Page 56 - Studio International - July 1966

mourned. These new sculptures are fabricated in alu- oblivion. This time he spreads his unrhymed pieces with
minum and faultlessly enamelled. They retain her trade- total abandon, making their reading an experience com-
mark to the extent that they are composed of units parable to trying to read a newspaper while taking a
resembling boxes which can serve as walls or, in this case, morning canter. This show at the RADICH GALLERY is his
room dividers. But beyond this superficial likeness to her most uninhibited to date, and I confess that I found it a
past, these new confections head for the chic territory shade too ebullient. Still, in essence his approach does not
that her work has always shunned in the past. Within the differ so greatly from several artists who are represented
largest structure the forms are simplified into cylinders as 'new' in the primary structure exhibition.
through which the viewer can see. Such transparency cuts
out the possibility of mystery always lurking in the wood On the painting front, colour is highly prized by Ernest
boxes. In the others, the elements are simplified and Dieringer at the POINDEXTER GALLERY. He uses high-
rationalized, elegantly and perfectly, but they remain keyed acrylics with tremendous intensity, and finds inven-
elements. Taking leave of her idiosyncracies, Nevelson tive schemes to offer his colour preoccupation its best
sacrifices all to tasteful resolutions of what are essentially outlet. Dieringer belts out the colour like a hot jazz
decorative propositions. In her case, the touch of the hand singer, hitting the eye with wave after wave of absolute
is essential. intensity. His swastika and maze compositions enable
George Sugarman In the case of George Sugarman who carves his wild him to provide accents and a few contrasts in intensity—
Two in one 1966 shapes with his very own hands, and paints them brightly, just enough to make the painting interesting and not too
Laminated wood, polychromed
23 1/2 x 11 1/2 x 7 ft any other approach would be unthinkable. His very much to subtract from his message, which is 'colour,
Radich Gallery erraticism is what saves his work from total chaotic colour, colour'.
By contrast, Robert Indiana's exhibition at the STABLE
GALLERY is stately, reserved, and not exclusively in-
volved with colour, although it is his principal means.
His new paintings in complementaries are based on letters
and numbers, but they are used morphologically. Al-
though some optical illusion occurs since red and blue
are adjacent in relatively equal terms, the Indiana paint-
ings are not primarily optical. Rather, they are experi-
ments in equilibrium of shape, colour, drawing brought as
closely together as possible.
Joseph Cornell visits the scene again, this time with
an exhibition of collages and images at the ROBERT
SCHOELKOPF GALLERY. Cornell seems to have worked
largely on paper during the past few years, and these
works, although not dated, as his boxes never were either,
are probably from the past five years or so.
His point is that it doesn't matter when they are done,
and I think, in view of the nature of his fantasy, he is
right. For the kind of nostalgia, the delicate sehnsucht his
best work suggests is certainly outside of linear time. His
apostrophe for this show is a quotation from Chateau-
briand : 'Les Reines ont étés vues pleurant, comme de
simples femmes.' It is a wonderfully appropriate poetic
tuning-fork for the whole show.
Many of Cornell's images are lifted from old photo-
graphs which are then treated in his inimitable way with
gums and tints until they become an integral part of his
picture (his mental picture, I mean). By means of these
blurred and vague allusions, he conjures a world he has
always been homesick for, a world he has construed from
reading, from old magazines, from experiences with
music, films, poetry and chance encounters. If he refers
to French poetry, it is always strained through his imagi-
nation and becomes something uniquely his.
I first heard of Ray Johnson, who is exhibiting at the
WILLARD GALLERY, as a founder of a correspondence
school. That is, he used to send all manner of messages
by mail to all manner of people. This in itself was not
unusual—artists have a long tradition of the greeting-card
method of communication. What is unusual is that
Johnson was prolific enough to get a reputation based on
missives only the receivers knew about.