Standing Form
Note : This impressive painted steel sculpture – one of his largest single figures – is a testament to Edoardo Villa’s vision, ingenuity and skill. He saw in the tubular forms of engineering the potential to create a contemporary language, epitomising South Africa’s rapidly growing industrialisation in the 1960s and 70s. For Villa, steel was a liberating medium enabling him to break away from the traditional labour-intensive and time-consuming methods of carving or modelling and casting that was still favoured by many local sculptors. In contrast, steel allowed him to work directly by employing a constructive method to create large scale sculptures that complemented the increasingly sophisticated urban environment of cities like Johannesburg. Steel also facilitated his break with earlier mimetic imagery in favour of developing a bold, formal language that, while non-representational, hinted at abstracted figures and varied relationships. High levels of innovation coupled with Villa’s impish sense of humour allowed him to create strong statements that are nevertheless playful and even witty. Colour is often brilliant. Here the rich, dark chocolatey brown surface is offset by shards of dazzling blue tinged with red. With works like Standing Form, Villa developed a unique vision that could converse with his contemporaries from the cutting-edge sculptures of Alexander Calder and David Smith to the groovy style of Mary Quant.,
Emma Bedford
