Dimensions: object: 560 x 580 x 380 mm, 35 kg
Copyright: © The estate of Bernard Meadows | CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 DEED, Photo: Tate
Curator: Meadows' "Armed Bust IV" speaks volumes, doesn't it? It's like a relic unearthed from some futuristic battlefield. Editor: My first impression is unease. It's a fragmented figure, brutalist, almost like a war machine disguised as a human form. Curator: Bernard Meadows was a master of conveying the anxieties of the post-war era. His sculptures are these powerful, often prickly, responses. Editor: The title and form reek of militarization. I wonder if this piece also reflects the period’s debates around identity, technology, and the body. Curator: Precisely! Meadows evokes that tension, that feeling of being trapped, transformed, or maybe even violated by technology. Editor: This really embodies the paradox of progress, the way tools of advancement can become instruments of oppression. Curator: It's a tough piece, but it dares us to confront uncomfortable truths about power, and humanity's capacity for, well, inhumanity. Editor: I agree. It's a reminder of how easily our quest for advancement can overshadow ethics and empathy.
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At first sight Armed Bust IV appear as abstract constructions, but they are details of figures: the sharp point represents an arm, and the solid weight the torso. Meadows explained: ‘The figures are armoured, aggressive and protected, but inside the safety of the shell they are completely soft and vulnerable’. He compared them to tycoons or dictators ‘who are protected by the paraphernalia of their offices and retinues, but who are soft inside. Bullies are frightened people’. Armed Bust IV is one of a series which Meadows began in 1961. Gallery label, February 2010
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