Page 48 - Studio International - December 1965

the show is Patrick Henry Bruce whose hand, even in have discovered the delights of 1llusionistic play. He
the Delaunay-like early compositions, retained its enjoys painting a form in perspective so that it cancels
individuality at all times. What the show proves, out the actual metal form beneath it. He revels in
basically, is that some Americans were able to basically surrealistic free associations that abound in
assimilate the lessons of Europe early in the game, but sexual allusions. (The West Coast seems to have
that they never were able to crown their initial discovered Sex only lately and can't get over its
enthusiasm with well developed works of art. I remain importance in life.) He likes to make a sly quote now
unconvinced by Mr. William Agee who suggests in and then from certain preceding artists who used such
his catalogue that Synchromism was an authentic psychological techniques as the dotted-line-fold-over­
movement differing in theory from Delaunay's principles here drawing, or the now-try-and-follow-me-through­
of simultanism. The work, at any rate, does not this-maze game. Sometimes his painted maps, stripes,
warrant such a conclusion. Delaunay's influence, lips, fingers, phalluses and geometric landscapes are
visible here, overwhelms the extravagant claims of the rendered in a parodic version of the Sunday comics.
two young Americans. These sculptures, with their bright, toy-like
The proportion of sculpture shows continues to grow. insouciance, are literal translations of paintings rather
At the Allan Stone Gallery, John Anderson fills the than sculptures in themselves. As such, they have a
gallery with his effusive wood compositions. His certain bouncy appeal and a certain defiant youthfulness
additive spirit is sometimes overwhelming, but on that impresses. But the wearying insistence on the
the whole, Anderson offers a fresh approach to the illogical leaves its mark: These 'things' which are
use of wood as a viable contemporary medium. neither paintings nor sculptures, begin to appear
Anderson's compositions of odd parts, sometimes boringly similar. The system of using no system can be
carved completely, sometimes left in the raw condition just as monotonous as a system itself.
in which they leave the wood turner's bench, are rarely A certain monotony of method also limits the
contained within any spatial scheme determined longevity of George Segal's work at the Sidney Janis
beforehand. Neither the tradition of the invisible Gallery, When Segal first proposed his novel approach
square, nor the tradition of the balanced-off juxta­ to the life of sculpture, his work had a polemic value.
position of masses influences his decisions. Rather, That is, by casting figures from real life (which in
Anderson gives the impression of working entirely by almost all cases were modified somewhat) and placing
instinct, selecting the form as the spirit moves him. them in real-life settings, he inspired some vigorous
Moreover, he has left behind the traditional base in commentary. He raised important questions concern­
most cases. One of his largest sculptures is a mass of ing appearance and reality, and concerning the future
complicated shapes that appear to lean against the of sculpture. What, after all, were these plaster effigies
wall. Another hangs from a hook. A third grows up doing, immobile and ghostly in their whiteness, in
from a minimal platform like a chaotic jungle. the commonplace situations which Segal sought out?
In pushing beyond most sculptural traditions, Apart from their settings they had little existence for
Anderson does not sacrifice craftsmanship. His shapes their deliberately softened features and their amorphous
are sometimes developed from separately turned pieces gestures marked them as shadow people. Once set in
which are joined expertly with glue and pegs. Many a cluttered studio, or a tenement hallway, they assumed
of his forms are jointed, so that theoretically they could a romantic pathos. They gave literary-minded critics a
move in two directions. In almost all of his pieces, host of humanistic associations and iconoclastic critics
there is a visible straining toward mobility, as though a host of assumptions concerning the death of
the artist did not want to be caught with a static mass sculpture to work with.
under any circumstances. Now, Segal repeats his method, setting up new
Assembling, rather than composing, is the principle tableaux. This time, we meet an elderly lady peering
at work. If the right circular form sets off the right out of a window; a female reclining on a bed listening
rectilinear form, it is a fortuitous event rather than a to a HiFi set (listed as part of the medium in the
planned circumstance. With all his free-wheeling catalogue); a lady Kosher butcher, and a dispirited
mobility (Anderson resorts to written words and couple grouped on a hotel bed. There is undoubtedly
numbers now and then) he nevertheless establishes a pathos in the gesture of shrunken withdrawal of the
strong personal flavour in his pieces. Humour is an old woman, and the concentration on the middle-aged
active component, although sometimes it is clumsy as butcher's face, and even in the lonely listener in the
in the large jungle-like piece with its top-heavy lily­ garret apartment, but it is not engendered in the
like shape. Largeness, and apposite simplicity of sur­ imagination so much as in the mind trained upon the
face-natural surface carefully waxed-saves these mul­ human condition. The literalness of the settings does
tiple pieces from drowning in their own welter of detail. not do more than underline an elementary distinction
A similarly free conception of sculpture motivates between that which is fashioned by the imagination
Robert Hudson, a West-Coast artist showing for the and that which is merely there. The figures, on the
first time in New York at the Frumkin Gallery. other hand, with the possible exception of a Grecian
Hudson is working in that vague terrain between reminiscence of a woman descending the stair, do not
painting and sculpture that seems to intrigue a large draw upon the imagination in their state of relative
proportion of the younger generation. He makes incompleteness. In some ways, Segal's wilful obscuring
things that take up and displace space, but that depend of features, his use of lumpy, ill-defined details,
heavily on painted illusion for their impact. As far as resembles the blurring and erasures that began to
formal sculptural considerations are concerned, Hudson cover up a multitude of sins in the works of abstract
behaves with illiberal disdain. To make up for it, he expressionist epigones.
covers his welded metal constructions with brightly The point is that Segal developed a technique and
painted motifs drawn from a variety of sources. subject matter, but not a form in a situation that
He, and a great many other sculptors of his generation, demands all three together. ■
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