Page 46 - Studio International - November 1968

Düsseldorf commentary

Prospect '68 - an international show-
case
Prospect '68 was the title of an exhibition staged in some time to come: Robert Morris, Carl Andre, Revolution Picturale by Pierre (Mao) Restany.
the Kunsthalle in Dusseldorf for one week at the Walter di Maria et al. Anarchy in the boudoir.
end of September. The organizers were Hans The participating English galleries hardly made Galerie Ileana Sonnabend, Paris, and Galleria
Strelow, a local critic, and Konrad Fischer, a a very strong case for the vitality of London as an Sperone, Turin, shared a selection of American
young artist and the owner of a small but extremely international art centre. Nicholas Munro's flock and Italian objects which, with few exceptions,
enterprising Dusseldorf gallery where the young of moronic fibreglass sheep occupied the entire demonstrated that art, to be good, has to be better
English sculptor Richard Long staged a strange space allocated to the Robert Fraser Gallery: a than odd. But there was at least in these, as in the
and poetic first one-man show. Prospect '68 was nice joke for what was obviously going to be some- best exhibits, a sense of open-minded enterprise.
billed as 'An international preview of art from the thing of a farmyard exhibition, but no substitute There is a particular, very. un-British excitement
world's galleries'. The organizers chose an inter- for the adventurous involvement with the avant about rampant uncritical avant-gardism. The
national committee of seven (English representa- garde which was at one time (it seems a long time Dwan Gallery's efficient display (the only
tive, Alan Bowness) who in turn selected sixteen ago) Fraser's really valuable contribution to Lon- American representation) looked cool and tough.
galleries to be given a room each. don as a centre for art. The Axiom Gallery showed Walter di Maria's bed of steel spikes looked more
Germany has no one centre for art and for exhibi- a very tasteful selection, but in exhibitions as mixed aggressive, in its dead-pan way, than the worst
tions, and in a sense every town is a provincial as this one was the quieter voices tend to get horrors from Paris, and Dan Flavin's neon tubes
town. The major cities vie with each other in the drowned out. Kasmin's mixed bag was unworthy looked detached and crisp.
cultural life they have to offer. No provincial town both of the gallery, which has usually been nothing But the show was stolen, for me, by the Wide
in England could afford now to build the kind of if not uncompromising, and of the artists it repre- White Space Gallery from Amsterdam, with a
modern collections which have been assembled sents. Two large sculptures by Roland Brenner, group of works by Joseph Beuys, at present a
within the last ten years by the Staadtsgalerie in which might have given the gallery's exhibit the professor at the Dusseldorf Art Academy. There
Stuttgart or at the Jagerhof in Düsseldorf; nor, for punch it needed to survive a few rounds with the were also one or two works by pupils of his (includ-
that matter, could the Tate. Indeed it is unlikely, more showy Europeans, were disastrously displayed ing Ruthenbeck). There was a great deal of highly
with a changed government, that these institutions outside the Kunsthalle in a welter of barriers and conceptual and literary work in Prospect '68, of a
will themselves be able to continue expanding their bad architecture. No doubt a better site was not kind to which I find it almost impossible to respond
collections at the present rate. But if there were no available, but the choice of exhibits was entirely in (Arakawa, Bruce Nauman, Raynaud etc.) : Beuys'
further additions to the Nordrhein-Westfahlen the dealers' hands (and at their expense) and there's art has its strong conceptual side, but it is sustained
collection which Dr Werner Schmalenbach has no point in taking work which cannot properly be by a highly idiosyncratic visual pungency and un-
hand-picked for the Jagerhof, it would always shown. expectedness. It is both alarming and hilarious.
remain a remarkable touchstone for quality in the It was disappointing to find that the English It was only right that the honours should have
painting of the first half of this century. galleries did not do themselves justice, but in fact gone to Düsseldorf itself and to Beuys, who appears
It was unfortunate, particularly for a visitor to the there was very little work of high quality in the to be so major a contributor to the vitality of art
country, that the inter-city rivalry should have entire exhibition. Quality didn't really seem to be in Dusseldorf and indeed in Germany as a whole.
robbed Prospect '68 of the possible participation of the point. France came off worst. My booby prize The Düsseldorf Art Academy is the scene of varied
all those German galleries that were showing at the went to the Yvonne Lambert Gallery with the and impressive activity, and a room at the Kunst-
Kunstmarkt in Cologne during October. The only execrable Malaval and giant breasts in scarlet and halle was reserved for an exhibition of the stu-
German gallery represented, Gallerie M. E. Thelen white by Cesar (the master enters a new period). dents' work. Two of Beuys' master students, not
from Essen, was showing one Italian, two Ameri- Consolation prize to Iris Clert for her 'Search for represented in the exhibition, have formed a two-
cans, an expatriate Englishman (Gerald Laing), a Rebirth' ; anyone reduced to showing Roy man group under the title IMI (Rainer Geise and
and Jann Haworth, an American living in London. Adzack under a title like that needs consolation. S. Knoebel) and have been producing ambitious
In fact it was something of a revelation to see how The Apollinaire Gallery of Milan had left bare its ultra-cool paintings and sculpture. It is an interest-
very cosmopolitan most of the continental galleries carpeted floor area but papered one corner up to ing reflection on the art market in Germany that
have become, and how much is shown on the the high ceiling with green stripes. The name Beuys' dealers have an instant sale for every object
Continent, particularly of work by American Daniel Buren was written on a small card pinned he produces.
artists, that is unlikely to be seen in London for to the wall next to a copy of Le Livre Rouge de la

Joseph Beuys Infiltration homogen für konzertflügel Reiner Ruthenbeck Ash heap with iron boxes
grand piano, felt and red cross, 59 x 111 in. diameter 59 in.