When I was at school, I remember the art teacher returning incensed from a trip to London during which he’d taken a group of seniors to the Tate Gallery. The particular object of his ire was what he described as ‘a pile of blankets’ by Barry Flanagan. He could not accept that this was a legitimate work of art, and, in a state of raging mischief, he’d grouped his school party around the thing in question and surreptitiously changed the order of the blankets. This subversive act was intended not only to relieve his feelings but also to prove the falseness of the work. If it could be fundamentally changed without anyone noticing, it was — to his mind at least — undeniably bogus. I assume it was pile ‘3 ’68’, purchased by the Tate in 1973, that provoked this outraged response, and which now forms part of the exhibition of Flanagan’s early works at Tate Britain.
How would Barry Flanagan (1941–2009) have responded to the spirited intervention of a furious art teacher? I can’t imagine that he would approve. Although he had a highly developed sense of humour and the reputation of being a joker, Flanagan was intensely serious about his work. The pile sculpture was not haphazard but carefully planned. Each of the five pieces of ready-dyed hessian was stitched by Flanagan so that it would keep its exact shape in the pile, and each was numbered with its position. From the bottom to the top the colours were arranged thus: gingery cinnamon, pinky cinnamon, pink, olive green and turquoise. Furthermore, Flanagan left meticulous instructions about how the works should be installed in a domestic or gallery setting. Nothing, apparently, was left to chance.
The hessian stack is in the second (and best) room of the Tate’s show, which contains such other important early Flanagans as the filled sacking shapes with unreadable names.
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