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拍品专文
Born in 1921, John Latham served in the navy during the Second World War and consequently studied fine art at Chelsea School of Art. The chaos and destruction which he witnessed during his experiences in the war can be said to have directly influenced his work of the 1950s and 1960s. Further inspired by scientific theories, he was greatly interested in theories of space involving physics and cosmology. In 1958, books became a crucial material which he would use in his art and Latham would choose second hand books on account of their size and shape.
As John Walker writes, ‘his art is highly personal in the sense that there is nothing quite like it in the twentieth century record, but at the same time highly impersonal in the sense that it strives for a kind of objectivity - it seeks to reveal in natures inner workings - sometimes by semi-automatic processes akin to those of nature itself' (John Latham - The incidental person, his art and ideas, Middlesex, 1995, p. 5).
His assemblages are often composed of contrasting techniques and materials which do not maintain a constant style and rather appear radical and experimental. In Unspecified Material Latham has compiled together cloth, wire and old books which are surrounded by daubs of thick acrylic paint and unified through a board base on which the whole relief is mounted. His work exposes the method of its production and active making process through the apparently random configuration and rapid application of materials which protrude from the picture plane into actual space creating interplay between two and three dimensions. As Walker notes, ‘Latham appropriated books - everyday objects - and made them strange by treating them as visual/palpable things rather than as works of literature' (loc. cit.).
As John Walker writes, ‘his art is highly personal in the sense that there is nothing quite like it in the twentieth century record, but at the same time highly impersonal in the sense that it strives for a kind of objectivity - it seeks to reveal in natures inner workings - sometimes by semi-automatic processes akin to those of nature itself' (John Latham - The incidental person, his art and ideas, Middlesex, 1995, p. 5).
His assemblages are often composed of contrasting techniques and materials which do not maintain a constant style and rather appear radical and experimental. In Unspecified Material Latham has compiled together cloth, wire and old books which are surrounded by daubs of thick acrylic paint and unified through a board base on which the whole relief is mounted. His work exposes the method of its production and active making process through the apparently random configuration and rapid application of materials which protrude from the picture plane into actual space creating interplay between two and three dimensions. As Walker notes, ‘Latham appropriated books - everyday objects - and made them strange by treating them as visual/palpable things rather than as works of literature' (loc. cit.).