Page 60 - Studio International - July 1966

material itself is ingratiating: supple and shiny, the cast of a hand, palm down, the wrist covered with a
vinyl holds its place as hardily as metal, and yet is dotted sleeve. There are probably a number of puns in
pliable enough to be handled for gestural detail in even this work, and there must be some embedded in the
the smaller, two-feet-high figures. The drape of it, curious half-patterns, the stripes and semi-paisleys, notes
combined with the stiff angularity of a close wrap around in code, that, disrupted by ceramic folds, adorn the heart.
the metal support and the fastidious stitchline where Other constructions include similar shapes of anatomical
pieces are joined, affords a variety of line, curve and appearance set on bases of metal air-brushed to resemble
detail, and the effect of these figures, despite the care a smoothly-clouded pale blue surrealist sky —Magritte's
evidently required in the meticulous making of them, is sky, in fact; a black-painted cast metal open carton from
as if they were drawn with light, quick gestures, effortless which forms erupt sprung into ceramic; and a Lady's
and immediately definitive. foot, a cast in a 1930's stocky-heeled sling pump, both
foot and pump painted to the teeth, so to speak. The
In a recent lecture the sculptor James Melchert spoke outstanding work (it seems a sketch for some larger
of 'Aspects of de Chirico in Bay Area Sculpture'; one undertaking) is a cup and glass, in natural-coloured
can see from his latest show that this is not an academic clay, sitting on a flat base, a Morandi-like composition.
topic for him. Composed of painted ceramics and one The ceramic is painted or pencilled, so that the shadows
sporting piece, his exhibition emphasized the surrealist the two objects cast in some strong light are then fixed,
contiguity of unlikely objects. There is the surrealist wherever they may be put. The modelling seems right,
attempt to shock by the nature of the image—an open the drawing good, and the thread of idea could bear
heart, as explicit in detail as any medical diagram but enlargement and elaboration. In view of Melchert's
enough out of true to suggest malfunction. The particular earlier large ceramic constructions, in which the sur-
piece I have in mind, Silver heart, rests at an angle on a realist notion was more inherent in form than stated in
ornament or the strangeness of casting from human ele-
ments (did he cast the heart as well as the hand ?), this
present work, though rich in its self-contained manner,
seems a come-down; perhaps it represents a pause to
gather material for an effort as great as the previous one.
The sporting piece is called The game. It is a huge
`Monopoly' board, with names of dealers substituted for
the Broadwalk, etc., and, as I remember, 'Museum
Show' taking the place of Park Avenue. A quick laugh,
it doesn't seem quite the thing to place in the presence of
work which has itself come so thoroughly under the
influence of current 'blue-chip' styles.

The DILEXI GALLERY exhibition of Charles Ross's
columns and prisms marked what I believe was the West
Coast debut of works shown in New York's Jewish
Museum as 'minimal' art. (To a Los Angeles wag it is
`sub-minimal', but Ross's works don't qualify because
the prismatic effect of water in the hollow glass forms is
too rich.) In a sense, having said that, I have said all I
can about the prisms, beyond a description of the forms
they take: an odd pentagon mounted horizontally on a
vertical columnar regular one; a vertical, conical curved
form with one curved surface and one flat; and so on. In
a room they disrupt space in an extremely fanciful way,
and yield distorted coloured glimpses of rainbow-edged
objects and people beyond them, as in a dream. The
effect is very pleasant and quite beautiful in broad day-
light. Also shown were a number of columns made up of
squares of plastic to the height, say, of seven or eight feet.
Charles Ross Bent slightly, and varied in colour, though with white
Above dominating, these columns were the perfect foil for the
Column No. 4 1966
Plastic prisms, and were in a sense seen best when seen through
Height 7 ft 3 in. them.
Right
Prism No. 51966
Plexiglass and water
Height 6 ft
Dilexi Gallery,
San Francisco
50