Room 5: Table sculpture: 1966-1969 Installation shot at Tate (from left to right) Table Piece LXXV (1969), Table Piece LIX (1968), Table Piece XLII (1967), Table Piece LXIV -The Clock (1968), Table Piece I (1966), Table Piece LXXX (1969) Enlarge image   Table Piece XXII 1967 Private collection, UK © The artist, Barford Sculptures Ltd.

Caro's table sculpture responded to the growing tendency for sculptors to place their work directly on the ground. He now took the opposite course, addressing the problem of how to place smaller sculptures on plinths without implying they were maquettes for larger works. Underlying this was the problem that placing any sculpture on a plinth separated it from the real world, implying that it occupied an imaginary space. Caro's solution was utterly original.

Several of Caro's early table pieces incorporate elements instantly recognisable as tool parts, such as scissor handles. They establish a real scale relating to the human hand, banishing any implication of represented scale. But Caro did not stop there. The shapes dropping below the table level show that these small works can only exist on a table top and cannot be made larger for siting on the ground.

"My Table pieces are not models inhabiting a pretence world, but relate to a person like a cup or a jug. Since the edge is basic to the table all the Table Pieces make use of this edge which itself becomes an integral element of the Piece"

Anthony Caro in an unpublished statement 1966/67, as quoted in Ian Barker,
Quest for the New Sculpture, page 161.