Naum Gabo

Naum Gabo, a pioneer of constructive art, was born in Russia in 1890. He began making constructed sculpture in Norway when he took the name Gabo.

Naub Gabo grew up in a Jewish family which was consistent of 6 children. He was raised in a Russian town of Bryansk. His older brother was also an artist just like he was later on who was a constructivist artist. His name was Antoine Pevsner. Due to similar names, Gabo decided to change his to avoid confusion since him and his older brother were both artists working in a similar field.

Gabo was capable of speaking and writing in German, French and English as an addition to already spoken Russian. These languages allowed him to greatly contribute towards his career and fame.

Naum Gabo - Linear construction in space
My first impression of his work was 'How on earth can you make that?'. The way everything is mantled on strings and how balanced it is, its hard to take in at the first glance.

What I see in this artwork is a range of strings relying on one another to maintain balance in the sculpture. I think that if a few of them were to snap, the whole sculpture would break due to the pressure created by all the other strings. There is an elastic rod making its way around the sculpture which is probably what keeps it so secure.

The main formal element used in this artwork was shape and pattern. It relies on the constant pattern which creates it's form.
This artwork puts the viewer into a puzzled feel. I'm constantly trying to figure out how the string is capable of creating so much pressure.The artist was a construction artist, but it must have been difficult placing the strings one after another. The hard part was keeping the balance in the sculpture. If something was to snap, the whole thing would break towards the centre leaving the artwork useless.

Links

The reason I decided to use this artist in my research was because he relied on pure strings in his artwork. I want to incorporate strings in my window installation by hanging down objects down using them. This also links back to the artist Cornelia Parker who used strings to hand down objects from the ceiling. Both of these artists rely on the strings and without them, their artwork wouldn't work. The same goes for my window installation. It won't work without using strings and just like these artists, I will need to use high precision in order to maintain balance in my final piece.