Table Piece CCXXXII. The Dance

Henry Moore’s assistant from 1951 to 1953, British sculptor Anthony Caro took an effective approach to abstraction that stemmed from a number of things: his meeting with the American critic Clement Greenberg in 1959, his knowledge of Kenneth Noland’s painting on the floor and, particularly, David Smith’s approach to monumental steel sculpture, which was key in the development of his mature work between 1966 and 1978. It was during this period that he produced Table Piece CCXXXII. The Dance, as part of the Table Sculptures series, which consisted of 400 works that defied the flat plane. The various pieces of the work are designed to be set out so that the horizontal plane overflows upwards, while sometimes other parts bring the plane downwards, in the style of still-life painting. They exploit the tensions of very different parts, like curved or cut steel plates or wires and rods welded together, to create, as a group, a number of possible viewpoints while retaining a general sense of harmony and, occasionally, a painterly feel. The reference to the dance is linked to the curved planes reminiscent of the natural forms of the human body and its movements.

Carmen Fernández Aparicio