Ian Tyson - Proximity

2005-6

Large metal abstract sculpture finished in matt black mounted on a low concrete base. The steel tubing is 30cm high and wide, and this gives the multiple for the construction. The smallest blocks are 30cm square, the next are 90cm long (x3), followed by 120(x4), 150(x5), 210 (x7) and 240 (x8). The resulting geometry, which is site specific and was developed for this location at the side of the Sainsbury centre and in front of Lasdun's famous Ziggurats, meant that the two small blocks on the front should nearly meet, without touching (Proximity). That they are welded together is down to the difficulty of transporting a sculpture of this size from Tyson's workshop in the south of France, with the danger of a major dislocation in loading and unloading. The sculpture was also intended to allow the spectator a view through.

The work was commissioned as a large sculpture for Anne Dilman. At the suggestion of Ian Tyson it commemorated her husband, the distinguished philosopher Ilham Dilman (1930-2003),and because she did not have room to house it, Proximity was sited at UEA, where Ian Tyson had curated an exhibition of Book Art in the Elizabeth Fry Building in 1999. Ilham Dilman had been professor of philosophy at Cardiff University, where he had developed one of the leading departments of Wittgensteinian philosophers, but which the university was in the process of closing, hence the choice of UEA. The work's title - Proximity - might also refer to the closeness, both physically and conceptually, between the sculpture and the architecture in the background. A connection might also be made between the work's title and the principle of proximity involved in advanced mathematics and abstract philosophical thought