Table Piece CCCLXXII

Anthony Caro’s Table Piece CCLXXII exists in a perpetual state of potential energy looking as if, at any moment, it might activate and remove itself at great speed from the table on which it sits. Dismissing the time-honored vertical format of Western sculpture, Table Piece CCLXXII employs a bevy of contradictory forms to imply motion while retaining a heavy materiality. The form encircles itself as it reaches over the edge of its supporting surface to return and anchor itself back to that same surface. This tension between elements is a distinguishing feature in Caro’s work at every scale, and sets his apart in the arena of post-war abstract sculpture. By involving the physical support upon which the work rests, Caro moves in a formally opposite but conceptually aligned direction as his minimalist and post minimalist counterparts working In the United States. Artists like Carl Andre and Donald Judd attempt to do away with the plinth altogether while Caro focuses, in this series, on integrating it and creating a sculpture that relies on its support as much as its support relies on the work.