Page 12 - Studio International - May 1966

Some thoughts on kinetic art

Comment by Jasia Reichardt

Talking about his sculpture, David Smith sculptures warning'man against the inevitable and alter completely as one proceeds from
pointed out that for him every form had its destiny of his own making. one side of the painti�g to the other. It is
own colour. Whereas he was referring to The term 'kinetic', of which the dictionary unlikely that one would ever see the
colour/form equivalents, or the specific definition is: 'of or resulting from motion', painting from precisely the same position
analogies between one visual element and has been applied so widely and to such a again. Agam's awareness that reality can
another, those artists especially involved vast variety of art manifestations that it has only be experienced partially at any
in the fields of kinetic art and happenings become almost impossible to give any sensible given moment is the fundamental preoccu­
are aware of the possibility of enhancing or definition of what precisely it is meant to pation underlying his work. Gustav Metzger's
magnifying any creative statement through signify. The implication of movement can autodestructive paintings in acid on nylon
the specific use of multiple equivalents. If be envisaged in a number of ways: the also stress the uniqueness of the moment.
a form can be said to have its own colour, mechanical movement of tJ:;e work or its As the acid, applied to nylon with a brush,
then one can presuppose that it can also be parts (Schaffer), natural movement (Calder's makes holes in _the fabric-which eventually
equated with a specific movement and mobiles), the illusion of movement (Vasarely), disintegrates-there is no possibility of
sound. These types of analogies were the movement of the spectator in front or recapturing any of the images. This is also ~
recognized by Arcimboldi in the sixteenth around the work (Soto), the idea of true of Medalla's bubble machines which
century when he made different bands of movement (Vardanega), manual intervention disgorge foam and which relate to an
colour serve as indications of pitch, and by the spectator (Again), and works which organic process of continuous change
since Aristotle connexions h ve been made undergo a continual process of change and regeneration-a process which cannot
p.
between the seven tones of the diatonic scale and/or disintegration (autodestructive art). · be reversed.
and the seven colours of the spectrum. In Movement itself, or the use of it, constitutes Whereas certain kinetic works operate
1926 Mary Greenwalt, the American pianist, neither a philosophy nor a style, but through a cycle (Malina, Healey), which
had colour projections synchronized with simply a technical possibility or method could be repeated or reconst ted, those
the music she was playing, and Rimbaud, .which is used to give form or expression to machines and objects which are primarily
of course, associated letters with colours, the artist's statement. One could say that involved with the idea of performance
endowing A with black, E -white I -red, movement is equivalent to material/ (Tinguely) or growth (Medalla) belong more
,,
O-blue, and U-green. The way in which technique. Since the artists under the strictly to the ephemera of art.
equivalents operate cannot be absolute, umbrella of kineti art share no common The luminous pictures by John Healey­
and certainly most creative artists are programme, one can only discuss kinetic art large rectangular boxes with a screen in
unlikely to agree about any exact analogies. in terms of individual aims and the many front on which 'images of coloured light
Nevertheless, there is an associative ingenious ways in which it has been develop and change-are programmed to
vocabulary of forms which have their employed. undergo a repertoire of developments whic}l
correspondences in music, movement, speed One of the most interesting approaches is constitute a cycle that can last anything
and colour, and which Ozenfant referred to that in which the idea of movement is used from a few minutes to a number of hours.
as symphonic relations. explicitly to denote the passing of time. Malina's 'lumidyne' constructions follow a
In kinetic art these relations provide the The Futurists employed it for their destructive similar process. He incorporates a painted
formal framework on which is based the ideas, as an expression of longing to do away screen between the source of moving light
critical relationship between the work and with the past in order to become even more and the frontal anslucent perspex screen.
the spectator. All works which make use of aware of the instantaneity of the present. Surprisingly enough his imagery is often
movement, simply through the fact that they In his tactile paintings, Agam also stressqs semi-figurative, which would seem to
undergo a process of change and operate the fact that no moment in time can be contradict some of the ideas inherent in this
on a number of levels simultaneously, recaptured. These particular paintings type of kinetic art. The photo-paintings of
establish a more complex and often more consist of discs mounted on springs which Livinus are also involved with the
involving effect on the viewer. This is are attached to ! wooden base. When transformation of light/colour forms which
probably the sole crucial characteristic that touched the discs vibrate, and the image is change and disappear on a rectangular
the vastly different works in the field of always in the process of becoming and screen, as are those of Andre Dantu where
kinetic art have in common-works as far disintegratipg. This also applies to his colour images undergo a process of
apart as those of the Groupe de Recherche d' Art contrapuntal paintings-works on corrugated fragmentation and reconstruction through
Visuel with their stress on formal anonymity, surfaces with a number of themes continued the use of two sheets of polaroid, one of
and the robots of Bruce Lacey, cautionary on the parallel ridges-where images merge which rotates behind layers of colourless

Contributors to this issue

Jasia Reichardt, who contributes a monthly Comment Robert Hughes is an :Australian critic· and writer who John Berger, critic and novelist, has written for the
o Studio International, is assistant director of the divides his time between England and Italy. He writes Observer, the New Statesman, the Sunday Times,
Institute of Contemporary Arts. for the Sunday Times and various journals, and fre­ Labour Monthly, and other journals and newspapers,
quently takes part in radio and television programmes ani:i writes regularly for New Society. He has also
Gene Baro publishes widely on the visual arts and on on the arts. At present he is completing a book on worked a great deal In television. His published works
literature. He contributes to Art International, The Australian art. include three novels and The success and failure of
London Magazine, The New Yorker, and other periodi­ Picasso. He has just completed an 'imaginative docu­
cals, i.s London Correspondent of Arts Magazine and Dr David Irwin is a lecturer in the history of fine art mentary' about a doctor, called A Fortunate Man,
Art in Amenca (both of New York), American adviser at Glasgow University, His book, English Neoclassical which Peng�in Books are to publish next Spring. This
to Gambit, the international drama quarterly, and Art, is being published this May by Faber & Faber, has been made in the closest collaboration with the
American editor of Stand, a literature and arts quarter­ London, and New York Graphic Society. He is at Swiss photographer Jean Mohr; in the relation be­
ly. Recently he published a book of poems, A View of present working on the Industrial and applied arts of tween photographer and text it may prove to be
Water, and an anthology of American regional stories, the last 150 years. unique. 'My present major work,' says John Berger,
Couleurs Locales. 'concerns Don Juan In 1910. I do not know whether it
will be categorized eventually as an essay, a novel, a
treatise, or the description and analysis of a dream.'
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