Clive Barker b.1940

Conceived in 1970, this work is unique.

Barker’s Piece of Old Rope simultaneously brings together virtually every theme that is present in the artist’s entire body of work: it is at once surrealist, humorous, Pop, baroque and yet absolutely contemporary. The concept of the unusable usable object transformed by the hand of the artist harks back to Marcel Duchamp, whilst the neatly unexpected transmogrification of the infinitely flexible and everyday piece of rope into bronze art object hints satirically at the use of similar materials in the work of his Arte Povera contemporaries, and in a British context perhaps most notably Barry Flanagan, whose rope, sacking and sand sculptures were much praised at the time. Barker had already paid homage to Roy Lichtenstein with his 1969 sculpture Ball of String, but the titling of the present work also plays with the Pop concept of the reuse of ‘found’ objects by referencing the phrase ‘money for old rope’, and its uniquely flexible siting possibilities allow the possessor almost limitless opportunities for its presentation, and thus perception of the piece and the space it occupies.

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