Page 10 - Studio International - August 1966

Italian dealers who died in 1963. Masuo endeavour in terms of the visual arts. The tion. If one agrees that these are fundamental
Ikeda, whose dry-point etchings were significance of prizes has undergone a issues, then the Venice prizes have a limited
undoubtedly the most interesting prints gradual change in recent years. They no significance; in view of this perhaps it does
in the Biennale, received a graphics prize. longer have the aura of medals that the not matter that they exist as part of a ritual
European rather than oriental in feeling, artist receives as the culmination of his that goes to make up the most important
Ikeda's colour etchings make wry comments career. Many of the prize-winners are in single recurring event in the art world. To
on life, death, pride, and other more their thirties, and the awards assume the abandon the prize system, as Geldzahler
mundane aspects of human life. function of encouragement rather than the suggests, would imply doing away-with a
The international sculpture prize, shared recognition of a life's work. The problem very essential part of the Biennale, which is
by Robert Jacobsen of Denmark, whose steel for the recognized young artists of talent is an occasion as well as an exhibition. If it
constructions relate to the human figure, somewhat different. With certain landmarks were to be considered purely as an exhibi-
and Etienne Martin of France, whose vast already behind them—feature articles in the tion then the Documenta in Kassel, which
bronzes and wood sculptures are evocative popular press, the occasional monograph, takes place every four or five years, is no
of nature's more bizarre creations, was retrospective exhibitions in public galleries, doubt more rewarding, more serious, more
considered by some a sentimental evaluation representation in Venice, perhaps a prize— extensive, better selected. That is hardly
rather than an objective one, although there they have achieved those clearly-defined the point—the Biennale is an event, old-
was no obvious contestant for the prize in and coveted landmarks at which most young fashioned albeit, one which is a convention,
terms of the Venice showing. artists aim. It is then that one has to fall in a setting suitably unreal and beautiful
The prizes do not suggest any specific trend, back on all the personal resources one can enough to allow one for a while to become
but rather a number of personal explorations muster, and on a philosophy that will view involved in the politics of a non-existent
covering most of the aspects of creative success or lack of it in some sort of propor- kingdom. r

Lev Nusberg Aspects of new British art
Lev Nusberg, the Soviet constructionist and kinetic An exhibition under this title, sponsored by the New
artist, whose statement on a cinema project appears Zealand Arts Council, is touring Auckland, Welling-
on page 92, is the 29-year-old leader of a group of ton, Christchurch, and Dunedin from the end of
Moscow artists, numbering between fifteen and August until the New Year. Artists included in the
twenty people, which has adopted the name of exhibition are Gillian Ayres, Sandra Blow, Bernard
'Movement'. According to Edward Fry, the art his- Cohen, Harold Cohen, John Furnival, John Hoyland,
torian, Nusberg was at one time a basketball coach. Allen Jones, Mark Lancaster, Henry Mundy, Bridget
Our information on the activities of this group is as Riley, Peter Sedgley, Richard Smith, Joe Tilson,
yet incomplete. They have, however, exhibited their William Turnbull, John Walker, and Brian Wall.
works on a number of occasions, most notably at the
Nouvelle Tendance 3 exhibition held in Zagreb last Major show of Degas drawings
September, where the group was represented by The first exhibition devoted exclusively to Degas'
Nusberg, Akulinin, Diodorov, Galkin, Infante, Krivci- drawings is being assembled by the City Art Museum
kov, Lopakov, Sapgir-Zanevskaja, Stepanov, and of St Louis, and opens there on January 20. It will
Scerdakov (Yugoslav transliterations). A selection of consist of 150 works, and will tour Philadelphia and
their works is illustrated in this issue. Minneapolis. Chiefly responsible for the selection is
In another statement—which will be published in Dr Jean Sutherland Boggs, the newly-appointed
our September issue—Nusberg indicates that impor- director of the National Gallery of Canada.
tant influences in his work have been Malevich, Gabo,
Pevsner, Tatlin, Mondrian and Scriabin, and it is Destruction in art Plus ça change...
interesting in this connexion that the group's latest A Destruction in Art Symposium takes place this `I would ... induce people to inquire for them-
commission, on which these artists are now working, September in London. The main objective is 'to focus selves whether modern art is a "fad" or something
is for a kinetic wall-structure and ceiling in Lenin- attention on the element of destruction in Happen- serious. Is it as we sometimes hear "a baseless
grad; the play of lights in the ceiling is to be deter- ings, auto-destructive art, and other new art forms, novelty", an "ephemeral fashion", "wholly per-
mined by the frequencies of the sounds coming from and to relate this to destruction in society'. Anyone sonal and original", an "utter eccentricity" ? I
a dance band playing in the hall below. wishing to take part should write to the Secretary, think it a logical outcome of the past, read in the
BM/DIAS, London, W.C.1. light of a genuine change of feeling about nature.
Franciszka Themerson's stage designs Our art is no more "eccentric" than the art of any
Franciszka Themerson, some of whose stage designs vital period.'
are illustrated on page 104, was born in Poland in from The Growth of Recent Art by
1907, studied painting in Warsaw, was closely asso- R. A. M. Stevenson, April 1893
ciated with avant-garde films in the thirties, and
arrived in London in 1940. She has had several one- The English skull
man shows in London, most recently at the Drian `This idea that Genius is everything, and execution
Galleries. She is also a founder-member and art nothing, is screwed fast into the skull of every
director of Gaberbocchus Press; it was after seeing Englishman. And there lives not a single lady, not
her illustrations for the Gaberbocchus edition of one noble lord in all the fashionable crush in
Alfred Jarry's Ubu Rol, prototype of a Phillistine in Burlington House, who does not believe this.'
enjoyment of absolute power, that Michael Meschke from The Exhibition of the Royal Academy
asked her to design for his Stockholm theatre. 1893 by A. Besnard,
translated by Will Rothenstein