THE title of this exhibition nowadays exhibitions at most always have titles, relevant or otherwise is Echo, suggested by the Echo and narcissus fable. Alison Wilding, a well thought of English sculptor of the young to middle generation, has placed the chief, and indeed almost the only, work dead centre in the gallery this is Echo itself, an extremely complex piece in steel and bronze.
Seen from above, from the entrance gallery level, it looks nothing very much, in fact rather lumpish and inert. Seen close up, it has a complicated and many layered structure of reflecting and interlocking surfaces which reminded me simultaneously of the Optical sculptures of the 1960s and, going farther back, some of the quasi Constructivist works created by Mary Martin and other ∙abstract pioneers in Britain. Much thought, and even more labour, have obviously gone ∙into its making.
The intellectual idea, or "conceit", is that the surrounding empty space fills in the Echo Narcissus image (Narcissus, of course, stared endlessly into a pool, and looking down into the metal sculpture does give a similar feeling). Now in the modest dimensions of a typical Bond Street or Cork Street gallery this effect would probably be Just right, but the Douglas Hyde has rather a bleak and unsympathetic ambience and is, in any case, rather too big for this very specific effect. Instead of the vibrant space envelope which had been calculated on, there is little more than mere vacancy.
In spite of its spatial isolation, however, the sculpture still "works" and would repay closer study. There are a few small floor pieces in bronze placed about here and there, which seem to be more ancillaries to the main work than self sufficient works in their own right.
