Page 52 - Studio International - December 1967

Right Picasso Boy Watching Over Sleeping Woman
by Candlelight c. 1935. Combined technique, 9 5/16 x
11 11/16 in. No. 26 from Vollard Suite, Redfern Gallery
Below Picasso Female Model and Two Sculptures 1933
Etching, 14 15/16 x 11 11/16, No. 72 from Vollard Suite,
Redfern Gallery

printmaking, acting as an ideas-man in a techno- colours. It is less important that the colours are Pablo Picasso, the art colossus of the twentieth
logical context. Collage elements from all sources— arranged as they are than that each print is differ- century, the man whose every doodle has a value,
Woolworths table cloths to computer circuits, five- ent within the same edition. What matters is the whose every work is a signature. The facility is
and-dime store cutouts to fine art reproductions idea of infinite difference, with its far-reaching incredible. The recent aquatints in particular are
—are manipulated into a series of total images, implications for the structure of our thinking about models of fluidity and eloquence. There is no
constructed like nests of Chinese boxes, in which the art object. The actual colours printed are no faltering in terms of technique or of control. In
the artist is involved so far as they are re-enactive more than the record—the visual evidence—of this subject matter and in content, however, much is
of processes of thought or passages of emotion, or idea. If the artist could convey his ideas without lost in the later series. The emotional range of the
from which he is detached in so far as they are needing to create objects which embody them, he Vollard Suite is wide. There are images of suffering
critical assessments of a given situation. These would be no less an artist. In human terms the and of sensual wonder and, in the long series of
collages are then 'translated' by the screenprinter artist is the man whose ideas are most energetic. The Sculptor's Studio, explorations of relationship
and printed in a range of colours decided by a part- He is no less than that and no more. and counter-relationship in both human and
arbitrary, part-systematic process which guaran- There is a real possibility that the rapidly aesthetic terms, which, if they are narcissistic,
tees tonal balance. The printmaker acts as a servo- developing involvement with the screenprint, often sometimes even effete, still have the power to move
mechanism for the ideas of the artist. The employ- to the neglect of other, more fine art media, will and disturb us, like those adolescent dreams to
ment of computers as means of reproducing have the effect of forcing us to look more closely which, with a sense of nostalgia and of indiscretion,
episodes in the process of scanning is an obvious at the real content of art. It is a paradox that the we return when invited. The world of the Vollard
next step upon which Paolozzi is already deter- artist may well be able to reveal more of himself Suite is the adolescent's view of adult sensuality;
mined. by leaving the execution of his ideas to the tech- it is not real, but it is beautiful. Many of the same
Meanwhile there is much to learn from the nician. If the object itself, seductive as it often is, themes are taken up again in the recent works.
Universal Electronic Vacuum. The content of the can be so accurately specified and so easily dupli- The principal subject is the relationship of the
prints is one man's singular consciousness in an cated, perhaps we shall come at last to value its artist to his model-mistress. The emotional atmos-
age of multi-media, expressed through the lan- physical substance less than the idea for which it phere has changed, however. The five rape
guage of that age. The artist feeds us with stimuli is no more than a clothing. images of the Vollard Suite are here replaced by
which we, so far as we respond to them, can use to There is a wide and unbridgeable gulf between quieter images of copulation and of mutual gratifi-
establish an image of his idea. These gorgeous the screenprints in the Camden exhibition and cation. Who does he think he's fooling, this octo-
colours and dazzling shapes are not solely for our two exhibitions, one current and one recent, of genarian satyr, with his smiling lovers and their
delectation. An understanding of the things he Picasso's graphic work. The complete 'Vollard fatuous idyll? The Indian summer is disturbed by
does—of his behaviour in a visual sense—gives us Suite' at the REDFERN GALLERY, and the 'Etchings a chill breeze of uncertainty: they are all happy,
insight into the experience of the artist and enables and Aquatints' 1963-1965 at LUMLEY CAZALET but no major passions are conveyed. In some of
us to share his idea. The printed sheets of the LTD., betray in every line the personal physical these recent images a new relationship emerges.
Universal Electronic Vacuum are not records of visual involvement of the artist. They are alive with the The bearded painter, in one print, slumps corpse-
insights but ideas expressed in visible form. The flourishes of his personality. Style, as applied to like in a chair while an eager, younger man takes
sets are printed in such a way that no two runs of these works, is a vehicle not for the expression of up the brush and sketches him, watched by the
the same print produce the same arrangement of ideas or of states of mind, but for the expression of ever present dream-like nymph.
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