Dunhill and O'Brien

Dunhill and O’Brien consider holes to be the unsung heroes of 20th Century Sculpture. Where the ready made has generated much discussion and been given full credit for its importance, holes have been largely overlooked.

When invited to work at the European Ceramic Work Centre in s’Hertogenbosch, Holland, they decided to pay homage to the hole while also constructing a small mountain range for an indisputably flat terrain.

They advertised in a local paper as artists who would dig holes for free and artists who needed to dig holes. In this way they met some generous and accommodating people who allowed them to dig holes in their gardens, allotments and on their farmland.

The physical act of digging also offered them a way of making new forms together where neither of them was able to impose his or her will or design. The resulting holes were not particularly remarkable, governed by the kind of soil and location and the use that the landowner hoped to make of the hole. Hole digging, however, was just the start of a laborious process that resulted in 2 works.

In this work The Art Holes, Turning, a number of plaster forms based on casts were mounted on steel frames with spindles and belts attached to a motor so that they slowly turned together.

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