Clive Barker

Cologne, Baukunst-Galerie, Der Geist des Surrealismus, 1971, no.139, p.110, illustrated;
Copenhagen, Nova-London Fine Art, British Figurative Art Today and Tomorrow, 1972, illustrated;
London, Studio 4, Clive Barker/David Oxtoby/Norman Stevens/Michael Vaugan/ David Versey/Roy Tunnicliffe/John Loker, 1972;
Cologne, Baukunst-Galerie, Künstler aus England, 1973, no.11;
Cologne, Baukunst-Galerie, Zehn Jahre Baukunst, 1974, no.26;
Paris, Musée du Louvre, D'Aprés l'Antique, no.272, p.484, illustrated.

An Jo Fermon and Marco Livingstone, Clive Barker: Sculpture Catalogue Raisonné 1958-2000, Skira Editore, Italy, 2002, no.131, p.108, illustrated. 

There is an area of white surface matter on the base. There is a tiny hole on the left of the torso which appears to be an intentional mark of the artist.
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Conceived in 1971, the present work is unique.

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 1960s 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 it took time for his work to be 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.

In Chained Venus, Barker uses a bronze cast of the Louvre tourist reproduction of the Venus de Milo to immediately take the viewer two steps from the original sculpture, thereby questioning the validity of our perception of an internationally famous and recognisable image. However, having given us enough of a glimpse to recognise the source, the way in which the value of art can obscure its actual qualities is mocked by wrapping virtually the whole sculpture in heavy chain, securely padlocked (and there is no key). Thus Barker simultaneously manages to inspect the way in which art is put upon a pedestal, reproduced and perceived, yet it is done with humour and a sense of reverence for this classical exemplar.