Page 51 - Studio International - March 1968

NEW YORK Vasarely's position as an example of the dangerous of one diagonal in a parallelogram as smaller than
France. Defenders of the painting faith cite
another diagonal, although both are measurably
commentary by Dore Ashton decline of individuality in art. The future of paint- equal. His familiarity with perspective illusions
ing is in jeopardy, they say, when an artist as based either on linear or contrast of light and dark
important as Vasarely subverts the principle of the patterns is obvious. But if we were to isolate these
unique in art. established optical phenomena, they would be
Judging by Vasarely's recent exhibition at the nothing more than the schematic diagrams found
SIDNEY JANIS GALLERY, however, they needn't be in books on optical illusion.
alarmed. The fact is that Vasarely is still at his best The old idea that a painting is complete when
when he produces hand-painted paintings. The nothing could be taken away can easily be adapted
Vasarely at Sidney Janis; Abe Ajay at difference between the recent tempera and oil paint- to Vasarely's paintings. If you were to take away
Rose Fried; Larry Zox at Kornblee; ings, and the reproductions he has issued at various the faint textures produced by his brush (as any
Hedda Sterne at Betty Parsons; Hartley times, is still very great. Either the technological `re-creation' would, since it would re-create only
at Knoedler; Maurer at Babcock. means are not yet at hand, or Vasarely secretly the final surface), the painting would be no more
knows that nothing can replace the experience of than an extremely clever design. If you were to
creating, stroke by stroke, and inch by inch, a take away the infinitesimal colour contrasts,
painting. effected with such wizardry, the paintings would
For all his stern commitment to technology, He consoles himself for the technological gap by emerge unbalanced, blatant, as they do in colour
Victor Vasarely has not yet realized his dream of considering his paintings 'prototypes'. Theoreti- reproductions of his work.
an art no longer dependent on the artist's hand. A cally, when the time comes, they will be 're- The process of painting itself, issuing from the
prolific manifesto writer, Vasarely has repeatedly created' by industrial means. It is certain though artist's experience and sensibility, is as irreplace-
insisted that the art he envisions can be mass that these particular paintings—the most complex able to Vasarely as it is to less rigorously technolo-
produced; that industrialization is a boon to the of his career—could never be seconded effectively. gical painters.
artist, and that finally, there will exist a master list He could, of course, extract an alphabet of forms, Vasarely deals with two basic kinds of illusion.
of forms—or an ABC of forms—that could be or, as he prefers, 'form-colours', from the paintings. The one is given in frankly two-dimensional terms,
applied extensively in urban design. Many of his compositions are based on casebook depending on shape to produce movement. The
His polemic in support of mass production in examples of geometrical illusion. He exploits many other is in terms of reversible readings of cube
visual art has occasioned considerable anxiety in well-known tricks of the eye, such as the reading structures, suggesting a palpable third dimension.

Above
Hedda Sterne Metamorphoses 1967
Oil on canvas, 72 x 52 in.
Betty Parsons Gallery, New York
Left
Vasarely Proton MC 1967
Oil on canvas, 65 x 65 in.
Sidney Janis Gallery, New York