Page 52 - Studio International - February 1968
P. 52
surface of successive, rhythmic currents, or Dubuf- Below, Etienne-Martin Passementerie 1948 shows, at MICHEL COUTURIER and again at CLAUDE
fet's encrusted and all-menacing head, or Fautrier's mixed media GIVAUDAN—and if you pursue the point the last
almost archaic countenance in stone. Fautrier, Claude Givaudan, Paris line of defence is inevitably, `Mais quand-même,
incidentally, is all too little known as one of the c'est un sculpteur.' And that is undeniable even if
most gifted of post-war sculptors. Bottom, Degottex Horsphère diffuse 1967 the fact is often very marginally rather than cen-
Obviously, so diverse a group of self-sufficient 85+ x 51 in. trally demonstrated. The work is far from being
Galerie Jean Fournier, Paris
statements, with 51 sculptors in all, will not pro- universally convincing, but it does have savour and
duce an evident harmony. Only downstairs, in the there is perhaps something compelling about the
kinetic, electronic and synthetic sanctum does a untrammelled swim in those depths, the immersion
visible concensus prevail. Boto, Le Parc, Schoffer, in matter, and the fact that Etienne-Martin's forms
Takis, Vardanega manipulate what are probably are conceived in visceral profusion rather than
the reflections of contemporary power, the mys- stemmed by rigorous formal selection.
terious ergs and ohms, the scentless and finger- The Michel Couturier group is a general retro-
printless forms which like the atomic pile or the spective, whereas Claude Givaudan has joined
spaceship are as unfathomable as they are con- early, fetishistic objects of the forties with the most
temporary. The objects become very contemporary recent wood carvings. These last are dismal, far too
by dint of being highly if obliquely descriptive, the soft to fulfill the suggestions of their internal-
last thing they intend to be. They mean to be external shapes worked into the tall pillars. The
absolutely non-metaphorical, but that becomes earlier objects state their magical purposes suc-
impossible. Sooner or later, the optic nerve callouses cinctly and darkly in uncomfortable surfaces of
or adjusts and the mind has its way, so that it velvet, gold braid, sacking and rope. Oddly enough,
becomes easier to forget the relevance of metaphor they have been in the studio all this time as a
to Arp's very organic marble upstairs than to personal exploration and never meant for exhibi-
Schoffer's flickering mechanism downstairs. tion. They are hieratic, funereal and histrionic.
And the hulking curtain of a manteau at Michel
Now, Larry Bell's lambent cubes at GALERIE Couturier is in its own way a horror sequence. The
ILEANA SONNABEND manage very well by rigorously point is made; whereas the celebrated bronze
respecting the classic shape itself. They never Demeures ramble. Intended as evocative, architec-
depart from the Euclidean ideal, though the smooth tural masses, they become instead anti-architectural
faces are sometimes mirrored surfaces, sometimes since the mass tends to defeat articulation. The
transparent or sometimes translucent. Some of the power is diffused, the message booms up from the
cubes bear a single internal cube, a geometric depths and dissipates as it nears the surface. In
homunculus, so that like the château and its model effect, one only catches the tail end of the experience
in Albee's Tiny Alice each is as conceptually original —the near contradiction of something being at once
as the other. In like fashion, while Bell cannot robust and evanescent.
claim creative responsibility for the shape, neither
could Euclid. Both eulogize its properties.
What Degottex attempts at GALERIE JEAN FOUR-
As art, Bell's cube might be seen as a purely
NIER is instead to balance a precise shape with a
plastic reference, or metaphorical in the way of a
calculated diffusion. The shape is circular, a solar
fetish object, or as close to metaphysical as an
perimeter made to undulate outward across an
object can be. But any of those alternatives is
expanse of canvas. Degottex attends the circle as
immediately linked to Bell's fidelity to the fact of
faithfully as Bell respects the cube, and again, this
the pure cube. Imagination has been tethered, and
is the anchor of the experience. The spherical
once again there is the abiding, often frustrating,
emanations travel across an ethos either silvery or
theme in contemporary art of a thirst for contexts
burnished, and all the better for avoiding the auto-
beyond the self and beyond invention.
matic script or mock hieroglyphics which Degottex
It can be said that Takis goes all the way in this has been exploring in the past. Here, the focus is
far more convincing. He calls these Horsphère, and
direction with his `multiples' at GALERIE CLAUDE
well may intend no solar, lunar, sonar or radar
GIVAUDAN. The stuttering antenna, the hovering,
magnetic globe, the febrile indicator and the blink- reference. But again the metaphorical suggestion
ing eye of tungsten are now, be they sculpture or becomes an issue. Even while trying to suspend all
not, issued in editions, like prints. Most are editions ulterior association, one is left with the question
of 100, some are even unlimited. Which is a logical because the experience ends with three inquisitive
dots rather than with a period.
and entirely honest procedure. If nothing else, it
draws a sharp line between a sensibility that can
only be induced through the efforts of the human On the other hand, the six young German painters
hand in consort with the prompting consciousness, at GALERIE CLAUDE BERNARD, (Gernot Bubenick,
and an ideated kind which can properly be re- Konrad Klapheck, Peter Klasen, Dieter Krieg,
produced and multiplied without loss. In any Jens Lausen and Paul Wunderlich), all go for as
event, the procedure defines an issue. It may well delineated a statement with as definitive a period
do so by way of exaggeration, but any clarification as possible. Lausen may be the colourist, Bubenick
is welcome. more the linear man, Krieg and Klasen the most
Whereas, in various contrast, Etienne-Martin devoted to the suggestions of external phenomena,
sinks into a whole effluvium of metaphor, swims but all six seek out a specific gravity expressed in
about in it and emerges with a pearl here and vocabularies which are, whatever else they are,
masses of flotsam there. Argue against Etienne- explicit.
Martin in Paris—where he is on the line with two Krieg is a biology student who has emerged from
