Page 47 - Studio International - February 1965
P. 47

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                                                                                      great  potential  and  in  the  flags,  targets  and  nume,als
                                                                                      he has created a body of work that is comparable with
                                                                                      much of the best produced in the U.S.A. in recent years.
                                                                                      Looking  at  these  canvases  has  its  own  visually
                                                                                      pleasant result.  More in contrast cannot be said for the
                                                                                      objects  either  cast,  coated  in  metal  or  presented  as
                                                                                      themselves,  stark or painted. These, by isolation,  com­
                                                                                      mand  attention  but  their  communication  is  negative;
                                                                                      faced with their undiluted factualism and gaining noth­
                                                                                      ing we are left-alone.  There are, after all, simpler ways
                                                                                      of inducing this condition.  In  The  Critic  sees,  of  glass
                                                                                      and Sculpmetal with plaster core, the artist's comment
                                                                                      is full of meaning and, if unsubtle, is certainly witty.
                                                                                       Bernard  Cohen exhibiting his drawings from  1961  to
                                                                                      1964  at  the  Kasmin  Gallery  shows a  consistently  in­
                                                                                      ventive strain up to the most recent.  It is easy to make a
                                                                                      comparison  with  the  sinuous  effects  of Art  Nouveau,
                                                                                      but  we  have  to  remember  that  much  of  what  has
                                                                                      happened in world art since that popular movement of
                                                                                      the 1900s is known to the artist and is indeed evident
                                                                                      in some drawings that in abstract pattern are reminiscent
                                                                                      of  Kandinsky  compositions  before  1920.  In  the  latest
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