Estudio para ritmos bipolares

Artist name

Artist year born

1920

Artwork make date

1993

Artwork title translation

Study for Bipolar Rythms

Artwork material

collage
card

Artwork dimensions

height: 25.5cm
width: 33cm

Artwork type (categories)

Collage

Accession method

Donated by Gabriel Pérez-Barreiro 1995

Accession number

42-1995

Label text

This abstract work is a collage on card with geometric forms in red, yellow, black and brown pasted on to a blue ground. Like many of Martín Blaszko's small, two-dimensional works this piece is a study for sculpture. Also fairly small in scale, Blaszko's sculpture is made from a variety of materials (sometimes painted) including bronze, wood and aluminium. Despite a comparatively small size, these are designed to be placed in the public domain; although physically diminutive they are frequently described as monumental, a quality that may be attributed to their soaring form and to Blaszko's strict compositional adherence to the Golden Mean.

The title of this work, Estudios para ritmos bipolares, points to another of the principles of Blaszko's work: his exploration of bipolarity, or the union of oppositions. Jacqueline Barnitz describes how, in Blasko's sculpture, 'the monumental and the human scale are blended into horizontal-vertical structures to form a perfect equilibrium, some in repose, others dynamic, always in tension' (Barnitz, 2000: 6).


In the course of Blaszko's career his sculpture has become increasingly dynamic; in this collage it appears that the tension between geometric forms is so great that the opposing elements have actually broken away from one another.

Reference
Jacqueline Barnitz, Martín Blaszko: Esculturas Urbanas. Buenos Aires: Ediciones Glock, 2000.
Joanne Harwood

Last updated date

2008