Page 53 - Studio International - January 1967

fullness is completely and dynamically articulate on
its own.
I can understand Bontecou's decision to place a light
within one of the reliefs. The parchment-like surfaces of
her forms do give a glowing light reminiscent of the
porphyry windows in Byzantine churches. Yet, the
analogy with stained glass in this instance is too much
with us and borders on the precious.

There was a moving statement in John Hultberg's
catalogue for his exhibition at the MARTHA JACKSON
GALLERY, which for once had direct bearing on his work.
He spoke poetically about reverie and its role in his
painting, and then sounded a warning: 'We look at art
as we look at science, noising about each extravagance
as progress toward a desired though unknown goal; yet
these novelties never quench our ennui.' He goes on : 'As
the plague of despair and dishonour spreads I find it
necessary to retrench instead of seeking new escapes.
Standing in the midst of this sickness I hold on to
painting.' And he ends on a melancholy note :
`I want to gather together those scattered insights that
modern art has uncovered and burn them in an electric
bonfire in this frozen desert. In these sombre embers
perhaps I may be allowed to glimpse once more the
poetry and romance I felt as a child.'
No doubt this statement will be read as a bitterly
nostalgic jeremiad by many, and no doubt they will agree
all too readily with Hultberg's own estimate of his
painting as 'repetitive, lacking in inventive variations or
wide connotations'. But Hultberg deserves more generous
consideration.
His new work, it is true, is yet another statement of his
vision of cities in trouble. The perspective lines shoot
back with familiar speed and the foreboding lights dart
about dramatically as they always have. Yet Hultberg
has compounded the terrors that once lurked in his
cities. They now emanate not only from smouldering
ruins, but also from screen-like planes that suggest out-
door movies and mass-media of terrifying implications.
The hints of human inhabitants—mostly symbols impri-
soned in rectangular boxes—are the more sinister for being
more cryptic than before. Hultberg's dream of poetry and
romance is a tormented dream, but importantly familiar.

Unabashedly nostalgic was the exhibition announcing
the merger of the ALBERT LOEB and KRUGIER GALLERY. It
Top
John Hultberg was called Homage to Silence or Metaphysica, and included a
Untitled number of important paintings by Giorgio di Chirico,
Oil on canvas as well as works by, among others, Delvaux, Giacometti,
50 x 60 in.
Magritte, Morandi and Oskar Schlemmer. The silences
Centre celebrated in this exhibition were only too welcome after
René Magritte the roar produced across the street at the JANIS GALLERY
Sky open to the air 1925-29
Oil on canvas where the Erotic Art exhibition was disappointing scores
19 3/4 x 25 1/2 in. of avid visitors. Possibly because much of the art pro-
duced by Janis from his magic hat was manufactured
Right
Giorgio di Chirico specifically for this show, or possibly because in America
Silent Statue 1913 it is either pornographic or purist, but rarely erotic, art
Oil on canvas that gets born, the exhibition was wholly a farce. Not
36+ x 49+ in.
even the New York police department could be had.
They came, they saw, and they walked out without
turning a hair, pubic or otherwise. q
43