Page 29 - Studio International - July/August 1967

attempt, through their assault on the optic nerve of the
spectator, to render all visual apprehension of coherent,
enclosed forms impossible. Some, like Soto after 1951,
use serial principles, lines of dots distributed according to
a pre-determined mathematical pattern, which destroy
all notions of plastic composition. Others, like Morellet
in 1958, use odd and even numbers from a telephone
directory in order to distribute at random their basic
units—small squares or triangles—once again destroying
pre-determined composition. Still others, like the GRAV,
study the possibilities of peripheral vision and produce
works in which the object of the spectator's contempla-
tion lies outside the field of focal vision, on the edge of a
composition too large to be perceived clearly in its
entirety.
However, none of these new departures questioned the
respective situation of the work of art and the spectator.

Above But with the profound works of Soto and Vasarely in which are composed in space but which have a texture
Fontana in his studio 1954, with the animated screens of Wilfred and his suc- (slivers of metal eroded by changing effects of light and
Above right cessors, with the 'metamalevitchs' of Tinguely and the shade or transparent Plexiglass structures) such that
Yves Klein changing surfaces of Agam and Bury, with the 'physi- there is no precise point on which the spectator can fix
Monochrome1958 chromies' of Cruz-Diez in which an infinite variety of his gaze, no way in which he can reconstitute the re-
29⅛ x 13⅜ in.
coloured effects are decomposed and recomposed, or assuring limits of a clearly defined volume. The very
Galerie lolas, Paris
again with the 'vibratory surfaces' of Alviani etc., the notion of mass, the position and stability of volumes in
spectator does become directly involved. He is either space, are questioned. Soto's Vibrations, which through
asked to move across in front of the work in order to the years have become more and more ethereal, imma-
obtain an impression of the destruction of forms, or else terial, are certainly one of the most successful artistic
a continual process of transformation takes place in front attempts at total destruction of form.
of him, eliminating all finite quality in the surfaces; Intervention of time, intervention by the spectator:
time conditions the interpretation of the work. An event since 1953 a growing number of original works have
is played out in time and the spectator is himself involved called upon these two new possibilities. Some, the heirs
in time. Some artists like Soto and Sobrino have also of Gabo's work in the 1920s, try to create changing vol-
created structures which speculate on the ambiguity umes through the acceleration of rotary movement.
between two- and three-dimensional compositions : works Others, like Bury, make use of disturbingly slow move-
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