Richard Deacon Slippery When Wet

Soon after his first one man show at the Lisson Gallery in London, Richard Deacon ’s artistic status was confirmed. The sculptor then emerging began to accumulate awards, commissions for public spaces and an enviable range of exhibitions as well as an extensive bibliography. In 1987 he won the prestigious Turner Prize in the Tate Gallery.

Deacon was living in London at an iconoclastic time marked by student uprisings across Europe and America. He studied at St.Martin’s School of Art, an institution famously associated with Performance Art (think of Gilbert and George), as with sculptural constructions in steel (think of Anthony Caro). By nature innovative, Deacon chose to break new ground rather than take refuge in the styles of the recent or not-so-recent past. And as the sixties moved into the seventies, the young artist built up the ideas and objectives which continue to be integral to his work today.

Deacon is known as much for his small scale works as for those large and monumental, for solid volumes and for transparent ones, for his voluptuous line. Some of his works hang on the wall. Many of his sculptures have shiny surfaces enhanced by having their flow interspersed with spirals, keys, screws and other supports which underpin the sculpture or were holding it while it was being made and which by reflecting light, add luminous touches to the final object. And the wonderful natural colours of the materials used by Deacon have no Crayola crayon to match them. Colour comes through in different ways in Deacon’s work. In his open air sculptures you can see the blue sky and the green grass through the huge protruberances. In galleries and museums, the walls and floors are chequered by his transparent surfaces, his translucent weavings and interlacings. His sculptures relate to the world around them in an unusual way.

Throughout his career Deacon denies following a plan. His work is as diverse and varied as the undulating outlines which characterise it. However, one thing is certain. For Deacon his curves are not decorative flourishes. If his earlier pieces suggested an eye or an ear or the back of the hand, his most recent sculptures, freestanding ones, recall landscapes of dense vegetation. To quote the artist: The curve has a life of its own, it is not describing or depicting a shape. Always restless, Deacon is continually exploring new directions at the same time. As well as teaching and organising an exhibition of mediaeval sculpture in Tate Britain (for which he designed the pedestals which were later exhibited in Paris), he has recently created a series of works in wood: a group of free-standing sculptures with the text message “UW84DC” as its title (the opening show at Galeria Distrito Cu4tro 2003), and another group with pieces shaped like waterfalls, curls and spirals. At the same time he has incorporated new pieces in his work made from rust-proof steel and known by the collective name of Infinity; and he has made a series of unusual, large ceramic sculptures which can be exhibited in the Open Air. These days Deacon’s corpus is a virtual melting pot.

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Richard Deacon "Slippery When Wet"