The Problem with Steel: Garth Evans’ Placement with the British Steel Corporation (1968–71)

From 1968–1971, sculptor Garth Evans participated in an artist placement with the British Steel Corporation. Evans’ placement was associated with the Artist Placement Group, a coalition of artists that negotiated placements in government and industry throughout the UK and Western Europe during the 1970s. This essay utilizes archival photographs, feasibility studies and reports, to consider Evans’ placement and his sculpture Breakdown (1971) within the context of British industrial politics of the late 1960s and 1970s, a time when many artists did not have experience in industry themselves, yet their identities were strongly tied to working class heritage. From Saint Martins’ Sculpture Department to the British Steel Corporation’s factory floor, this paper contextualizes and questions the shifting relationship between material, labour and class within Evans’ placement, and subsequently, the contextual conditions for an artist making work within the framework of the corporation.