John Panting

Résumé du livre

New-Zealand-born, London-based sculptor John Panting's career was tragically cut short when he was killed at the age of 34 in a motorbike accident in 1974. This exhibition brings together a group of late works held in New Zealand collections, which have not been seen together since they were included in the posthumous retrospective organised by the Serpentine Gallery in London that toured New Zealand in 1975-76. Following on from his training at the Royal College of Art in London (1964-67), Panting's career has been described as a 'whirlwind' progress through various formal and material moves. The works in this exhibition are all made between 1972 and 1974. They are pared back, open-form spatial constructions in steel. They show Panting attempting to reconcile the differences between constructivism and late modernist sculpture, the contradictions resulting in a burst of energy at a time when the modernist consensus was in crisis. Panting's work is enjoying renewed attention in Britain; his archive and examples of his work have recently been acquired by Tate Britain and the Henry Moore Institute, and a monograph by Sam Cornish has been published by Sansom & Company, Poussin Gallery, and abstractcritical, London. This exhibition is designed to reacquaint New Zealand audiences with his practice.