Page 28 - Studio International - December 1969

The four artists whose work is the subject of relation to each other across a huge field. tear over the month. The bird seed grid was
this article were each given materials and a large It was the culmination of a continuous eaten with increasing rapidity by the bird pop-
area of gallery wall, floor or open ground in the development through the paintings of several ulation. Interactively, the custodian of this
Survey '69 'New Space' exhibition, at the CAMDEN years towards a more direct confrontation ecological work was a cat. The final result of
ARTS CENTRE. with the public. Joseph's paintings are, both the chemical boxes was similarly unpredic-
in essence and in fact, very much 'face to face' table. But as they are metal-lined they become
with the spectator. Their perfectly balanced encrusted and etched and might be shown in
areas of flat colour do not contain any illusion another way and at another time. In the
of depth and relate to the world and to the technique of etching, with which Herring is
people around them. In 1966 he made a 32- very familiar through his training at the
feet long wall painting, Colour Continuum, for Central School, it is the nature of change
Signals Gallery. This was, as the title indicates, which is vital. He has now extended this
a painting in which the colours, painted in process far beyond the confines of the copper
vertical stripes down the canvas, did not divi- plate. The universe is now the space and the
de the space unduly. They were reduced in material of his work. Herring's attitude is
In his painting Timothy Dreyer has been con- tone and the whole painting remained a unity. open-ended : 'I cannot allow precisely for what
cerned with the geometrical division of areas In the 'New Space' exhibition Joseph was will happen, but far more absorbing is the ad-
and colours on diagonally hung canvases. The given the whole volume of a 76 X 33 X 14- venture of learning from what does happen.
shapes are outgoing and related to such ex- feet gallery in which to place his new work. Information from Nature, a recognizable
periences as travel by compass-line and sun Basically, this was a free-standing yellow wall theme in the History of Art, becomes impor-
in a primordial landscape. On the walls of a 6 feet high which could be walked around. It tant at first hand.'
conventional room these paintings were con- invited people to be with it rather than to look Whereas Ed Herring is concerned with
strained. It was when they were first shown into it or even at it. This is because his paint- extensions of unstable material, David Parsons
outdoors, hung on a tree, that they assumed a ings, by virtue of their strong combination of is concerned with propositions in stable
new importance. Instantly, the flat surface pure colour and shape, exist in a very real structure. Like the other three artists he has
gained a contrast value with the solid world sense. In Joseph's own words: 'The work I do recently discovered the effect his work has on
seen behind it, whilst the shapes within the is only successful when it operates outside its the external environment. The right-angled
canvas were in harmony with those of the boundaries, in real space. Something like a grid structures which he has made in the last
leaves of the tree. It was a significant con- signal I suppose. I don't wish to create any two years discipline any landscape around
frontation, and led to a variable work shown situation where the canvas is looked into only, them through the regularity of their form.
on the lawn at Kenwood in May this year. and contained within its edges as a separate Their visual relation to contemporary archi-
150 flat pieces of four different colours were illusionist world from actual space. The paint- tecture is taken further by the tactile quality
cut out of board and placed on the surface of ing must be a fact that involves itself in a real of their hammer finish.
a walled garden for the public to move and situation.' When Parsons took these works out into the
arrange at will. The curved geometrical shapes This revelation of fact is also the philosophical hilly land of Heaton Park near Manchester,
were thus removed from the more strictly vis- basis of the work of Ed Herring and David he found as he says that 'The grid, initially
ual area of his paintings and spread out on Parsons. In the exhibition they shared the intended to be a standing object, radically
the most public and tactile area of all—the public open space immediately north of the altered its personality when laid flat, likewise
ground. Camden Arts Centre. Ed Herring's work was when leaning at an angle of sixty degrees. . . .
Moonfield, shown on the floor of the Camden shown on a large sloping area. It consisted of Flatness became a proposition, the floor or
Arts Centre, was an interior development of twenty sealed perspex boxes containing five ground a defined area in which to work.' Two
this experiment under static light conditions. basic water-sensitive chemicals. These react of these grid structures and the latest work
Again, it could also be experienced through to rain water which is routed through them by which is literally a floor, were placed on the
the handling of the shapes, their placing, and a drainage system. The reaction was an flat lower surface of the public open space in
the contact of the feet. Elements that were immediate creation of colour through crys- the 'New Space' show. They emphasized the
`locked up' in the canvas painting could now tallization. Condensation formed on the surface basic character of the land there, its singular
be worked with by the public. As Dreyer des- of the perspex. The situation was one of visual flatness in the area, and gravity itself. Their
cribes it: 'In these paintings aesthetic choices and structural change caused by weather var- mute stability on this surface was in contrast
were progressively replaced or limited (and iations over a month. to the noise and movement of the neigh-
so made more crucial) by geometrical During the past two years Herring has bouring traffic on the six-lane road, with its
demands. The result was that the shapes I realized a series of widely varying schemes of long slope to the North. Art as real space and
used had a large number of geometrical this nature. The Tea-Bag Piece located on the structure was subject to constant light-change
relationships between them that could not be moors near Belmont in Lancashire through- in this setting and the opportunity to see this
turned to account in a single painting. The out the winter of 68/9 was a forerunner of the process over the range of twenty-four hours
next step, of cutting these shapes out of board scheme at Camden. A group of polythene at Camden was also of significance.
and thus liberating them from the canvas, bags each containing a measured quantity of Parsons, Herring, Joseph and Dreyer made
allowed these strict theorem-like relations to stream water and a tea bag, were fixed to a these works specially for the exhibition. As
be felt in the physical handling of the shapes; tree. The particular effects of condensation, they share this desire to work on a large public
more importantly, the differing degrees and evaporation and frost were noted on several scale with many other contemporaries, the
ambiguities of directionality of the shapes visits to the area over the winter. responsibility of arts administrators and of all
meant that any arrangement of them, however In the summer of this year Herring made two civic authorities is clear.
scattered at random, had some perceptible works for the 'Environments Reversal' show In the prevailing climate of social frustration
structure.' at Camden. These were a 1,000-feet canvas it will be necessary to invite such artists to
Peter Joseph also made a large-scale work in strip which connected the gallery with the carry out community projects, for through the
the scheme at Kenwood which he organized open space, and a grid of bird seed on the primary language of art all people are in many
with Timothy Dreyer. This consisted of three ground. The canvas strip was walked on as a ways admitted into the nature of freedom
fibreglass discs 7 feet in diameter placed in path and sustained variations of wear and through creation. □