Floor works:
Turning a Blind Eye, 1984
Vincent, 2005
Wall works:
Infinity #35, 2008
Infinity #36, 2016
Richard Deacon (born 1949, UK) fabricates abstract forms in an extensive range of materials, here working with glazed ceramic, stainless steel and bent, laminated wood. His singular sculptures are outlandish objects, appearing to have landed in the space fully-formed; either through industrial processes, as a result of natural forces, or by a combination of the two – only revealing their true complexity through closer inspection of hand-finished details, rivets and joins.
These historical and recent works are from disparate periods of Deacon’s 40-year practice and from different bodies of work, but are united by the continuity of their outlines, their surfaces morphing in the round or else looping back on themselves, suggesting a state that is both fixed and fluid at the same time. This implausible idea is physicalised in the undulating movement and Möbius-like wooden strip of Turning a Blind Eye, first shown at Tate Gallery in 1985.