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BERT FLUGELMAN
"Balls on Stand"

© Bert Flugelman / licensed by Viscopy 2004.

stainless steel
122 x 50 x 50cm

"Balls on Stand" comes from a series of works that was started in the 1972 that visually played with the idea of steel geometric objects and their possibilities. The two spheres or balls on a stand were part of an exhibiton shown at Watters Gallery that presented a range of maquettes for possible monumental or public sculptures.

In "Balls on a Stand" done ten years after the Watters exhibtion, Flugelman takes one of the maquettes and transforms it into a new piece. Although it now stands alone it was originally part of a group that was semi-autobiographical that related to Flugelman's mother's dining room which consisted of all the furniture made in stainless steel. This work, as described in the catalogue raissone compiled by Sabine Simonides as "a stainless steel plant stand with double spheres that represent a plant" is closely related to a companion piece in the series "Cactus", that actually consisted of the same spheres but one of which was an actual ball cactus.

There is a sense of fun in this work represented by the spheres that representing a plant form have been simplified and abstracted to a simple geometric shape. The cool harsh machine made precision of the balls is almost the antithesis of the botanical. The work is a reference back to Flugelman's spheres installed as a public art work in Adelaide but here the spheres are reduced to the scale of the intimate rather than the grandiose.