Page 51 - Studio International - January 1967

on tapes, and in action, the idiot savant who functions been reminded of primitive art. Samaras' work bristles
like a machine and knows not what he does. The impli- with sharp extrusions from straight pins to razor blades,
cations were obvious when snatches of information on as would a voodoo object. But then, so does the famous
Vietnam appeared now and then on the screen, and a flat iron with spikes. He is also fond of organic imitations,
bust of President Johnson was mournfully paraded about. much as the Dogon sculptor with his dried blood and
Still, despite special effects such as specially invented millet. Folk art also enters in Samaras' imagery, particu-
snow and anti-missile missiles floating about in the air, larly when he uses brilliantly coloured yarn to ornament
Fahlstrom's piece was essentially effective because of his his fantastic boxes.
imaginative presentation of meaningful images which But all of these nourishing sources seem to me to be less
might well have been presented without much techno- important than Samaras' rather sophisticated education
logical assistance. His was a dramatic concept, and not and his aggressive Freudian stance. There is no avoiding
an idea attenuated beyond its rightful shape. the symbolic implications in the partly opened boxes
with their cargo of lethal instruments. And even his
Works of the imagination that find classification only more recent confections—boxes with bright yarn designs
with difficulty abound in the oeuvre of Lucas Samaras, and harmless plastic interiors—are allusive in classical
a thirty-year-old Greek born artist who has exhibited at Freudian terms.
the PACE GALLERY. In the past, Samaras has been charac- What has distinguished Samaras from the beginning is
terized as a Primitive or Fetishistic artist, but that would his excessiveness. (Imagine arranging a million straight
Lucas Samaras place him outside the modern tradition of Dada and pins in a pattern.) It is to be found in the eerie pastel
Mirrored Room Surrealism, to which he certainly owes some allegiance. drawings as well as his assembled environments and
8 x 10 x 8 ft
Photo: Ferdinand Boesch It is not hard to understand why critics have so often boxes. Above all, it is working at high intensity in his
tour de force, an eight-foot-high mirror palace.
Here, the spectator enters a totally glassed room in
which the sections of mirror seem to extend to infinity. A
chatter of images produced by the single occupant bears
down upon him. Looking up, the edifice of reflections
provides an hallucinatory experience very close to vertigo.
The mad profusion of elusive forms produced by the
simple means of sections of mirror carried me into an
atmosphere fashioned by Henri Michaux, who charac-
terizes his experiences with mescalin and other drugs
with the single adverb-cum-noun, extrêmement.

There was something hectic and vertiginous also in Lee
Bontecou's new work at the LEO CASTELLI GALLERY. Her
tendency to create veering perspectives and involuted
forms has been stepped up, while her reliefs become
deeper, with forms flaring or billowing far from the wall
support.
No one talks much any more about 'authenticity' —who
would dare? Yet I believe it is a suitable way of thinking
about Bontecou's work. From the beginning, when first
she stretched khaki burlap on wire frames, I have felt
the unfailing drive that marks an artist intent on moving
as deeply as possible into the sources of his imagery.
Bontecou has worked slowly, and with patience, to reach
the true wellsprings of her talent, and the work is satura-
ted with the intensity of her feelings.
Continuing where she left off in her last exhibition—
deep reliefs with occasionally textured forms—Bontecou
has added colour, and in one instance, interior light.
There is more elaborate detail, particularly in one piece
with a leitmotif of a mollusc shell. This full and pleas-
ingly rounded shape with its ivory and black stripes
uncoils still other shapes, these coloured with bright red
stripes wittily rendered in recessive perspective.
From all of this infolded and unfolded imagery a com-
plicated pictorial pattern evolves. From one point of
view, the delicate blues, tans, and bright reds provide
the eye with numerous games. They are laid into the
leaded armature illusionistically. Yet, from another point
of view—particularly from a side view—the sculptural
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