Spatial Construction In Steel by Marlow Moss is a constructivist sculpture made by the artist in 1956. Constructivism is like the sexy smart cousin of brutalism cuz it looks a lot like brutalism but its not.
Moss’s work as a constructivist is much more mathematical and brainy while remaining abstract. There’s a lot of clean, straight lines which is very pleasing to my OCD-leaning brain and i’m sure was just as pleasing to their mind as well. Everything is meticulously calculated and executed and nothing looks raw, unlike those messy brutalists.
Everything on Spatial Construction In Steel is finely balanced and speaks as much to the balance of nature as it does the intellect of the industry of the human race - it is an ecosystem all of its own tho u wouldn’t think so to look at it. The sculpture is fragile so one wrong move could bring the whole thing down. One wrong calculation. One movement out of the careful order of things could upset the delicate harmony of this carefully ordered world
Made in the 50s it really emanates the sleek modern vibes that the decade has become known for aesthetically and behind the scenes the we know Moss was facing just as much bigotry as the decade was known for with Barbara Hepworth and Ben Nicholson referring to them as an ‘abomination’
For Moss their mind may have been bent towards the excitement of modernity and industry but the more I look at Spatial Construction In Steel the more I see the past. I see a tree and i get tree of life vibes from it if the tree of life left mother nature’s home and went to live with their cool rich unmarried aunt industry for a few years before going off to college. Anyway…
They are credited with starting the craze of the double line in constructivism which Mondrian copied from them.
Whenever the double line is mentioned there’s a lot of talk of how its a queering (🤮🤮 as a queer i am beggining to hate the word queering and this whole over-academicisation of ppls lived experience but whatevs 🤮🤮) of the line and a queering of constructivism but i don’t see the queering of it as much as i see a loneliness and a love in these lines kept so clean and so far apart, connected by proxy of other lines but never fully together. That sense of duality of things being together but apart, so close but so far, always playing the game and trying to keep the balance. Thats something I can connect to on a base human level and don’t need my queerness to interpret
I wrote this listening to lofi legend of zelda remixes and that whole thing of music that is supposed to represent nature and smth organic mixed with smth industrial/technological but finding that perfect balance really helped me connect with this cuz often things this abstract are just lost on ppl, even on me. But listening to stuff while staring at this made me wonder maybe its not about the seeing but the experiencing of it, i’ve seen this sculpture several times in the flesh (well...steel…) and its almost like having that lofi playlist helped translate this into my head in a way that was even more satisfying