ular influence in the 1980s was Walter Martin. Martin's works involved interplays between objects which resulted in visual jokes. For example, his Snail, snail, come out of your hole/or else I'll beat you black as a coal (1987) consists of an overturned piano propped against a pole, with a long rope attached to the pole. Beneath the precariously perched piano is a sheet of music. The image obviously duplicates that of a simple rabbit trap, except that Martin's structure is apparently designed to trap musicians instead of rabbits. Another sculpture by Walter Martin, Of bodies born up by water (1987), consists of a grandfather clock with its base partially "chopped down" as if by the axe of a lumberjack. Another American sculptor in the 1980s exhibiting a strong taste for visual metaphor was Brower Hatcher. Hatcher's Starman (1985-1988) possesses a bronze face which is crashing into a pile of imitation stone. From the back of the bronze face, a mesh of aluminum wire streams upward into the sky. Intertwined among the aluminum wire are various stainless steel figures. The combination of the image of a face crashing to earth with the title Starman makes it apparent that Hatcher was seeking to create a visual metaphor of sorts with this work.
Many sculptors in the 1980s were influenced by the use of assemblage techniques. This approach to art can be traced back to the Dada movement which occurred in Europe and America in the years following the First World War. Dadaists like Kurt Schwitters used found objects, such as scraps of political flyers, for the creation of intricate collages. Another Dadaist, Marcel Duchamp, took manufactured objects such as urinals and bicycle wheels and created "readymades" by simply displaying them in museums without altering them in any way. In the 1960s, many artists and sculptors continued to experiment with assemblage techniques. For example, Robert Rauschenberg combined found objects with pa...