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Gow Langsford Gallery

Gow Langsford Gallery

Stockroom

Thinker at Rock Cross, 1997

Thinker at Rock Cross

Barry Flangan
Thinker at Rock Cross, 1997
bronze
Edition of 8
1550 x 1400 x 1200 mm

Welsh artist Barry Flanagan works primarily as a figurative sculptor and is largely renowned for the use of his archetypal motif, the hare.  Thinker at Rock Cross (1997) exemplifies Flanagan's signature style, where monumental bronzes feature anthropomorphic hares engaged in a variety of playful and spirited activities such as dancing, making music, playing sports and in this case, contemplating. Flanagan's unique body of work captures the sense of spontaneity and vivacity associated with the hare and in doing so challenges conventional notions of heroic sculpture through wit, humour, subject matter and scale. 

 Flanagan is concerned with the unconventional non-science of 'pataphysics'- a fascination he shared with Pablo Picasso. A conceptual principle which engendered the Dadaist and Surrealist movement, pataphysics parodied the theory and methods of modern science and was characterised by the illogical and nonsensical. This liberation from rationalism allowed small to become large, heavy to appear light and the incongruous to become the norm. Thinker at Rock Cross therefore, may be read as an irreverent and witty response to Rodin's The Thinker (1880).

Barry Flanagan is a veteran in the international art arena and was elected a member of the distinguished Royal Academy during the early nineties. The artist has exhibited extensively in major galleries worldwide including the Royal Academy of Arts in London, the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris and MOMA in New York. His work is held in numerous major collections including MOMA in New York, the Tate Gallery in London, the National Gallery of Canada, the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, the Musee des Beaux-Arts and the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.