Page 41 - Studio International - February 1968

I begin this short note by referring to three events in the designer, sculptor, painter, teacher, publicist and politi-
late 50s which had some effect upon me and which are cian, one whose work and thought has had a great influ-
relative to my interest in the work of and friendship with ence on the art of both hemispheres. Camille Graeser, an
Richard Lohse. The first was my discovery of the writings older man, has concentrated on pure painting, on, so it
of Paul Klee which had just been published in Switzer- seems to me, the development of his great sensibility.
land under the title Das bildnerische Denken. Analytical (Later works of his which I saw in 1964 were more
study of works by Klee had lead me towards an under- exciting to me then than any by American abstract
standing of him as a constructing artist and this book artists.) Lohse has grown with his system, not as slave
gave confirmation and, much more than that, stimulating but as student and master. This concentration has been
material. Here was objective building, one event upon his strength. There was a time when the sequential
the next, which appears to have influenced in music com- nature of a work was more closely analogous to music,
posers like Messiaen, Boulez and Stockhausen. which, I believe, was his intent. But in his progression the
About this time there was an exhibition 'Swiss Design' pictorial plastic sufficiency of the work has grown. He
at the Ceylon Tea Centre in Regent Street in which, as has become increasingly the master of his means.
well as examples of household hardware, etc., there was The totality of his efforts (until the present time) seems
shown a small selection of paintings by a group of artists to be expressed in his words:
which included Max Bill, Camille Graeser, Richard `More and more the task of form is taken over by
Lohse and a younger man Karl Gerstner. I believe these colour, which shapes the rhythmic foundations of a com-
were the first actual paintings I had seen by any of these position by its differentiation.'
artists. The last named produced a book kalte Kunst? in `Colour shapes form.'
which the objective construction of works, through a `Form is anonymous.'
rational building method, by the above artists, as well as In some works Lohse may give to each colour an equal
Josef Albers and others, was demonstrated clearly by proportion of the whole area. Further, the work is
means of diagrams. divided in such a way that all the areas of one colour have
In this work is Lohse's Ten similar themes in five colours their exact counterpart in all the areas of each other
1946-7, in regard to which he has written a further colour. And yet further the sequential ordering of the
description of his method in English in an essay in group of areas of each colour is the same. In such systems—
Module, Symmetry, Proportion (edited by Gyorgy Kepes, and always the division of area and colour is important—
Studio Vista, London, 1966) from which all my quotations colour speaks with great force. Through the understand-
are taken. ing of the laws of anonymity and equivalence each
`The decisive task here was to activate the systematic coloured area achieves its own particular force, which,
sequence in such a way that a dynamic formulation is embedded in the interrelationship, the interlocking rhyth-
achieved and that the organizational principles arrange mic sequence, gives the power of the whole.
themselves in this process. This was the decisive artistic Lohse's regular, objective, working methods (always
aim. The principles had to be related to one another so with the horizontal and vertical, and the numerical
that their properties and capacities would supplement apportioning of colour and surface) produce remarkable
and permeate each other. On the basis of the first level of results. He makes an architecture from colour. His exhibi-
activity a second, third, and further levels of activity came into tion at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, seems to me
existence, and these are again co-ordinated with one another' now in memory to have been full of small, gay and lively
(my italics). paintings. His recent exhibition at the Galerie Denise
Construction is never merely an idea plastically Rene, Paris, was full of the power of colour and of order.
expressed nor a sequence of ideas dispassionately added
to one another, but nuclear growth. One speaks of
idea and plastic but right from the beginning these two
cannot be separated. From this process comes the final
appearance of the work which is not foreseen save
through judgement of the means and in the light of
former efforts.
`In the new development' writes Lohse 'the picture
cannot be completely formulated by using differently
oriented, similar elements. What is required instead are
values which have been systematically determined. These
constitute the starting point of all operations and the
basis for the entire formal structure, as if one of these values
were a single cell within a system of cells which still had to be
built, and in which each cell and the system of cells
constitute a congruent unit, a module.'
Throughout the years Lohse has developed his system,
or, it would be better to say, the powerful content of
system, through his profound understanding of value as Richard Paul Lohse's work is being shown at the Axiom Gallery,
something objective, capable of being measured and London, until February 17. Lohse recently exhibited at Galerie
organized by his will and feeling. Max Bill is architect, Denise René, Paris, and in 1961 at the Stedelijk, Amsterdam