Page 14 - Studio International - May 1966

Some thoughts on kinetic ar� / continued

the absurd. The associations they evoke may of junk and scrap. Oh great brotherhood of another's brain by any means.'
have little to do with the fundamental Jules Verne, Paul Klee, Sandy Calder, One could say that kineti art is a basically
issues of life, but they are not removed from Leonardo da Vinci, Rube Goldberg, Marcel heroic manifestation which consistently
them-pointed humour is certainly a Duchamp, Piranesi, Man Ray, Picabia, breaks those boundaries which conventional
welcome ingredient. Jean Tin gu ely, whose Filippo Morghen, are you with it?' art impHes. Yet little of it is truly experimental
'Homage to New rork (1960) was the first Bruce Lacey's robots, which are a cross since lt uses accepted formal currency. It is
large-scale performance autodestructive between life-size puppets, junk objects and an art form where marginal differences
sculpture, is the creator of the anti-machine­ motorized anarchy, are sculptures with a are often magnified, where desire for
moving hybrids of junk and ideas. Alfred H. message. Social comment, often obvious but anon ity in the object may be completely ',
Barr's short comment on his work is as apt always touching, is their hall-mark. Each contradicted by the urge to evolve new
as anything I have read: 'Forty years ago work deals with a specific aspect of life which terminology through hich to stress the
Tin gu ely's grandadas thumbed their noses Lacey worries about. The brain machine, individual approach. It is an idiom of whi.ch
at Mona Lisa and Cezanne. Recently for instance, about which he wrote: 'This the roots are more varied than might be
Tin gu ely himself has devised machines which deals with brainwashing and the influence suggested by citing such ancestors as
shatter the placid shells of Arp's immaculate of the mind by various means including Duchamp, Gabo and Moholy-Nagy. In a
eggs, machines which at the drop of a coin the lobectomy operation, the spokeµ word strangely self-conscious, seductive way,
scribble a moustache on the automatic lie-detectors, etc. An ultrasonic detector kinetic art is something of a myth, such as
Muse of abstract expressionism, and (wipe senses when people approach it and operates Kaprow might have had in mind when he
that smile off your face) an apocal yp tic ' a toppling device which unbalances the wrote: 'If something of value must remain
far-oui breakthrough which, it is said, clinks head inside the machine. This is a fear and for our tomorrow, it will have to be a myth.
and clanks, tingles and tangles, whim and hate machine, for I believe it to be a A myth may compel even more than a
buzzes, grinds and creaks, whistles and diabolical liberty and an affront to the picture, and someone may decide to act it out,
pops itself into a katabolic Gotterdammerung dignity of man for one person to influence however altered it may be in its ·new form.' D

The Monet Monets worn inches above the knee and transparent evening­
When M. Michel Monet, the painter's son, died in a gowns were much in evidence. 'It will be a stunning
car-crash on February 8 (he was returning from a visit irony', wrote one critic, 'if the most popular, conse­
to his mother's grave), an art-collection of enormous quential, stirring exhibition ever presented by the
value and importance came to l_ight. Stacked in Museum of Modern.Art should turn out to be that of
various rooms about the house were ninety-two Im­ an old master'. (Dore Ashton reviews the exhibition
pressionist works, including forty-three Monets, which � n page 207 of this issue.)
almost no-one knew about. These pictures made up
part of his father's private collection, and Michel Paolozzi on home ground
willed them to the Musee Marmottan on the outskirts The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edin­
of Paris. Although it already owned Monet's Impres­ burgh, has been showing sculpture and prints by
sion, which gave the group its name, and a small but Eduardo Paolozzi, who was born in Leith in 1924 of
splendid collection of Impressionist work, the Musee Italian immigrant parents. 'Paolozzi's recent sculpture
Marmottan is small and desperately poor. It was is abstract, made from shapes designed by him and
delighted with the news of tbe Monet bequest, which executed in aluminium or chromed steel in a Suffolk
will now assure it many more visitors. At the moment engineering shop. These units are th�n assembled
it is poorly attended. in the shop by the artist and welded or bolted, some­
At the end of March another surprise was in store times being·painted afterwards.
for the Marmottan. They had inherited from Monet's
son a further forty-six paintings done by his father. seventy-three years ago
Most of these are studies of water-lilies made between The Westminrter Gazette of April 5 records the ap­
1905 and 1920. Together, the Monet bequest pictures After five-and-a-half years at 19 South Street, Farn­ pearance of THE STUDIO, says 'it is nicely produced,'
make up one of the richest artistic legacies of the ham, Surrey, the Ashgate Gallery is moving to larger and is kindly anxious concerning its success. This
century. • prel]'lises in the town at Wagon Yard, Downing Street, is quite 'up-to-date' reviewing, for even. the first
Michel Monet refused to leave his collection to the where it opens on June 1 with an exhibition of new sheet had not left the press by _that date, and no
louvre even though Monet was the first living artist paintings by JoHn Verney. human being had seen a copy, for the simple reason
ever to be shown there. Monet's son had never for­ that no copy existed.
given the Louvre for refusing to hang his father's A well-choserl selection of Chinese pottery and porce­ (TIIE STUDIO was first published in April 1893)
early paintings. lain was ecently exhibited by the Oriental Ceramics
Although he lived almost as a recluse In his Nor­ Society at Qantas Gallery, London; the show demon­ It is a pity America does not take as much interest
mandy house, Michel went every year to his father's strated how, with effective lighting and by avoiding in English paintings as in English literature • . .
villa at Giverny to replant the ponds with water-lilies. overcrowding the exhibits, such specialist exhibitions America, with eyes for the art of all the world, save
Michel himself was well-known as an explorer. He can be made to appeal to much wider audiences than one little island, does not even condescend to scold
and his wife were the first couple to cross the Sahara hitherto. us-or to be more precise has hardly done so yet ...
alone. In an American paper lately it was said that when­
The major Stuyvesant Foundation award at the Young ever a distinctly English artist had arisen he had
Contemporaries exhibition held recently at London's invariably chosen an ugly type of face and figure,
Turner in New York F.B.A. Gallery was a joint prize awarded to Terry and from Blake to Burne-Jones the writer cited
At last Turner's reputation is being extended beyond lbbott and Malcolm Dakin and not, as ·mplied on page examplt!S to support his argument. Indeed it would
the British Isles. On the first evening of Spring the 106 of our March issue, an award won by Terry lbbott seem as if English Art meant to foreigners the Pre­
Museum of Modern Art in New York opened a Turner alone. Raphaelite school-not of course the actual P.R.B.,
exhibition which is largely the work of the Tate's b t all the work of the fantastic, decorative order
Lawrence Gowing. Op art banners flew from the that is easy to· recognize under that heading �!­
Museum's flagpoles and many of the first-night though it lacks a more precise name.
visitors were as desperately fashionable: skirts were from The Lay Figure Speaks
174