PETER BLAKE – ROCK, PAPER, SCISSORS
2012-11-19The show features almost 50 new and previously unseen works from the past six decades. The exhibition title takes the idea from the children’s game, and provides a framework for the sections sculpture, works on paper and collage.
In his sculpture, Blake continues to assemble found objects, with surreal scenes and narratives. ‘A Parade for Saul Steinberg’, started in 2007, resembles a New York street parade, where famous cartoon characters and other fantasy figures march in recognition of the cartoonist Steinberg; one of Blake’s artistic heroes. Popular characters from Blake’s earlier works reappear; Snow White is seen showing-off her garden of underwater debris to René Magritte, whilst elsewhere 30 of her dwarf companions lead an invasion of a bagpiper’s Swiss chalet.
In addition to using plastic, readymade characters, Blake constructs figures from natural materials including a miniature army made from bowling balls and stained wood, adorned with medals and badges to represent military achievements. Another sculpture built from wooden objects is a life-size family group posing beneath a driftwood tree, and this two-metre-high sculpture will dominate one of the galleries. As a departure from his constructions of found objects, in a new group of works Blake presents six found objects as works of art in their own right, reminding him as they do of sculptures by Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth and other twentieth-century masters.
Opposite – The Performance Artist (from Incidents from a Sculpture Park), 1983
Exhibition runs through to December 15th, 2012
Waddington Custot Galleries
11 Cork Street
London
W1S 3LT
