Tony Smith “Bat Cave” Expo 70


ART |

Tony Smith “Bat Cave
Expo 70 Installation for the Art and Technology Program Osaka, Japan 1970

Tony Smith "Bat Cave" 1970 via theoctopian.com
Cardboard modules for “Bat Cave” 1970 photo by Tami Komai

Tony Smith "Bat Cave" 1970 via theoctopian.com
Tony Smith with scale model of “Bat Cave” 1970 photo by Malcom Lubliner

Tony Smith "Bat Cave" 1970 via theoctopian.com
Inside “Bat Cave” 1970 photo by Tami Komai

“…Fifteen feet high, twenty-eight feet wide, forty-two and a half feet long, and consisting of approximately 2,700 tetrahedral and 1,350 octahedral cardboard modules, this semi-architectural environmental sculpture intends, according to Smith, to emphasize its negative space rather then its positive form. To this end, the unpainted cardboard conveys a sense of lightness and suppleness that is distinct from many of the bronze and steel sculptures for which the artist is known…Tony Smith conceived of Bat Cave in 1969, after visiting the Guardirikiri Cave in Aruba, and developed it over a two-year period. Bat Cave was first exhibited at the 1970 Expo in Osaka, Japan, and again in 1971 as part of the exhibition Experiments in Art and Technology at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, where it was created in collaboration with Container Corporation of America.” (via)

Tony Smith "Bat Cave" 1970 via theoctopian.com
Scale model for “Bat Cave” 1970 photo by Hans Namuth

Tony Smith "Bat Cave" 1970 via theoctopian.com
Scale model for “Bat Cave” 1970 photo by Hans Namuth

Bat Cave was recently exhbitied in 2013 at the 9th Mercosul Biennial in Brazil.
To see a color version and in scale, see here

More on the work of Tony Smith here.

Images originally published in Art and Technology by Maurice Tuchman, Viking Press 1971 SBN 670-13372-8