Page 39 - Studio International - May 1966

CHARPENTIER'S), the Musee d'Art Moderne is going to put `New Realists' who, around 1960, tried to reintegrate the
on Adam in May and Pignon in July. It is easy to see that everyday object into their paintings, there is nothing of
there is a closed shop. Whatever the precise value of the importance—nothing really telling—shown in Paris. It is
Paris school of 1945, the young painters of today are no to the Stedelijk in Amsterdam, the Palais des Beaux Arts
longer working along the same lines. The sophistications in Brussels, the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, that you
of Mathieu, the unbalanced impressionism of Bazaine, must go to find an initial assessment of Arman, Yves
mean nothing to new generations who want the spiritual Klein or Raysse.
and physical climate of the present world—with its No, what you will find in Paris follows the general rule
violence, tensions, and spectacular conquests. which I have enunciated : a band of imitators, and most
Some would say that Surrealism is the answer. But all of them mediocre at that. This year, whether at the
you have there is a shabby, out-of-date decorative style. SALON DE LA JEUNE PEINTURE or at the GALERIE CREUZE,
There is nothing more sinister or decadent than the col- mediocrity is the rule under the banner of 'narrative
lection put together by Andre Breton for the exhibition figuration'. By clever mixtures, for example with the work
at the GALERIE DE L'OEIL, showing under the title L'Ecart of Rauschenberg, Rosenquist, or Rechiquot, an attempt
Absolu, and offering nothing but cheap titillations, fake is made to justify the stumbling efforts of Foldes, Ran-
`masterpieces' of forty years ago, with a crowd of eighth- cillac or Atila.
rate imitators. It all has the suspicious whiff both of the The truth is that Paris is becoming provincial. As a
graveyard and the classy dressmaker's boutique. On the general rule, no-one knows anything about what is really
other hand at IOLAS, at the POINT CARDINAL, and at LA important in contemporary art, or even what is happen-
HUNE, you can see Magritte, Brauner, Max Ernst and ing in the world today—whether good or bad. There is a
Leonor Fini : these old-hat pioneers of the realm of the kind of frightened withdrawal from the dynamism of
unconscious seem to be hanging on by the skin of their other international artistic centres, paradoxically mixed
teeth, trying to amuse us with what was yesterday the with a childish pride over the supposed beauties of
meaning of their lives. `French culture'.
At least one would expect to be able to see the works of The list of foreign artists of whom Paris has practically
their more advanced successors and to judge for oneself no knowledge would be immense. The last Gabo exhibi-
the worth of artists who have reflected on dadaism, altered tion was forty years ago; the last Bacon, nine years ago;
its meaning, and described through their method of as- Barbara Hepworth has never had a one-man show.
semblage the urban folklore of our own times. But here Nicholson, Scott, Kitaj, the Cohen brothers, Caro, King,
we are faced with the same situation. Whether it is a the young English sculptors, are almost unknown to the
question of American pop, still little known in France French. Men such as Hofmann, Barnett Newman, David
despite the efforts of the GALERIE SONNABEND, or of the Smith, Louis, Still, Len Lye, Nolan, Dorazio, pioneers

Yves Klein
' To the left Blue sponges, on
the wall three Monogolds,
from The inner and the outer
space exhibition 1966, at the
Moderna Museet, Stockholm