Page 65 - Studio International - July/August 1967

alternatively, can also read flat. The splay of control of the artist. Despite the freedom of colour date—is brimming with sketches, incidental works
forms away from the sombre centre are, oddly, —not related in any orthodox system—the painting and mammoth canvas sculptures on themes he has
coloured bronze and dense pink: not the high hangs together by means of a few pinks, red- effectively broadcast in articles, broadsides, and a
plastic hues of urban New York, but the hieratic oranges and mauves that form an infra-structure. lengthy mimeographed listing of his recent
reminders of early Renaissance solemnity. Leo- Schapiro's collages are flat, smooth and often calendar achievements. Flitting from Scandi-
nardo's predellas, Piero's frescoes, are brought into appear printed rather than pasted. When she uses navia to Britain to New York and God knows
unlikely but credible relationships with the power golds, pinks, bronzes and other opulent and 'non- where else, Oldenburg manages to turn out such
and desolation of a twentieth-century urban modern' colours she is at her best, since a note of a volume of work that the individual pieces no
vision. mystery inevitably enters. longer seem significant to me. What counts is the
Quite different in mood is Byzantium, the largest phenomenal will and the stamina to produce. He
painting in the exhibition. The piledriving major is much like the fictional Tintoretto so pains-
forms suspended from the upper boundary offer an I hesitate to add more words and printed space to takingly created by Jean-Paul Sartre. New York,
illusion of impending occlusion at first, but the Claes Oldenburg who, it seems to me, is filling up like Venice, is not sufficiently grateful, and Olden-
viewer soon senses that the spaces are quite in- the world with himself quite effectively without the burg's dreams of monuments (a giant cigarette
commensurate with the shapes; the colours anta- aid of others. But that is just what impresses me, butt or drainpipe in Central Park) have not yet
gonistic; the composition piquantly awry. The this gargantuan energy, this drive to leave no been honoured. But given his explosive vitality, I
lower forms crowd forward unreasonably but corner of the Western world unvisited by his shall not be surprised if one day children are clam-
effectively, and the whole is a whole only through blunt but powerful personality. bering up a gigantic fag-end instead of some
the considerable skill at deception and perspectival His exhibition at JANIs—by far the most grand to equestrian general. q

WASHINGTON and
DETROIT

commentary by Gene Baro

Some angles on the New York scene:
30th Biennal at the Corcoran and 'Color,
Image and Form' at the Detroit Institute

Since World War II, New York has become the
centre of the international art market, particularly
where twentieth-century art is concerned. New
York has also become the centre where much—
some would say all—of the vital art of the moment
is produced. From the vantage of a few streets in
Manhattan, the brilliant artistic present encroaches
on the future—just as soon as the new season's shows
can be mounted.
It's a matter of indifference whether wealth pur-
sued talent to the Madison Avenue galleries or the
Morris Louis Alpha-Gamma 1960-1, acrylic on canvas, 105 x 145 in.
chase went the other way round. Post-war New
York possessed the conditions to make and sustain
a booming art market. Given certain factors, the ing market, the intense competition, the substantial What is even more interesting, the scene is almost
boom was self-generating. Wise and easy money rewards to be won, have created a Babel of claims impossible to keep up with, however serious one's
was a constituent; a large population of artists of and counter-claims. Vested interests have been intentions. There are too many shows in too many
determination and ability was another; moribund hard at work, making false distinctions and ob- galleries for any one reviewer or critic to cover. For
Europe was a third. New York was assisted by the literating real ones. Instant art history has offered that matter, there are too many creditable and
presence of numbers of distinguished refugees from the answers to questions yet to be properly phrased. even important artists without galleries, too many
the Continental art capitals (many of these had There is a contentment with approximations, but talented youngsters at the heels of those just ahead.
passed unhappily through London, neglected there, also a love of extreme positions. In some minds, And this is only New York, let's not forget it. There
if not precisely rejected). Another factor: the mass novelty and originality are by now permanently is the broad country just beyond, with its multi-
media had begun, really for the first time, to make confused. In others, a reasonable partisanship has tudes of local claimants, all in a sense New York-
New York the cultural capital of the United States. firmed under pressure of attack into inflexible bound.
A generally affluent and cosmopolitan citizenry dogma. Still others don't care. 'Getting with' the Undoubtedly, this is an age of the visual arts in
provided an audience that proved to be eager. art scene in New York has some of the exhilarating America. The problem is to disentangle the viable
A consequence of the boom has been the disrup- self-abandon of a Bank Holiday weekend at Black- developments from the mere exhuberant commit-
tion of standards barely in formation. The enlarg- pool or Brighton. ments to visual culture that such a time produces