Page 67 - Studio International - July/August 1967

Left Thomas Downing Infanta sideways 1966
acrylic, 93 x 288 in.
Below left Gene Davis Black popcorn 1965
acrylic, 114 x 114 in.
Below centre Helen Fran kenthaler Three color space
1966
acrylic, 92½ x 94 in.
Below Anuszkiewicz Convexity 1966
oil on canvas, 72 x 72 in.

the Corcoran. What was most striking was the As I have already indicated, scale was a unifying to the Detroit 'Friends' committee. Yet what
visual consistency of this large exhibition, achieved element. The artists shown have thought large, struck me in the initial stages of discussion is
by miscellaneous procedures. A good many modes even when their paintings were relatively small. pertinent; the interest of the committee in showing
were represented, from mimimal abstraction to But size and shape were often accepted as a neces- the work of artists within a particular range of
realistic figuration. The point is that the paintings sary adjunct or clear consequence of scale; there sensibility—though sensibility was not, of course,
seemed to belong together. They were one in their was little evidence of a desire to make pictures of the issue. There were perhaps one or two figures
understatement, in their intellectualism, in their convenient dimensions. To an unusual degree, the who did not seem to belong; but apart from these
generous scale. It was as if one were witnessing the statement was allowed to have, or to find, the form there was a remarkable consistency, even as among
emergence of a national sensibility, a way of look- proper to it. painters and sculptors (both were represented).
ing at things that comprehends differences in style Size and shape are increasingly important as It is more important that the committee arrived
and subject matter. What, for instance, seemed effective elements in contemporary painting—not at its list than how it did. In fact, it had all of New
permissible in the handling of paint was within a that this issue can be abstracted easily from the York—all of contemporary art—to choose from; but
definable range; it didn't appear to matter whole. Barnett Newman's exquisiteness of propor- the committee wanted for the most part art of a
whether the painter came from New York or tion (inseparable from his sense of colour) comes to certain kind—the sort of American art I have been
from the hinterland, was a guest or had been a mind. Impressive at the Corcoran were Jules discussing in these pages.
competitor, his contribution demonstrated a dis- Olitski's sensitive verticles (related perhaps to The Detroit show shared seven painters with the
creet use of the medium. Where virtuosity was Newman's); Noland's long horizontals (for ex- Biennal. It included three artists who are not
involved, refinement must be involved also. The ample, Pause 1966, 36 x 192 in.), a departure for American—Anthony Caro, Richard Smith, and
painting of the present is the art of limiting. this artist; Stella's shaped canvases (e.g. Michelangelo Pistoletto—but whose work is closely
Conceptual painting, painting that must be 1966, 124 x 86 in.) that have developed into Moulton-ville related to recent American preoccupations. It
meticulously planned before brush is put to multiple series; and Thomas Downing's wall size offered sculpture (for instance, that of Tony
canvas, was an important part of this exhibition. Infanta sideways 1966, (93 x 288 in.), a tour de force Smith, Robert Morris, Donald Judd, George
One thinks of the contributions of Larry Poons, of majestic lightness. Brilliant use of the space Rickey, and Robert Smithson) whose impersonal
Frank Stella, John McLaughlin, Kenneth Noland, implied by the picture plane was made in canvases techniques, environmentalist tendency, and gener-
Agnes Martin, Thomas Downing. Perhaps this puts quite opposite apparently in both technique and ous scale found an analogue in many of the paint-
the case too strongly; still, the work of these effect, but close in understanding of the medium ings shown. But here again, it is not a matter of
painters does not indulge or easily accommodate (for instance, Gene Davis's Black popcorn 1965, separate paintings and sculptures and their
accidental effects; the pictorial energies are formal. 114 x 114 in., and Helen Frankenthaler's Three relationships, but of an over-riding attitude, a set
No less importantly represented, and certainly no color space 1966, 92} x 94 in.). of propositions that American art now makes
less forceful, was the painting that comes out of the `Color, Image and Form', an exhibition organ- visible, and that gives it its character.
opposite practice— the painting that is made by ized for The Friends of Modern Art at the DETROIT I am not saying that all American art fits this
knowing when to stop, that discovers formal INSTITUTE OF ARTS, offered a similar interpretation pattern, or even that all vital American art does. I
relationships in process (and not as intention). I (or definition) of viable developments within the am simply describing a phenomenon, an emergent
have in mind the work of Jules Olitski, Helen current American art scene to that proposed by the strain, that can fill the museums the country over
Frankenthaler, Friedel Dzubas, Theodore Stamos, Corcoran Biennal. I won't pronounce compara- with its restrained grandeur and cool intelligence—
and Gene Davis. tively on the two shows, as I was myself consultant and begins to be doing so.
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