and biological damage one is forced to view an almost alchemical process apparently created by the near mystical properties of the Golden Virginia Company’s secret blend of the finest strains of tobacco plants. Even as a child I was lured by the sumptuous packaging, dark green and gold, a packet of mystery, a parcel of unique and magical substances that I would only come to understand with age. That was back in the 1970s, there wasn’t a health warning in sight, except that of both of my grandfathers hacking up their lungs. Although one smoked a pipe, the other No. 6 cigarettes, both of which in my ill informed opinion must have been inferior, an opinion formed solely by the surface appearance of each product’s packaging. The pendulum-like object in the centre evokes a feeling of time passing, time running out even, a countdown from the beginning to the end of the process which can be both interpreted as negative, as in  the decomposition of the purity of the surface, and seemingly positive and alluring process of the chrysalis, a transformation, a transmutation to a higher form – i.e death and the theory of consciousness.

Baby Legs – £10,000

Perhaps my favourite piece of the collection, Baby Legs fuses the comforting palette offered by many manufacturers targeting products at mothers and of course their newborns. The strange thing about these kind of products is the way they seem to stylistically balance in between medical symbols and signifiers, the technologies and tools of health, and the abstract world of a baby’s perception. Colours primarily chosen to calm, to sedate, to relax, followed soon by brighter and more garish hues for the toddler, far more active, far less introverted in their world of imagination, or perhaps even confusion. The construction of this sculpture is most certainly mother-like, the central object forming a womb, yet it also acts as mirror to its surroundings, ‘copying and mimicking’ its creator in order to adapt to a new and greater environment. A fascinating piece which belies its dimensions, offering yet another door or window into that vague space of new forms and meanings Gary Webb seems to artistically and emotionally inhabit.

See the rest of Gary Webb’s exciting sculptural pieces here or come and join Other Criteria to celebrate the launch of eleven unique art works.  Thursday 16th July at their shop, 14 Hinde Street, London, W1U 3BG from 6-8pm.

This post is tagged Gary Webb, Hirst, London, Other Criteria, OtherCriteria.com, post modern, sculpture, UK art