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Isaac Witkin
American, born South Africa, 1936–2006
Volution, 1964
Painted fiberglass
On loan courtesy of Nadine Witkin
Volution marks the beginning of the career of Isaac Witkin, as well as a new path in modern sculpture. The work was featured in The New Generation, a groundbreaking 1965 exhibition at Whitechapel Art Gallery in London that introduced an important group of young sculptors who were working with new materials normally associated with industrial production and creating radically new sculptural forms. Volution encapsulates the experimental spirit of the group. The vibrant, fluid, fiberglass column updates the organic abstractions of modernist predecessors like Jean Arp and Henry Moore, the latter for whom Witkin worked in 1961-63. Drawing also on the lessons of his former teacher, Anthony Caro, Witkin placed Volution directly on the floor, so that the sculpture playfully occupies the space of the viewer. The twisting, dripping form sums up Witkin’s intentions at the time “to capture the essence of a primary, dynamic force—tension, motion, rhythm, or growth—and preserve it at that point…when it reaches its climax.”