Room 7: Complexity and Simplicity: 1971-1977 Installation shot at Tate (from left to right) Ordnance (1971), Emma Dipper (1977), Tundra (1975) Enlarge image   Ordnance 1971 Collection of the artist. © The artist, Barford Sculptures Ltd.

In 1970 Caro abandoned bright colours and gentle curves and began making severe, unpainted sculptures. Ordnance 1971 shows Caro using steel in its raw state, advancing sculpture towards the world of engineered objects. Later works such as Tundra 1975 reveal a parallel move towards extreme formal simplicity. Both tendencies arise from a conviction that sculpture must be made more real, more literally a thing in itself.

Emma Dipper belongs to a major series Caro made at Emma Lake in Saskatchewan, Canada, in 1977. These sculptures are entirely linear and open, like line-drawings in air. Caro had a particular motive: 'I was interested in the possibility of feeling my way into sculptural space from within, instead of without '.
 

"Caro had a whole lexicon of thin steel elements sent up to Emma Lake. This included a fame gate and some rather large pieces of obsolete farm machinery. Saskatchewan is largely agricultural. the situation and the light materials appeared to suit Caro perfectly, permitting him to work easily and very spontaneously."

Karen Wilkin, Arts Magazine, November 1978, pages 52-53.

Emma Dipper 1977 Tate. © The artist, Barford Sculptures Ltd.