Page 55 - Studio International - March 1967

confirmed my suspicion : The Noguchi, rightfully the artists who make prints. Their works are hung painted La Nuit Espagnole, and he was beginning in
exhibited close to the floor, was overlooked.) as background, willy-nilly, clearly indicating their an atmosphere charged with hostilities, both poli-
On the other hand, a floor piece with a diameter perennially inferior status in American art. Of tical and aesthetic. Hartlaub was already talking
of about ten feet by Alexander Liberman success- course, as the doctor said, don't worry, you have about the New Objectivity, and Grosz, Dix and
fully fought off the competition, making one of the an inferiority complex because you are inferior. Beckmann were making a point of their reaction
strongest showings in the exhibition. Liberman, Most of the prints seem to have been accumulated against sentimental expressionism. On the thres-
like many steel sculptors, is working with simple, rather than selected, and even in the case of accom- hold of the mad Jazz Age, and in the depths of the
spare elements, but unlike the majority, he is too plished artists, the work is not their best. The German depression, a young student would
vivid to be satisfied with a manifesto of stasis. His recent industrialization of the print industry has certainly have formed feeling habits that would
circular piece, with its turning axles confounding a not helped much. Quality is low; trickiness is the never entirely dissolve.
centre of gravity, and its unequal stationary posts, norm, and intimacy is all but extinguished. Of course, acerbic realism was only one of the
insists on turning. Despite its stationary concep- cross-influences in Lindner's formation. At various
tion, it wheels about in its allotted space, suggesting In a generally distinguished exhibition of modern points in his career, other sentiments have seemed
easily how beautiful it would be when placed in an masters at the SIDNEY JANIS GALLERY, there is a more salient. But in the year 1967, the formidable
appropriate outdoor setting. 1922 painting by Francis Picabia, La Nuit Espag- harshness of feeling characterizing Germany of the
This is also true, by the way, of Richard Stankie- nole, which invites comparison with the current early 1920's is ascendant in an uncanny way.
wicz's Wing Gong, a strong iron assemblage that exhibition of the work of Richard Lindner at the Because Lindner is a powerful artist, he does not
clearly belongs to the landscape. CORDIER & EKSTROM GALLERY. Picabia's painting, slip into a worn idiom. Rather, he points up his
The wrench of sensibility required to contemplate which must have raised many an eyebrow in its fusion of posterish colours (purples, scarlets,
Ed Kienholz's already widely exhibited inter- day, is almost innocuous in the light of Lindner's oranges) into a shrieking new language. His
pretation of surgical abortion is almost too much to mid-'sixties work. The target image Picabia uses exaggerations are chilling reminders of a kind of
bear. With complete indifference to climate and is a homely street-fair target. His silhouetted tango coarseness that has stolen into our chic life. Every-
emotional texture, the Whitney has installed the dancer is a classic poster type. And his play on thing is smooth, metallically turned, well-groomed
Kienholz along with about six other pieces, and black and white, negative and positive, is ele- and smart, and yet, the essence of vulgarity. A
everyone loses. Kienholz's strength dissipates when mentary. Bullet holes and all, the painting is far mini-skirted miniculture is his target. He is a
his work is removed from its context, as does the from sinister. master marksman.
meaning of Harold Paris who works most of the Lindner's paintings, on the other hand, with The perverse eroticism always present in Lindner's
time with ensembles, and here is seen with a single implicit rather than explicit violence underscored, imagery is more suggestive than ever. This has
baffling piece. What is the value of such presen- are his most sinister to date. Lindner was just led, inevitably, to a host of pseudo-psycho-analytic
tation ? The situation is a lot worse, however, for beginning his art school training when Picabia interpretations of the new paintings. He has been

Above, Francis Picabia La Nuit Espagnole 1922
Oil on canvas 59 x 71 7/8 in.
Right, Richard Lindner Hello 1966
Oil on canvas 70 x 60 in.
Facing page, Alexander Liberman Converging 1966
Painted steel 6 ft 3 in. x 9 ft 4 in. wide