ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how conflict between the static image and the imagined “life” of form led Eduardo Paolozzi and Philip Guston to create a very particular working method. It utilises a notion of the “kit” as a means to interpret some specific studio strategies employed by both artists. This “kit of forms” will be seen to function as a collection of building blocks with which the artists could play repeatedly to produce “never ending possible combinations.” By employing Benjamin and Huizinga’s analyses as a way of reading Paolozzi and Guston’s approach to form, the chapter shows how this allows us to view Guston and Paolozzi’s forms as part of a continuum, recurring in various combinations across a number of works, rather than locked into one configuration. It considers how Paolozzi’s enduring obsession with toy kits informed a distinctive working approach to sculpture and collage.
