Page 55 - Studio International - June 1968
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I'm afraid that there is no one to blame, since the Isamu Noguchi Woman with child 1959 Isamu Noguchi at the WHITNEY MUSEUM offers rich
history this exhibition signals is not one but many Whitney Museum, New York evidence. Noguchi has never slotted himself in any
histories, some of which are still open, but others of modern tradition, although he has drawn on many,
which are irrevocably closed. The great adven- including the surrealist tradition. For several years
turism of the intellectuals around Breton in the during the 1940s, he pursued the mythic imagery
political era, for instance, has only the weakest of favoured by Surrealists, injecting it into his sets for
response in artistic circles today. No amount of Martha Graham's dance troupe as well as into the
hopeful propagandizing has been able to bestir the slab-marble sculptures in which biomorphic shapes
same passionate political stance that once ripped and bone shapes suggested classical surrealist
through the ranks of the Surrealists. The butchery metamorphoses.
that inspired George Grosz and John Heartfield is Even if finally Noguchi must be seen as an isolated
still around, but the responses are considerably figure, literally carving his way into a personal
muted—witness Rosenquist's F-iii at the Metro- realm which has no analogues, the surrealist cli-
politan Museum. mate in which much of his best work was done
Even the shocking spectacle, at which the old helped to open him to his own inner resources. If
masters were masters, has little hope of success the intellectual grounds on which Calas justifiably
today. Supposing the museum had tried to re-create insists are considered, Noguchi belongs properly to
the atmosphere of scandal so dear to Breton's that group (which includes the Abstract Expres-
heart? Who would have been scandalized? Scan- sionists) that could depart from established
dal is a way of life so much taken for granted in ideologies and choose freely among varied sources—
America that the best-intentioned artist would be an option established by the Surrealists.
hard put to find a root definition of the term. Noguchi's choices are superbly set forth in this
If the two movements were, in at least one of their exhibition. I have long thought of him as a major
histories, ethical movements, designed to dose sculptor and needed no convincing. But seeing the
society homeopathically (`the art of curing founded range of his inventions, both practical and aesthetic,
on resemblances'), their success was also their and recognizing a regenerative pattern in which
failure, for the cure goes on and on, but the diseases Noguchi works in one medium for a time, perfects
also go on and on. And what is more, the resem- his vocabulary in it, and then moves on to refresh
blances are so close, by this time, that no one can himself in another, was a very positive experience.
pretend that art and society are distinct entities. Although I respond to almost all of Noguchi's
What so many expected of this exhibition was experiments with admiration, I believe that his
catharsis. What they got was an honest evaluation highest achievement is his stone sculpture. I can
of a simple question: did the procedures of the think of no other living artist who has the insight—
Dadas and Surrealists ever result in art ? Inevitably and I use this word absolutely literally—to fashion
the answer is yes, and no amount of romantic hope stone. Noguchi has a kind of divining-rod aptitude.
and anti-bourgeois passion can demolish that fact. He can quarry for his materials, judge their
Perhaps it is sad that so many marvellous men or structure and their living interiors, and find a
so many men of marvels could be tricked by history precise quality as he wills.
into making the opposite of what they claimed; but Since most of his stones are marbles, Noguchi
they were and did. works for maximum contrast between rough and
It is true that of the many histories the movements smooth, dark and light, grain and no grain. It is a
engendered the one that interests the museum is marvellous mystery to me to contemplate, for
the history of inherent style, viewed more or less instance, a large red Persian travertine piece, with
aesthetically. That is why Rubin included so many its suggestive keyhole centre, and find a cascading
superb works by Miró, and quite a few by Picasso, pattern of graining on its flank. How did he know
as well as very carefully chosen items by Arp, it was there, and how was he able to cut so pre-
Hausmann, Man Ray, Schwitters, Picabia and cisely in order to make of this pink downward flow
Gorky, while overlooking scores of active members an integral part of his composition? Again and
in the surrealist confraternity in Paris both before again Noguchi finds his vein and skillfully exploits
and after the Second World War. It is also why the it, much as certain Surrealists exploited natural lore
little didactic anthology on surrealist techniques is or accident.
largely dominated by Max Ernst. Noguchi's great contribution is his ability to
But why should it be otherwise ? There is always exploit an ancient technique, and an ancient
a history within history of art, and it is the history material, and derive modern results. No one of his
of individual works that in any setting, at any time, large marbles would be out of place in any con-
speak of the power of their creator. That Miró temporary environment. They partake of all
belongs as much to the interior history of painting— experience and will probably survive when other
painting, as much to the line of Matisse as to the more pointedly modern works are considered
line of Breton, doesn't diminish his surrealist period pieces.
powers or the sources which inspired him.
In presenting this interior history isolated from all George Sugarman, an American sculptor of the
the other histories, the museum is not attempting next generation, has just exhibited new, and con-
to embalm two living movements, but to assert the siderably refined wood sculptures at the FISCHBACH
far-reaching character of the works of art these GALLERY. For a long time Sugarman has been the
movements sponsored. The absence of invention in lone survivor of a heady abstract expressionist
installation will not dim the impact of Miró's aesthetic in which sculpture was open to every
paintings of the 1920s, or Grosz's World War I whim and in which form was considered a secon-
collages. The childish disappointment registered by dary affair. His last large exhibition was an
writers and art students shows them to be victims exuberant demonstration of unrhyming colour,
of romanticism. A good dialectician, as Breton often wilfully extended forms, and general disdain for
was, would understand that no synthesis is ever structural principle.
final. Antithesis— that part of the Hegelian and In this exhibition, however, Sugarman shows
Freudian dialectic most cherished by lovers of laminated wood pieces, discreetly painted, in
Surrealism—is only a part of the story. And the which his intention is clearly formal. His large
story goes on; but it will go on from here, or it will yellow sculpture—two freestanding structures re-
not go on at all. sembling a rib cage in their disposition—is simple
If the stylistic impact of Surrealism is in question, almost to the point of austerity. Other pieces show
the first retrospective exhibition of the work of him carefully shaping an interior void, playing
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