Page 64 - Studio International - July/August 1967

familiarity which cannot be placed. Some shapes
are hard and resemble plastic appliances, but then
again, they seem soft and melting. This ambiguity
is stressed by Roth's canny composing. He often
gives his forms no defining boundary lines, allow-
ing them to be defined by the way their edges meet
the indefinable chroma of his atmosphere. And he
just as often draws a razor-sharp line in a scream-
ingly intense colour. Soft and hard, sharp and
recessive, then, are among the many ways Roth
induces contradictory illusions.
The word 'magic' turns up in several of Roth's
titles. An aura of symbolism hangs about his
paintings (not only his use of symmetry, typical of
orthodox symbolist painters, but also the specific
way he lets a central rectangle emanate light, for
instance, suggest a conscious manipulation of
symbolic traditions). In this he stubbornly bucks
the main tide which is sweeping away symbolic
imagery and making paintings into mute objects.
The spaces and queer objects he presents are
authentically hermetic, with all the abracadabra
that word implies, and extend worthy but now
generally neglected modern traditions.

There is something of the same stubborn will to
honour and use viable modern traditions intelli-
Miriam Schapiro
gently in Miriam Schapiro. Her new paintings at
Byzantium 1967
the EMMERICH GALLERY are firm statements of her
acrylic painting
108 x 90 in. belief in the vitality of easel painting. The funda-
mental task of the easel painter—to construct an
absolute space via illusion—is taken on with relish
by this painter who doesn't hesitate to allude in
her own special terms to whatever spatial experi-
persistently risen to his defense. Even now, many abstract painting. It was permissible to use several ences art history offers.
young artists of totally different formation recog- systems of perspective and even to invent clashing Most of her paintings in this show are about
nize in his work a vital, secret thrust into their lives perspectives within a single picture. And it was formal tensions and spatial illusions, stated bluntly,
where critics recognize only weaknesses of a tech- permissible to make each painting as though it forcefully. Where constructivism left off, particu-
nical or formal order. Where historians speak of were unique. In fact, it was mandatory. larly that brand of painting that flourished in the
his 'historical' place, and by that mean the sensa- From these permissions Roth has forged a tough hands of Lissitsky, she begins. Lissitsky's thrust
tion his drip paintings produced (or, as they prefer, and singularly ambiguous style. Because he uses forward from the picture plane is encountered
the 'revolution' he set in motion), artists recognize the brittle, hard surfaces and clean edges favoured again and again as Schapiro piles great elongated
something else—something less cataclysmic, and by the majority of painters of his generation, and blocks into the foreground and tilts them into the
more tenacious than a mere historical fact. They because his colour is keyed high and chemically viewer's space. Also, the tensions that defy gravity—
recognize the unsullied impulse to continue to intense—the age of plastics—his work superficially huge geometric forms pending from the upper edge
make art even when making art seems a trivial or takes its temporary place in this particular moment. of the canvas thrusting forward and down—are
hopeless occupation. They are not concerned with But within each painting Roth infuses a jarring reminiscent of the Russians in their first ecstatic
the 'embarrassments', since each artist knows only and sometimes baffling poetry that can only be encounter with the space that knows no ground-
too well how many embarrassments are stacked in associated with such painters as Magritte, early line and no horizon.
his own studio. They admire, as did Sweeney in Picabia and certain of the German fantasists. But the way Schapiro arrived at these tensions
his 1943 foreword, Pollock's 'independence, exu- There is even a touch of Picasso—those bony necessarily gives her paintings a different, and
berance and native sensibility.' effigies on the beaches—in his cold, pale-blue skies original, flavour. Her earlier pre-occupation with
and his nacreous horizons, but only the Picasso figuration, symbolism and association has not
Frank Roth, exhibiting at the MARTHA JACKSON responding to the surrealist atmosphere. waned. These plays with perspective and optical
GALLERY, had his first one-man exhibition when Roth leaves no doubt about his intention to con- illusion, achieved often in terms of colour, carry
he was around 22 years old and has been moving found and to provide both a shock and a lure in with them certain apparent associations. It is not
into prominence steadily ever since. Now he is just each painting. The spectator is confounded first hard to imagine the Sienese Palio, Renaissance
over 30, and can look back to several well- by the established 'air'—the sky-blue-pink melting altar-pieces, Byzantine architecture or Stravinsky
articulated phases—even styles—all flowing into atmosphere which sets the scene properly for ballet in these paintings. Games with perspectives,
the current emphatic and idiosyncratic work. fantasy or dream. He is shocked by the existence after all, have a rich history.
Roth was an art student in the mid-1950s and of forms that do not scan in any logical rhythm; Perhaps the most satisfactory fusion of abstract
registered the abstract expressionist impetus in his that are not exactly mechanical and not exactly painting principles and evocative imagery is a
first exhibition. Gradually he has hardened his organic; that are often repeated in a strangely large canvas titled The Great City. A blue-black
technique and clarified his palette, but a lingering bilateral-symmetric arrangement but even so don't plaza, framed and centred, is flanked by great
gratitude remains. What Roth gained, along with altogether seem the same; that are isolated in their terrace-like shapes that move to the canvas edge.
others of his generation, was a set of defined per- own corner and sometimes seem a million miles Through their diagonals, they seem to extend
missions. It was permissible, for instance, to use away. beyond. Each shape is framed in a three-
surrealist techniques of free association even in an The lure in most of Roth's paintings is a certain dimensional frame-like boundary which, seen
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