Art

John Panting

John Mchwen

John Panting (Serpentine Galleri, hKeern2s8in)gton Gardens, till SeptJohn Panting was killed in a motor, bike accident last year at the age or thirty-four. It was a loss of girt consequence to his fellow artists IC hEnglandht least s because e cfaour h s e hi s ik ee was spso p ut:: dr

respected as an artist and teacher of singular gifts and energy. Panting was a New Zealander, the son of one of the country's most,

renowned organists and nephew 0,1 a string of academic aunts. His younger brothers are both rising

musicians, and he himself was a competent guitarist and keen devotee of music. After four year of traditional art school training at

Canterbimy, New Zealand, he canoe to the Royal College in 1964. For someone so long prepared in the history of art it was an exhilarating homecoming. The 'sixties too Wernre a great time for sculpture IP London. The old idea of chipping The old idea of chipping 01: modelling away in a sacrosanct

corner had gone by the board'

Technology and democracy Were' the fashion, and the new tectini' ques and materials were avittlY explored in a workshop atmosphe" re. Panting, by his innate crafts manship, physical stamina orijel enthusiasm, soon distinguishett, himself as a student, and it was oft) natural that he should become e tutor at the College when he graduated. Teaching, for Panting.' was always an essential part of bref working process, not just a waY ° making money: at one point in the late 'sixties he was doing six days 3 week part-time! It was as well that he could survive for long perin4s without sleep. But in 1972 hie energies were More regularised his full-time appointment as pr1rle,_1:, pal lecturer in sculpture at rn* Central School of Art. The exhibition irself is crowdedf with work, much of it — because °A Panting's habit of plundering pieces for materials or destroying I` for space — reassembled and evel:i remade from photographs all' I memory by his friends, Sove Furlonger, and Terry Powell, 01

some of his former students. It Mils'

also be emphasised, as the Ore comprehensive catalogue illustrl tes, that some of his best pied were unavailable for exhibition; This is, therefore, a show design./ not onlyas a tribute but also to WI Spectator September 20, 1975

his fellow artists a rare opportunity of seeing as much of his work together at one time as was Possible. It is to be studied more than viewed, and rather demanding for a layman as a result. But it is certainly not inaccessible, particularly if it is borne in mind that the artist himself invariably discussed these pieces in terms of music.

The earliest work is in the central room, outside the office, with each of the three galleries leading off it devoted to major themes in Panting's subsequent development. Many hints of his later works can be found here. The different techniques and materials, and the Wide range of colours and use of colour all reflect the 'sixties exhilaration, but a liking for discord, the prevention of something becoming too perfect or even sensuous, is already characterised by the irregularity of the bolted steel sections of the pole leaning to in the corner. However, It was the most elegant and linear work which he proceeded to explore next (entrance gallery). These pieces were sometimes classified as 'Pages by Panting but the analogy need not be stressed. The narrow steel bands delineate the space as in a drawing. Perhaps they were too pleasing to engage his interest for long. For whatever reason, his next work (back gallery) is tougher, straight not curved, and more formalist: the steel sections are uniform, the grey micaceous paint (of a sort normally Used on power pylons) stops the spatial ambivalence is both encouraged and deceptively simplified. These were interim pieces, best understood in conjunction With some of the maquette variations on view in the office.

Untitled IV (Cat p.34) is noticeable for containing a characteristically discordant short section of steel, which, however, hardly Prepares one for the contrapuntal rhythms of the pieces in the middle gallery. These works, which grew from a steel section on which his students had been practicing welding, are more free and more spontaneous. They are, in fact, different configurations of what You have seen just before, many of the short sections of steel employed having served in longer pieces, now sawn up to syncopate previously static configurations. Even intact sections are staggered at the welding joins by burn marks from intentional over-exposure to the torch. But Panting was highly self-critical. If he felt there was an idea worth preserving he dismantled, or photographed, the piece (complicated though they may seem, these centre gallery works all unbolt into about four or five parts) and stored it; if not he broke it up and used the remnants in the next work.

The latest works on view are the three that incorporate wood. They develop, though superficially this may not be apparent, out of the centre gallery pieces — the previously empty central space now being filledwith a battery of broken up wooden crates till the steel elements become almost buried; especially when the whole construction is coated with paint, resin and even in Untitled XV (cat. p.40), cloth and glass fibre. The line, having been broken up, is now enclosed. These pieces, too, disclose more and more Panting's method of incorporating decisions into the actual working moment, and this further energises the work: an immediacy emphasised by an increasingly Schwitterslike habit of using any material to hand, seemingly as a challenge to his own creativity. Nor should the skill involved be underestimated. Close inspection by anyone who's ever tried to fit one thing together to support another will reveal that these last works — as with everything Panting made — are exquisitely done, however unpleasant they may be — and Untitled XV certainly is — to look at. Having buried steel would he have freed the wood to work on its own? Some chairs he knocked together in his studio but not, unfortunately, exhibited (Cat. p.43), suggest this, and also appear to be his most resolved pieces to date. They were also constructed from moment to moment with a robust disrespect for the deceptions of 'craft'. Solid as rocks they are propped on an inspired improvisation of legs. The wood again is the simplest imaginable, broken up crates, and 'Made in Portugal' — stamped on one of the boxes — is in no way disguised!

But that's where it ends. This is an exhibition of an artist's development. Much of the work is immature, derivative and unresolved, but in its unremitting progress, its self-questioning and dissatisfaction, its refusal to compromise or standstill, and in its growing strength it reveals that by Panting's death sculpture has suffered a considerable loss. How considerable we shall never know, but his example remains. The overall impression of this show is of zest for life and enjoyment. There is . none of that dry, dead-end acade:cfircism of so much post-sixties, phst-Caro work, At this very difficult moment. tor sculpture he will be missed indeed.