Home»collections»on the lines that divide us»hardened forms

Joseph Beuys had a Theory of Sculpture where any material, whether a physical material or a psychological or social material, could be in one of 3 states. A fluid or chaotic state, and a hardened or solid state. Materials could change state, if worked with in certain ways, be they clay or a social phenomena. But they also could become stuck in their state. He also talked of warmth work and this was a central principle of many of his actions and interventions, whereby as artist he was an agent that could warm up hardened forms, and bring flexibility, malleability to forms that had become hardened. Social Sculpture translates as Sozial plastik in German, where ‘sculpture’ holds something of the word plastic, or malleable.

Here is a collection of images I have gathered largely in the UK of the British obsession to try and stop children playing, by erecting signs that command ‘No Playing’, ‘No Skateboarding’, ‘No Busking’, particularly it seems in the very places that are exactly the right places in which to play.

I find them extraordinary. They are everywhere. Something is stuck, hardened, in a society that finds these so necessary. Hardened forms, that definitely need warming up.