From Floor to Sky

If a teacher is best judged by the achievements of their pupils, then it is easy to see why Peter Kardia stands in the front rank of post-war art educators. And if his name is not immediately familiar, the roll call of students who came under his tutelage at Central St Martins during the mid '60s speaks eloquently enough about his influence as a tutor: Richard Long, Hamish Fulton, Gillian Cook, Richard Deacon and Bill Woodrow are all here.

Held at the vast Ambika P3 space - half hangar, half bunker, tucked away beneath Westminster University - this impressive gathering of former pupils is curated by Kardia himself into a remarkably cohesive show that, again, speaks well of his message and influence. It's clear Kardia not only taught the artists that helped define modern sculpture in this country, but that he helped his students develop practices which are now part of the artistic lingua franca.

It's refreshing to see familiar artists in this overlooked historical context: Richard Long's trademark walks and location works, which sometimes seem rather grand and austere, suddenly look very much of a piece with the abundance of small and composite sculptures which also have process and intervention as their theme.

Compared to much contemporary work, the lack of gloss, glitz and knowing irony is striking. Time and again in sculptures by Richard Wentworth, Roger Ackling, and Carolyne Kardia, common themes emerge: examinations of place and time, straightforward truth to materials, visible honesty about technique and process (the landscape, that perennial British subject, is never far away either). Everyone lucky enough to have had one knows that a good teacher can fundamentally change the way you see things; Peter Kardia's teaching might just have altered the vision of a generation, and this show is fitting testimony to that remarkable achievement.