Page 31 - Studio International - May 1966

Ramos's work stems from Surrealism, just as—in a very Surrealist forebears : Rosenquist and Magritte, and
different way—does Jasper Johns's Painting with Two D'Arcangelo and Chirico. D'Arcangelo is the only Pop
Balls (1960), in which two areas of roughly-painted can- artist to derive inspiration from today's high-speed motor-
vas are parted by two small balls, suggestive of castration. ways and their ruthless demarcation of the landscape.
The doyen of Surrealism, André Breton, has himself A fellow artist, Nicolas Calas, has recently written that
written very little within the last few years on any topic, `before Allan D'Arcangelo there was Chirico, to whom
but he wrote an interesting preface to the exhibition of we should be everlastingly grateful for having made the
recent paintings by Konrad Klapheck at the ILEANA landscape look as artificial as an African mask. Reality is
SONNABEND GALLERY in Paris last year. Klapheck's oeuvre, not enough ! Playing with distance Chirico evoked a Palla-
based on meticulously observed objects such as type- dian past. But he was not granted the prescience to
writers, sewing machines and telephones, is interpreted foresee that some half-century later his biscuits would
by Breton in the context of eroticism. He cites in particu- acquire a Pop taste.' And he continues, a little later, that
lar (as one would expect of him) Freudian sexual symbol- `unlike Chirico who shifts the position of the vanishing
ism, male and female, in manufactured objects, found in point to create the sense of loss-of-position between the
the writings of Freud and Havelock Ellis. now and the historical past, D'Arcangelo makes of the
These ideas, as Breton points out, are foreshadowed by vanishing point the polar star of the speeding driver.' The
Jarry and Lautréamont, and are fully justified in the light resulting images in D'Arcangelo's paintings are of discon-
of what Klapheck himself says in the catalogue : La certingly deserted roads seemingly going into infinity,
machine a écrire, instrument sur lequel les decisions les plus im- punctuated only by viaducts and route signs. They have
portantes de notre vie sont formulées, est chez moi de sexe male. the dead, mysterious quiet of Chirico's metaphysical
Elle représente le Pere, le politique, l'artiste. La machine a paintings.
coudre, qui nous aide a dissimuler notre nudité, est femelle. Elle The other interesting direct relationship is between
apparait comme vierge, mere ou veuve. Many of the Surrealist Rosenquist and Magritte. Meticulously-painted images
links suggested in this article are based on stylistic ob- with clear-cut outlines, often arranged on the canvas so
servations with a few hints from the artist's writings and that the effect is that of a collage: this visual deception
interviews; but in the case of Klapheck we have one of the characteristic of the Belgian's work has emerged on a
few instances of a direct link of Pop subject-matter and much larger scale in the young American. 'I want to keep
artist's statement with an analysis by Breton himself. the solar system (i.e. nature) from coming in the window.
James Rosenquist
Cage 1964 General concepts in Surrealism have formed the basis ... From familiar things you can make something exotic,'
Oil of this argument so far, with only occasional references to Rosenquist has said. This explains such a painting as his
62 1/2 x 63 3/4 in.
Galerie Ileana Sonnabend, particular artists of the pre-war generation. Two Pop Silhouette (1964), which portrays a woman's hand holding
Paris artists show interesting stylistic relationships with two a piece of gruyere cheese, but the image is presented as if
it were actually a jig-saw puzzle with one piece missing.
Rosenquist's imagery is often more complex than this,
with much fragmentation of separate images, indepen-
dent of each other, but relatable to a principal theme,
such as an automobile or jet, with such titles as I love you
with my Ford (car bonnet, woman's profile, indeterminate
metal work) and Silver Skies (goose, tyres, car window,
woman's face, man's trouser, bottle, and a rose as a par-
tial rebus). Magritte's decompartmentalization is carried
further, and takes on the bold proportions of modern
billboards. Magritte can also be detected as one of the
sources lying behind the sequence of disconnected images
composed by R. B. Kitaj, and also behind the repetitive
rows of silkscreened photographs (Coca Cola bottles,
Marilyn Monroe, a race riot) of Andy Warhol. He has
also influenced some of the most recent paintings of
Martial Raysse.
Apart from Surrealism there are, of course, other in-
fluences behind Pop art, particularly Duchamp and
Dada, and Cubism (especially Léger and Stuart Davis).
But there is a sufficiently strong element of Surrealism in
Pop art to be sceptical of some of the interpretations of its
relations to mass culture, and also of some of the mis-
leading names with which the various, separate groups
of artists composing Pop have been labelled. Critics persist
in writing Surrealism's obituary, but prematurely. As one
of the most vital, new forces in twentieth-century art,
Surrealism is still alive. As Breton entitled a magazine he
edited between 1956 and 1959: le surréalisme, mime.
q