Ken Unsworth

Suspended stone circle II is made of only two materials: wire and 103 river stones. Look closely. Are the stones resting, hanging or floating? Are they touching each other for support? Would you lie underneath it? Describe why, or why not.  

What shapes and patterns can you see in this artwork? Do the shapes change if you look at the work from different viewpoints? Do the stones form a series of circles or are they arranged more organically? What shapes can you see in the shadows on the floor? Draw some of the shapes you see.  

Watch the video of the artist installing this work in 2022. What did he need to consider? What materials and tools were used? How many people were in the team that installed it? How did they measure and check the weight and balance of the work, and make it secure for display? 

Suspended stone circle II hangs from the ceiling, making us think about gravity and balance. Make a suspended work using wire or string and a group of found objects. Feel the weight of each of your objects and observe what they look like when they hang from a string. How will you connect them to each other? Look at other hanging works for inspiration: Yhonnie Scarce’s Death Zephyr 2017, Nikki Savvas’s Atomic: full of love, full of wonder 2005 or Shireen Taweel’s tracing transcendence 2018–21. 

Look at the shadows created by the stones on the floor, at the uneven lines and the different shades of light and dark. Make a drawing of these shadows, or a part of them. When you look at this drawing on its own, does it remind you of anything? Turn your shadow drawing into an object you recognise. 

In 1975 Unsworth performed Five secular settings for sculpture as ritual and burial piece. Compare this performance work with Suspended stone circle II. What conceptual and formal qualities do they share? Does Suspended stone circle II have an element of theatricality?

Watch the video of Unsworth installing Suspended stone circle II in 2003. He says that he uses intuition to put the stones together. Observe the decision-making involved in the installation process and think about what aspects are intuitive. Could this work be installed without the artist?  

Imagine what kind of environment the river stones in this work came from. How does using natural forms in an art object change how we interpret those forms? What meanings or associations are gained and lost? Unsworth has said that in his work the stones are freed up to ‘reveal in many forms and guises their inner voice’. What are the stones voicing to you? 

Suspended stone circle II belongs to a series of sculptures using combinations of river stones, including Propped stone piece 1976. Taking inspiration from these works, experiment with variations of pattern and form. Collect natural items such as leaves, stones, twigs or feathers. Arrange them into simple shapes and take a photograph of each variation. Think about the relationship between your collected items and the shapes you make. Are your shapes organic or geometric? Seen together, how do your images relate to one another? In what way does your work reference minimalism or land art?  

The river stones in this sculpture appear to be weightless, though they each weigh around 30 kilograms. This gives the work a sense of magic, something Unsworth sought to evoke for the audience. Compare it to other works that play with the force of gravity, such as James Angus’s Bugatti Type 35 2006, Richard Serra’s Floor pole prop 1969, 1983, Lonnie Holley’s Revelations in the rock 2015 or Pascale Marthine Tayou’s Colonne Pascale 2012. Make your own gravity-defying sculpture using only two materials. How long or tall you can make it? What challenges arise in this process? Can you evoke a sense of magic?