Page 20 - Studio International - October 1966

Chillida commission for Houston Mondrian, including an article by David Sylvester and plays or books or magazines like soap or sewing
personal reminiscences of Mondrian in London by machines: one that 'advertised' or 'sold' persons as
Last winter Eduardo. Chillida, the Spanish sculptor, Ben Nicholson, Naum and Miriam Gabo, and others. news.
was commissioned by J. Johnson Sweeney of the
Museum of Fine Art, Houston, Texas, to make a The January issue will be largely devoted to kinetic
large sculpture which would be first shown at art, and will include articles by Stephen Bann, Cyril In brief
Chillida's retrospective exhibition which opened in Barrett, Jean Clay, and Frank Popper and statements
Houston this October and goes on to St Louis and by Soto, Cruz-Diez, Le Parc, and other kineticists. Two years ago the Indian Academy of Art decided to
Chicago. The sculpture, called Abestigogora, weighs organize an Indian Triennale along the lines of the
50 tons, was hewn out of natural granite, and took international exhibitions held in Paris, Venice, and
nearly eight months to complete. The size of the work In other publications Sao Paulo. The first exhibition is planned for 1967.
presented enormous difficulties, and.it was shipped to There will be an international jury, and national
the U.S.from the Galician port of Vigo in three pieces. Ariel pavilions will be built on 'fifty acres of land in the
The summer 1966 issue of Ariel, the quarterly review vicinity of New Delhi. Eventually the area will become
of arts and sciences in Israel published in Jerusalem, a permanent art centre.
contains an article by P. K. Hoenich on his experi-
Kunst-Licht-Kunst ments in harnessing the sun's rays to create 'moving Ind Coope's third annual collection of British painting
murals'. The article is illustrated, and an offprint is was selected by Robert Melville, art critic of the New
The first comprehensive international exhibition available. Mr Hoenich, an artist who is on the Faculty Statesman. It includes pictures by Peter Blake,
devoted to the use of artificial light in art, called of Architecture of the Israel Institute of Technology, Bridget Riley, and Ralph Steadman, the cartoonist.
Kunst-Licht-Kunst ('Art-Light-Art') is at the Stedelijk earlier published two research papers, Robot Art, and
Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Holland, until Decem- Design with Sunrays. Rowneys are launching a new polymer emulsion
ber 5. It commemorates the seventy-fifth anniversary paint, called 'pva'. It comes in sixteen colours, and in
of Philips, the electrical company. Mobilia large transparent tubes whose moulded caps obviate
One part of the exhibition is devoted to environ- The Danish magazine Mobilia has devoted the greater the adhesion problem of conventional caps,
mental light works specially built by groups of artists part of its issue No 131-2 to the work of Georg Jensen,
within a given space. Participating groups include T, the silversmith and designer, and of his close col-
ENNE, and MID from Italy; the Groupe de Recherche leagues in the firm of Jensen. Among the articles is '73 years ago
d'Art Visuel from France; ZERO (Germany); Dwiz- one by Edgar Kaufmann jr. of the Museum of Modern
jenije (U.S.S.R.); USCO (U.S.); and Nul (Holland). Art, New York, which touches on the cultural inter-
action of Denmark and England at the turn of the
century, the influence of art nouveau, Neo-Grec and
Police seizures other ornamental styles on Danish crafts, and the
Jensen Atelier's search for a basic style in silver-
For the second time in two months, police have im- smithery.
pounded pictures under the Obscene Publications
Act of 1959. The first occasion was when 200 repro- Edizioni Galleria Ferrari, Verona
ductions of Beardsley drawings were taken from The Galleria Ferrari's latest quarterly covers the work
'Cardshops' in Regent Street, London, following a of the sculptor Gharmandi (b. 1916, represented at
complaint by a member of the public. It was recently Biennales at Venice, Sao Paulo, etc.). It contains
decided that no legal action would be taken in this articles by Giuseppe Marchiori, Luigi Lambertini, and
case, and the reproductions have been returned. Alessandro Mozzambani.
The second was when, on September 20, Scotland
Yard officers took twenty-one drawings by Jim Dine Encounter
from the Robert Fraser Gallery, together with photo- Probably the most interesting essay to appear in
graphs of the pictures and all the catalogues of the connexion with the recent Beardsley exhibition is in
exhibition. Again their action resulted from a com- this month's Encounter. It was written not by an art-
plaint by a member of the public. historian or critic, but by the Professor of English at The curious attraction and repulsion which Monet
The Jim Dine affair raises at least one interesting Reading University, D. J. Gordon. exercises upon some of those who study his work may
question. Normally when he receives a complaint a One part of the essay is devoted to the growth of the be seen in the following quotation from a recent
magistrate will make up his own mind about the Beardsley myth, the translation of Beardsley into National Observer. One need not go behind the unsigned
nature of the work before issuing a warrant. As far as 'Beardsley'. Crucial to the situation which made this article to discover who is speaking with such an effort
the Robert Fraser Gallery knows, however, no magis- translation possible was the rise of popular journalism to be just even at a sacrifice of his personal taste; the
trate came at any time to look at the exhibition before and the introduction of new advertising techniques. lucid sanity of his argument and the felicity of phrase
police arrived with a search warrant. Does this mean The Studio was an important influence in all this, says betray him no less surely than would his initials:
that action can be taken simply on the recommenda- Professor Gordon. With an international circulation, 'Claude Monet's art (it runs) is the very anarchy of
tion of the public? it became, for example, a prime agent in establishing painting. It tramples on the conditions of all the schools.
At the time of going to press we understand that the l'art nouveau, and in common with other English art To pretend that it is beautiful is to outrage aesthetics,
National Council for Civil Liberties may interest itself magazines played a part in the whole art of advertis- to deny the amazing cleverness were patent folly. . . .
in the case. ing in the period. Joseph Pennel's article on Beardsley Science is not art, nor is ingenuity necessarily beautiful,
in the first issue of Studio was instrumental in trans- and Monet claims the attention on a false issue. The
forming the obscure insurance clerk into a legend and language of spots is expressive and characteristic, it is
In the November issue a symbol of his age. not the less harsh and grating, and though on another
Studio noted, partly from looking at the work sent in man's lips it may seem chastened and smooth, on
The November issue of Studio International will in- in response to its own competitions, that there was a Monet's it has no doubt a most forbidding twang.' From
clude articles on art brut by Alan Bowness, on L. S. rush to imitate Beardsley soon after the Pennel this we may see that Monet has not yet conquered
Lowry by T. G. Rosenthal, on Alfred Wallis by Edwin article first appeared. According to Professor Gordon either English hearts or English art entirely; yet, on the
Mullins. A supplement on New and Recent Art Books this could only have happened—Beardsley could other hand, to those who love him he represents the
will contain reviews by Professor Gordon, Michael Kit- only have become 'Beardsley'—because he could and last word of modernity in landscape. If, indeed, our
son, Robert Melville, Bryan Robertson, Robert would work in ways appropriate to the technological English formula of beauty excludes him at present, it
Speaight, David Thompson, and others. and social situation that permitted and wanted large- has precedents for re-modelling, and maybe the shifting
circulation publication of visual materials; that standard in a very few years' time will instance Monet
allowed, and depended upon, rapid distribution; that as readily as it now proclaims 'John Constable' among
used, visual ways—the assault on the eye—of selling its great pioneers of landscape painting.