Roelof Louw's Rolled Lead Work on show in London

Associated media

Karsten Schubert Gallery, in association with Richard Saltoun Gallery, is holding an exhibition of Roelof Louw's Rolled Lead Work of 1970. This important work of British Conceptual art was last exhibited at the international survey exhibition ‘Between Man and Matter: Tokyo Biennale’, 1970.

In the final show,  staged in Karsten Schubert Gallery's Soho space, the work occupies an entire room and consists of sheets of lead, rolled and then pushed towards the gallery walls. The lead sheets themselves are specified to a particular weight, in relation to the gallery surface area. The physical act of rolling out the lead becomes part of the work, with the work being interrupted at various stages and documented. The work is completed when all the lead is rolled up against the walls and the lead is removed and sold back as scrap to the supplier at the end of the exhibition.

About the artist

Roelof Louw was born in 1935 in Cape Town, South Africa. He moved to London where he studied sculpture at St Martins School of Art in the 1960s, later becoming a lecturer at the school. He was part of the first generation of conceptual artists at St. Martins, which included Gilbert and George and Barry Flanagan. Louw was one of the few British artists included in Harald Szeemann's seminal exhibition ‘When Attitudes Become Form’, and exhibited in both Bern and London. The exhibited work, Park Lane, 1968, was included in Germano Celant's re-staging of the exhibition this past year at the Fondazione Prada, Venice.

Louw's work is the subject of an upcoming monograph, Five Sites for Five Sculptures: Roelof Louw and British Sculpture since the 1960s (Ridinghouse, 2014). The book includes discussion of the Rolled Lead Work and documentation of both its 1970 and 2013 installations, and traces the origins, history, sites, and contexts of his sculpture from London in the 1960s via North America to Cape Town. It will offer the first and most complete overview of Louw's work.

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Exhibition venue:
Karsten Schubert Gallery
Golden Square, 5-8 Lower John Street
London, W1F 9DR

Telephone 44 (0) 20 7734 9002
Gallery Hours: Monday to Friday, 10:00 am - 6:00 pm (or by appointment)
Nearest tube: Oxford Circus or Piccadilly Circus