Clive Barker b.1940

Paris, Musee d’art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Salon de la Jeune Peinture, 1967;
London, Robert Fraser Gallery, Clive Barker: Recent Works, 1968, no.13, illustrated in the exhibition catalogue;
Oxford, Museum of Modern Art, Contemporary British Painting and Sculpture, 1968;
Florence, Palazzo Strozzi, Mostra Mercato d’arte Contemporanea, 1968;
London, I.C.A. and tour, Young and Fantastic, 1969;
Cologne, Baukunst-Galerie, Kunstler aus England, 1973, cat.no.2, illustrated;
Meymac, Abbaye Saint-Andre, Reflet-Restitution: La Sculpture Pop et Hyperrealiste, 1993.

Christopher Finch, Image as Language: Aspects of British Art 1950-1968, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1969, p.136, fig.67, illustrated;
A.J.Fermon & M.Livingstone, Clive Barker: Sculpture Catalogue Raisonne 1958-2000, Skira Editore, Milan, 2002, no.35, illustrated p.85.

Barker’s position as one of the leading British exponents of pop sculpture has become steadily more recognised, and the body of work that he has produced since the early 1960’s has been remarkably consistent.

His initial experience in the factory environment of Vauxhall Motors meant that it did not seem unnatural to employ the specialist skills of others in the actual fabrication of the works, a concept that is common now amongst artists but which meant that his work was not always accepted at the time. The deliberate removal of the artist’s involvement in the actual making of the piece was an unusual element in British pop of the period.

The group of pieces here offered include two unique early sculptures, the Table with Drawing Board I and Three Cokes. Both are chrome-plated pieces, a technique Barker used throughout his early career to introduce and involve the viewer in the work as they find themselves reflected in the hard shiny surfaces. The transformation of object into art object by means of the artist’s intervention places Barker close to a number of the major American practitioners, but also shows the links to some of the later artists such as Jeff Koons.