The Artwork of Tony Charles
It is customary to look at domesticity and industrialism in terms of a collision, whether between masculine and feminine, soft and hard, or the personal and the social. Taking these ideas into account, I prefer to locate the work of Tony Charles not only in the industrial and postindustrial discourse, but also in the history of modernist steel sculpture, which itself has engaged with industry in both critical and celebratory ways: I am thinking of Tony Smith, Mark Di Suvero, Linda Benglis, and Anthony Caro.
Charles’ work both challenges and contributes to the history of steel sculpture. Using the inherent pliability of steel wool, he makes installations of steel and about steel, specifically the British steel industry in which he grew up and labored as a young man in the North East of England. The work is an answer to the heroic and monumental pieces of the minimalist era recalling the soft and pendulous ropes and nets of Eva Hesse and Yayoi Kusama or the curtain like wrappings of Christo. Some of his installations, such as ‘Underlined’ have functioned specifically as memorials to steelworkers killed in industrial accidents, with the portraits of the men appearing on steel wool sheets, oxidized with vinegar. Rather than juxtaposing the labor of men to the labor of women, the heroic and the elegiac, the work asks: Is there really such a big difference between the two?
Anetta Kapon is an artist and professor of graduate studies based in California
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February 20th, 2007
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