Page 51 - Studio International - February 1968

PARIS

commentary by
Paul Waldo Schwartz

Sculpture at Creuzevault; Larry Bell at
Ileana Sonnabend; Takis at Claude
Givaudan; Etienne-Martin at Michel
Couturier and Claude Givaudan;
German painters at Claude Bernard;
Matta at lolas; Music at Galerie de
France

These months have been, if not the winter of our
discontent, at least a season of reservation and
scepticism. For once, there have been no declara-
tions about art's death nor any steel-edged mani-
festoes about its future. The mood has been muted,
pessimistic in some quarters, hopeful in others, and
marked by a troubled patience.
Politics are never altogether irrelevant here. The
idea persists that since the present moment with its
international spasms, frayed nerves, social crises
and material excess feels and smells like a pre-war
epoch, it may actually be one. And then, while the
main currents of power are located abroad and
beyond human ken anyway, the General has made
crystal clear that the government at home is a
mirage too, the reflection of his personal magic. A
feeling of personal impotence results.
As to the galleries themselves, there may be rele-
vance in the fact that only a few years ago the city
was still trying to fit such men as Manessier,
Lanskoy, Soulages or Mathieu into the privileged
fold of l'Ecole de Paris. It did not work, which has
become evident to almost everyone without ulterior
motives for thinking it did, and the reason it did
not has to do with an abyss between a mannerism
or stylistic effloresence on the one hand, and genuine
revelation on the other. In practice, that style
epidemic may have resulted in a general innocula-
tion. So that other stylistic promptings are slow in
their contagion.
GALERIE CREUZEVAULT, for example, calls its large
and lively sculpture anthology a 'Table of Orienta-
tion for a Sculpture of Today'. There is tact in
that, and recognition of the importance of orienta-
tion, though the term—like mental health or good
digestion—only arises when something is amiss.
The old masters, like Picasso, Gris, Laurens,
Duchamp, tend to be represented in their more
playful moments, which helps retain a balance
before some of the later speculations, such as Cesar's
mechanically enlarged thumb, or Kijno's assem-
blages of spherical cork components, or Bellmer's
encaged and mirrored torso. Then there are the
darker meditations, such as Ubac's moving slate
Top, Kijno Structure 21 1966
spheres of cork, 15 x 10 in.
Galerie Creuzevault, Paris
Right, Larry Bell Pink with chrome bands 1965
glass and chrome, 31 x 31 x 31 in.
Galerie Ileana Sonnabend, Paris