Page 39 - Studio International - April 1969

adjusted so that the overall size is just visually, The physical form of these artists' works seems or Grosvenor's. This is partially because of his
if not conceptually, comprehensible. And the almost representationally allusive to concepts. interest in cubic or crystalline modules, whose
difference between public and private scale of Smith's Moses and Willy are forms of distinctly various combinations make up the total vol-
his wall-drawings versus book-images is sen- anthropomorphic ideas; his Playground, The ume and determine the form of his works. In
sitively treated in relation to the character of wall and Stinger refer to architectural con- Free ride, three equal volumes are connected
the occasion manifesting his ideas. The size cepts. Bladen's cubic rectangles and triangles in such a way that they appear to be of differ-
of the permuted squares on the walls is some- play with representational allusions to geo- ent lengths; the modular concept plays against
place between traditional murals and panel- metric concepts; his approach to gravity is the perceived form in a manner which would
pictures, giving them the added character of also more representational (of the concept of interest Robert Morris. Modular form is also
ageless graffiti or sinopie. balance) than is Andre's or Morris's direct use the basis of Smith's Louisenburg series of paint-
But LeWitt's conceptual content extends be- of specific gravitational weight. And Grosven- ings, and, in crystalline form, of his Wandering
yond the limits of any exhibited manifestation. or's forms relate to gravity and tension through rocks. Smith's modules are more organic in
His wall-drawn squares at the Ace Gallery in a series of implications which might be called shape and context than LeWitt's, less poetically
Los Angeles in 1968 were only a few examples representational: their size and un-inflected material than Andre's: they seem related to
of squared-permutations-on-squares from a volume implies (represents) weight; their explorations made with his practised know-
system which is so grand that it includes four angular position in relation to ceiling or water ledge as an architect. In particular his work
series of such permutations. His Forty-seven implies (represents) the actual engineering with Frank Lloyd Wright, appreciation of
3-part variations of 3 different kinds of cubes at the force-tensions of their construction. simple cubic volumetric buildings like those of
1968 Documenta were only the most visually The most interesting question raised by Bla- a Southwest Indian Pueblo, and more con-
comprehensible variations selected from a den's and Grosvenor's work is 'how did he do temporary work with standardized architec-
comprehensively self-exhausting series. And it ?' The concealment of the answer may in- tural units seem relevant to his relatively
only 'Series A' of his Serial project number 1 was crease the validity of this question in the ex- traditional and constructional feeling for
exhibited at the Dwan in Los Angeles. perience of their work, but it does not change modularity.
LeWitt's concepts all relate to serial ordering, the fact that the character of this question is But this modular basis is only sensed in Smith's
in systems of alternation, consecutive addition, more technological than artistic. The most work; the form of the whole not only dominates
rotational change, and mirror-reflection. interesting artistic question is 'why do it that the parts (as in Morris's works), it swallows
Taking a square (which is the most flexible, size?' Once again the answer is not given them. The scale of the whole piece to its ex-
anonymous unit, and a plastic 'construct' in within the work itself: unlike even Morris, ternal context seems its most important size-
and of itself), LeWitt puts its rectilinear and they allow no junctures between parts to re- problem. But even here, Smith's sense of scale
numbered properties through such convolu- main as visible details establishing a sense of seems balanced and controlled. In general, if
tions that it is virtually impossible to compre- scale internal to the piece. The whole question a form has associations with architectural con-
hend the whole of his thought at any one time. of size in their work must be broached outside cepts, it tends to have a size closely related to
Even with one of his clearly articulate 'keys', the work itself: in its dramatic relation to the the human: the 6 ft. 8 in. height of Stinger's
one gets lost. For the more one follows his logic, size of its context and viewer. All of their work walls does much to focus its feeling as a non-
the more abstracted is one's experience from is larger than human size; as such, it partici- utilitarian architectural place on a person in-
everyday perceptions; and the experience pates (and competes) with architecture, from side. And if a form has anthropomorphic
of losing oneself in such an irrationally which it is differentiated primarily in its non- associations, like Moses, it tends to have a
followed logical system is essentially mystic. utilitarian nature. size more monumentally architectural. Thus
`Conceptual artists are mystics rather than Bladen's pieces are generally larger than, but Smith's works maintain a fairly simple balance
rationalists. They leap to conclusions that logic related to, human size. This association with as inhuman beings which act plastically in real
cannot reach' states LeWitt at the beginning the human provides, by implication, a sense of and everyday space. As such, they 'act' in a
of his 'Sentences on Conceptual Art' (Art- individual 'life' to them as free-standing ob- relationship with a viewer which one might
Language, No. 1, March 1969). LeWitt's mysti- jects. The almost-human size of his three term 'dramatic', if one's sense of theatre were
cism, unlike Bernini's and Mondrian's, is not cubic parallelograms and black triangle gives less restrictive than Michael Fried's.
representational or related to religion or them a looming sense of kinesthetic presence in Robert Grosvenor's works have a different,
nature. It is secular, with a syntax related to the life ofa viewer; but when his pieces become wildly romantic sort of drama. They swoop
computerized mathematics. Like Flavin's light gigantic (as in the Corcoran in 1966 or in the with the thrust of a Franz Kline brushstroke
qua light, Andre's place qua place, Judd's Whitney's 1968 annual exhibition of sculp- too grand for human control. The diagonal
material qua material, and Morris's form qua ture), they tend to be read as architectural drama of their expressionism relates to the
form, it is mysticism qua mysticism : cultureless, settings for more conceptually complex and work of Mark di Suvero; reproductions of
non-referential, and artistic in context and internally integrated human-sized works. di Suvero's work first inspired Grosvenor
content. Grosvenor's pieces are generally related to make sculpture when he was a G.I., and
The work of Tony Smith, Ron Bladen, and more to architectural size. They work well the two artists are good friends. Gros-
Robert Grosvenor seems less conceptually rich out of doors, imposed on landscape like venor's bright enamelled colours and smooth-
than that of Judd, Flavin, Morris, Andre, or some cosmic human gesture or related to a total ly simple planar volumes are more related
LeWitt. This is partly because Smith, Bladen architectural volume like New York Univer- to the early 1960s' work of John Cham-
and Grosvenor seem not to explore the impli- sity's Loeb Student Center. But inside, they are berlain and Robert Morris, who worked in the
cations of particular materials for the physical sometimes drowned by their context. Being same building as Grosvenor when he first went
form of their work. (They are even willing to related to the general scale of architectural to New York. But the sense of natural force in
exhibit full-scale pieces in plywood `mock-up' volume rather than to its details, they risk space and material is unique to Grosvenor, and
when steel or aluminium is financially imprac- seeming less particularized than the architec- it is not surprising to find that he is a passionate
ticable.) 'Size' and 'form' constitute their ture itself; and when crowded by other sculp- and knowledgeable sailor. Surely the sailor's
primary decisions : sufficiently generalized ture in group exhibitions like the populous intuitive sense of stress and strain related to
problems to make for necessarily intuitive Whitney annual, their ceiling attachment cosmic natural forces helps Grosvenor in the
(more arbitrary) decisions in individual works, seems primarily due to lack of floor space. construction of his work; and his present work
increasing a potential uneveness in overall The size of Tony Smith's work seems much for an oceanic site uses particular nautical
results. more internally integrated than either Bladen's engineering: a system of weighted buoys main-