拍品专文
The Boxing Ones is one of the largest and most dramatic sculptures devoted to the artist's favourite motif - the hare. Flanagan has created a work here which is at once shocking, humorous, ironic and deeply emotive. Although the animals we are looking at are clearly hares, we gradually become aware of a human aspect which forces us into a deeper contemplation of the work and ourselves.
Flanagan involves the hares in a fight - a boxing match. We are voyeurs - looking through a keyhole, onto the lifestyle of what is in fact the human animal. Flanagan invents a new language of expresssion here: we are so unused to seeing two hares in such an activity that it is the activity itself which is laid bare. The artist is permitted to expose this in all its strangeness and the boxing match, an activity which is unique to the human race is revealed in all its cold inhumanity.
The artist has described the way in which the form of the hare lends itself to expressive ends. The long ears and elasticity of limbs can be used to give a sense of character and mood in the way that the cartoonist achieves human expression in an animal form. The hare also holds important reminiscent associations within our memories, appearing in fairy-tales and folklore, as well as possessing symbolic meaning within many cultures.
The use of bronze in the work is both contradictory and affirmative. Through this medium Flanagan raises the image to an undeniable grandeur. This is re-enforced by the form of the cross which the hares are placed on. Through the composition and execution of the piece, the speed of the hares is conveyed. This, together with the undeniably violent aspect of the work, is encapsulated in bronze and given permanent and monumental status.
There is an incongruity between the act of boxing and the presence of the cross. However, the sense of irreverence which arises from this is itself uncanny when we consider that we are judging the morals of two forms which are not in themselves human. The discrepancy between the serious implications which the irreverence brings about, and the underlying, yet undeniably humorous element of the work lies at its centre. The work is at once far-reaching and self-mocking. Flanagan plays with the concept of animals within human situations which are ironically themselves considered "animalistic" in character. What we are left with is a sense of astonishment at the realisation that we are a witness to what is the human spirit characterised in animal form and immortalised in bronze.
Flanagan involves the hares in a fight - a boxing match. We are voyeurs - looking through a keyhole, onto the lifestyle of what is in fact the human animal. Flanagan invents a new language of expresssion here: we are so unused to seeing two hares in such an activity that it is the activity itself which is laid bare. The artist is permitted to expose this in all its strangeness and the boxing match, an activity which is unique to the human race is revealed in all its cold inhumanity.
The artist has described the way in which the form of the hare lends itself to expressive ends. The long ears and elasticity of limbs can be used to give a sense of character and mood in the way that the cartoonist achieves human expression in an animal form. The hare also holds important reminiscent associations within our memories, appearing in fairy-tales and folklore, as well as possessing symbolic meaning within many cultures.
The use of bronze in the work is both contradictory and affirmative. Through this medium Flanagan raises the image to an undeniable grandeur. This is re-enforced by the form of the cross which the hares are placed on. Through the composition and execution of the piece, the speed of the hares is conveyed. This, together with the undeniably violent aspect of the work, is encapsulated in bronze and given permanent and monumental status.
There is an incongruity between the act of boxing and the presence of the cross. However, the sense of irreverence which arises from this is itself uncanny when we consider that we are judging the morals of two forms which are not in themselves human. The discrepancy between the serious implications which the irreverence brings about, and the underlying, yet undeniably humorous element of the work lies at its centre. The work is at once far-reaching and self-mocking. Flanagan plays with the concept of animals within human situations which are ironically themselves considered "animalistic" in character. What we are left with is a sense of astonishment at the realisation that we are a witness to what is the human spirit characterised in animal form and immortalised in bronze.