Page 64 - Studio International - April 1965

ping madly and enjoying a return to a childish pleasure.
The basic principle of movement underlies everything
Breer does, even his sculpture-like constructions. One
of the most slyly enchanting pieces in the exhibition is
a malleable lead line, mounted so that the slightest
touch makes it quiver slowly. Another typical Breer
object is the same kind of soft lead wire mounted so
that it can be turned by a crank handle, slowly and
absurdly cutting its narrow swathe in space.
Breer's films I have long thought to be among the most
original produced by painter-filmmakers. His earlier
works were almost always economically drawn,
animated cartoons. But his recent films are collages
which mix drawings and photographed images in a
most compelling way. His rapid-fire delivery of funny
or arresting images in a super-speed montage tech-
nique has a queer, personal vision that shapes itself
without the viewer's being aware of what is happening.
Herbert Ferber's exhibition of recent welded sculp-
tures at the André Emmerich Gallery is an impressive,
serious affair. In it, Ferber exhibits two lines of develop-
ment, both strong, both worked out in the most
thoughtful terms.
One is his articulation in very large scale of what
appear to be characters in an oriental alphabet. He
calls them calligraphs. In these, he works largely with
the free, arabesquing lines that have always been
endemic in his work. However, these enormous
characters are not lacey, not even baroque in design,
for they are placed on their bases in firm, challenging
postures. One, for instance, is balanced against a burly
diagonal that charges out into space and thrusts its
curvilinear crowning form back in the other direction.
Because these are large pieces, the individual forms
do not have the line-in-space tenuousness of most
welded sculpture, but are strongly articulated in
emphatic planes.
The other group comprises a series he calls Homage to
Piranesi. In these, he sets himself a fundamental prob-
lem which remains unaltered from piece to piece. He
constructs a huge quadrilateral frame, tapering toward
the bottom, in which his forms are made to suggest a
maze of unlimited spaces. The paradox of the rigid
frame and the curious, twisting interior forms—forms
that always work their way out of top and sides—is a
sharp riddle for mind and eye.
The interior shapes are beaten and welded metal,
large and robust in their conception. They snake their
way up and down like giant jungle plants, giving an
impression of sinister power. Ferber has calculated
their movements (which are usually S-shaped) so that
no part of the quadrangle is left unanimated. The in-
visible central axis provides for infinite axial movement.
Much of the force in the large pieces derives from the
coppery surface, left often with the fiery marks of the
torch intact. The kind of labarynthine mystery of
Piranesi is reinforced by Ferber's use of metal colours
in their natural state.
At the Tibor de Nagy Gallery ten painters who have
found the conventional quadrature of the canvas less
than satisfying exhibit in 'Form and Structure'. Most of
them keep to two-dimensional bearers, changing only
the shapes of them. There are several diagonally cut
canvases, one of which has several different shapes in
its profiles; and one standing sculpture which fully
suggests the degree to which these younger artists
Herbert Ferber
Homage to Piranesi 1964 are weary of the conventional canvas. Yet, it is one of
Copper 110 x 77 in.
André Emmerich Gallery the most conventional—or at least, one who tampers
186