Page 65 - Studio International - April 1967

canvases scored horizontally with bands of colour
Herbert Ferber Three Arches 1966, epoxy 10½ ft high x 15 ft wide.
William Giles Totals 3 1966, Acrylic on canvas, 76
so narrow that they might more nearly be defined
as lines. These are arrayed at varying intervals,
sometimes so close as almost to touch, sometimes
a quarter of an inch apart, but always seeming to
be arranged in progressions suggesting landscapes
illumined from a horizon.
Mueller's colour is generally muted, mixed, and
in an odd way works optically like Seurat's colour.
Occasionally one miniscule dot appears between
the bands, offering an obscure focus for an other-
wise consistently progressive rhythm. Throughout
these abstractions there is a feeling of specific
place and specific light, as though Mueller had
actually started with a sentiment derived from
some familiar landscape. It is this restricted allu-
sion (restricted with intelligence and tact) that
takes Mueller's work out of either the striped or
field painter's realm, and into the broad, if rela-
tively unvisited, trails of illusionism.
William Giles at the ALLAN FRUMKIN GALLERY is a
trifle coquettish with his references to mathematics,
but nevertheless offers a lively promise for the next
time. Giles' paintings are basically constructivist
and at times recall the more radical experiments of
88 in.
El Lissitsky. He enjoys setting up an armature—
often an asymmetrical cross—around which he
plays circular and triangular shapes in recessing
or overlapping planes. He strives for effects of
light that might be produced by juxtaposed sheets
of coloured plastic. His use of letters and numbers
is too often gratuitous, although occasionally these
figures serve, as I'm sure they are intended, to
locate his planes precisely in a given space.
Despite the coyness in titling a painting with the
symbol for a square root and the word 'things'
within, Giles' approach is bold, and his grasp of
structure firm. With further clarification, and a
bit more attention to technique, Giles' work should
prove very satisfying from here on.
Herbert Ferber's recent show at the ANDRE
EMMERICH GALLERY was dominated by Three
Arches, a ten by fifteen foot sculpture that is obvi-
ously intended to be a much larger essay into the
spaces Ferber first explored some years ago.
Although it is impossible to circulate within this
model, the arches are obviously conceived as 'en-
vironmental'. Their flying members are anchored
by a triangular floor plan from which subtle
relationships are implied throughout the piece.
For instance, the structure of each member is
trough-like, and while the linear aspects are
softened by an agreeable use of bone-coloured
epoxy, they are still oblique reminiscences of the
geometric shape. Here, Ferber's fusion of the
organic and geometric works effectively to keep
the eye moving in controlled rhythms over both
surface and negative space. Thus Ferber achieves
his environmental intention, even without the
physical entry of the spectator into the heart of the
sculptural space.
Other pieces in the hotly-burnished copper
Ferber prefers continue his dialogue with Piranesi,
and his absorption in the problem of calligraphy as
applied to sculpture. q
211