Page 49 - Studio International - February 1966

inclined to believe that Kienholz intended to make a a piece by Jim Dine, a cast-aluminium pun called The
social commentary. (In the newstand outside he has Hammer Doorway. Slightly reminiscent of Max Ernst's
real copies of a West Coast newspaper with the head- lunar asparagus, this parody (two elongated hammers
line 'Children Kill Children in Vietnam'.) This, in my as doorposts) nevertheless assumes a real presence in
opinion, is his saving grace. His anger and his im- the midst of less effective works. These include an
placable hatred for certain futile and intolerable aspects Oldenburg vinyl and foam-rubber giant popsicle (how
of American life give his works an edge that the so- Pop, literally, can you get?) ; a group of painted figures
called Pop artists have never been able to match. by Segal, losing whatever compelling qualities they
By sidling up to total verisimilitude and then veering might have had in white; and Marisol's amusing sculp-
into mordant reproach, Kienholz is able to set up a ture cartoon of Henry Geldzahler. Marisol, by the way,
healthy mixture of revulsion, attraction, and discom- shows some of her splendid coloured drawings re-
fiture that few contemporaries can manage these days. miniscent, of all things, of Viennese drawing in the
In contrast to Kienholz's savage address to his plastic World War I tradition.
problems are the various manifestations of the Pop The only critical overtones similar to those in Kien-
spirit in a Janis Gallery show featuring an unhappy holz's work are found in the strange comic-strip
alliance of the two latest fads, Pop and Op. allegories by Oyvind Fahlstrom. One of his more com-
On the Pop side are Oldenburg, Marisol, Segal, Dine pelling strips is called The Cold War and is liberally
Right and Fahlstrom. Of them all, I was most impressed with endowed with Bosch-like nightmares of syringes, rats,
Pat Adams
Variety without Root mice, and a host of less-readily interpretable signs—in
Gouache on paper little—of moral acerbity.
Zabriskie Gallery
On the so-called Op side are works of rather different
Below provenance. Surely Albers's lyrical colour experiments
Jim Dine
The Hammer Doorway 1965 are born from an utterly different source than Bridget
Aluminium cast Riley's illusions ? And Vasareley has little in common
78 x 40* x 7* in.
Sidney Janis Gallery with Anuskiewiecz. Ellsworth Kelly is seen in his most
from the collection of reduced idiom—three canvases, each of only one
Gene R.Summers, Chicago
colour. With this gesture he has forfeited most of the
possible response to his generally-compelling work.
Pat Adams, an intimate and deeply-sensitive artist,
exhibited new oils and watercolours at the
Zabriskie Gallery. Faithful to a vision of cosmic unrest, depicted
most often in terms of the flux and reflux of symbols
embedded in deep, flowing colours, Adams sustains
her inspiration admirably. The noise swirling around
her, the Babel that is the art world, has not disoriented
her. Her sonorous voice can be heard questioning the
universe in intelligible, moving terms.
The same can be said for Varujan Boghosian who,
with his obsessive preoccupation with the Orpheus
myth, shows a group of interpretations at the Stable
Gallery. Boghosian's newer constructions move some
distance from his earlier allusions to the myth. In some
cases he has added cast-bronze pieces that focus the
paradoxes within the myth. Combined with his care-
fully-selected, weathered wooden carriers, these glint-
ing forms point to a more abstract vision which Bog-
hosian will undoubtedly explore further.
At the Borgenicht Gallery, Frank Roth exhibited paint-
ings in which his play with differing perspectives is
sharpened to a high pitch. The veering planes which
always characterized his work are now emphasized by
queer modelling—shining highlights that shimmer away
into the distance while yet holding to the plane in
context with the other shapes. Roth's complex play
with composition marks him out as a serious, intelligent
painter who moves steadily in directions he sets for
himself. q

Varujan Boghosian
The Voyage 1965
Wood and mixed media
32 1/4 x 72 1/2 x 5 in.
Stable Gallery