While theatres, coliseums and arenas have arcs and curves, most houses in our cities and towns are created of straight lines to create square, rectangular and occasionally angular rooms, with (of course) some grand exceptions like those magnificent staircases or ballrooms in grander houses.  Think too of art galleries.  Apart from unusual spaces such as the Guggenheim in New York, galleries for displaying art are generally rectangular, including the Marlborough Gallery in Mayfair which New York-based artist Lars Fisk has invaded as he continues his exploration of the sphere as a device for reframing common objects in a world which is arguably fixated on straight lines, rectangular rooms and angular staircases…..much easier for builders to build!

In ‘Wattle & Daub’, Fisk creates new places to live, reinterpreting the traditional gypsy caravan for the 21st century and also, perhaps, providing a model for ‘homeless’ people, many of whom are searching for something different in which to live rather than official mainstream housing, a situation which we as a society have not yet managed to get to grips with, thus there are tents and other temporary structures scattered all over London. We have a view of what people should be provided with, because we know best, not what they might actually want in a much more simple way.

Recent work by Fisk does introduce the rectangular form with, for example, a single droplet of water held in a sphere within a rectangular framework.