Page 45 - Studio International - December 1969

has reinstated, under the impulse of the at different speeds and could be arrested in At the LISSON GALLERY, in the centre of a
Nouvelle Tendance, a concealed reference to their course. Such a view of the way in which square room with pale-grey breeze-block
the natural world under the guise of optical a basic scheme can be progressively altered walls, hangs a swing. It may not seem an
effects. It is certainly true that the effects of by variations of this type is offered by Fran- unusual swing at first, except that it hangs
repetition over a plane surface, especially when cois Molnar's contribution to Data, which from a skylight and that its seat is golden. The
reinforced by colour, material and light, can displays the increasing information content concrete floor is covered with dry autumn
be equated with effects of repetition which of a stochastic composition according to the leaves, some of which are painted gold. From
involve similar colours, materials and lights. altered position of one, five, thirty and fifty the ceiling, at irregular intervals, hang cords
Fields of waving corn, shoals of fish, flocks of percent of its elements. But Molnar specifically with a transparent plastic coating of red,
wild geese—all demonstrate certain pheno- excludes 'aesthetic value' at this point and yellow and white. The room is called 'Life
mena of unity in diversity that are, up to a sees his investigation as purely phenomeno- Station' and annotated as follows: 1. swing—
point, interchangeable with the phenomena logical. childhood (nobility) ; 2. cord—the link (pre-
occurring around repeated units on a plane Where then does this 'aesthetic value' reside, sent) ; 3. leaves—age (autumn). The room has
surface. But the success of such works if considerations of information content can a contemplative quality which cannot be
obviously cannot be judged on the basis of be shown to illuminate only the mechanics of explained by saying that one can hardly go
whether or not such an equation can be made, constructive art? We must at least concede wrong with autumn leaves. It is artless and
according to the personal whim of artist, that it resides in the individual work, and in uncontrived and whatever aesthetic quality
spectator or critic. It must surely depend upon the individual work considered apart from the one might find there is not due to any
the extent to which the artist provides in- figmentary ideal model of which it might be deliberate association of forms or colours or
sight into the perceptual mechanism that considered a variant. A point of possible textures, but simply the results of an associa-
reacts to both phenomena: the extent to interest in this connection is the fact that tion of objects each one of which means some-
which he makes us conscious of this mecha- Anthony Hill's 8=8 series carefully con- thing quite specific in relation to the rest. It is
nism in the privileged situation of the work of centrates all elements in one section of the in connection with this rather simple and
art. picture plane, and so gives the works an mysterious room and other equally simple and
This suggests at least a possible way of appearance of arbitrariness that effectively puzzling works of Li Yuan-chia that it is
approaching works such as Anthony Hill's counteracts this tendency. interesting to consider what art does when it
Relief Construction H2 series. In the article pre- But this is to lay too much weight on the sub- does not do precisely what it is supposed to do
viously quoted, he refers with approval to jective impressions of the spectator, and this according to the functions assigned to the
Rashevsky's statement: 'It is . . . possible for same series demonstrates in a much more different art movements which have a
an aggregate of identical physically in- fundamental way the means whereby the theoretical or ideological basis.
distinguishable units to have a large informa- artist may establish unity beyond actual or All art which has figurative references and
tion content. The units in this case, though potential variants. Anthony Hill concludes makes use of objects or images we recognize
indistinguishable physically, are different his contribution to Data with the reminder deals, or is supposed to deal, with representa-
through the difference of their relations to that 'metrical symmetry' may indeed in- tion, imitation or denotation, apart from
each other.' Clearly the relief construction volve viewing the work as 'relative to an symbolism. I doubt if Li has ever thought of
illustrated demonstrates this property, as it absolute', but that 'topological symmetry' these categories; if so, he would probably find
also demonstrates the possibility of a law of which is concerned not with measurements them totally irrelevant to what he does, not
diminishing returns as far as 'information but with 'the order involved in the placing of that we are very clear about these terms
content' is concerned. If these identical and one thing in relation to another', is at all ourselves. Representation, for instance, does
regularly mounted units were arranged so times an `absolute and invariant quality'. not need to imply a figurative solution,
that clear lines of parallel figures could be Hence we reach the possibility of an order imitation rarely convinces, and denotation
obtained, the complexity and interest of the that is not measured on the surface, but in art is unlikely to be direct enough to be
work would diminish considerably. At the exists in the genesis of the work as a mathe- isolated. Li's work would appear to deal with
same time, the artist has clearly reached a matical concept, and itself engenders the concepts such as these only in so far as the
point verging upon maximum complexity, final schema. In Anthony Hill's words, the elements he uses are recognizable and the
beyond which it would be necessary to start `theme' begets a 'subsidiary theme', and this references he makes are familiar. He uses some
altering the linear grid or the angles within subsidiary theme begets a 'collective idea'. very common, in the sense of cheap and easy-
the units, and so destroy the armature that As early as 1930, in his manifesto of Concrete to-come-by, things and shapes and colours, in
underlies the existing variation. It even looks Art, van Doesburg predicted the close con- a poetic way. Alternatively one could say that
as if the chromatic accents on the nearside junction of constructive art and mathematics. he misuses them, or that he makes metaphors.
edges of the units are absolutely necessary to While many of the ideas of that date have He commented on his own work as follows :
the maintenance of this balance between com- either become debased into cant phrases or `If you ask me where my art is going after
plexity and chaos, since they provide an withered away through lack of material sup- today, my answer is "Toyart", which means:
additional and more schematic set of variants port, this notion is very far from being my works seem like "toy" —good for everyone,
to overlay the basic plan. exhausted. And at a time when so many children to old men (women).'
This type of analysis in terms of information artists within the international constructive I imagine that Li's exhibition creates a similar
content and perceptual reactions, though far tradition pursue superficial mannerisms, or atmosphere to that of Brancusi's studio in the
more satisfactory than the attempt to impose settle for a spurious notoriety in the realm of 1920s. The object of Brancusi's ceaseless
natural equivalences, is hardly an adequate applied mechanics, it is well worth noting that meditation was the inner and outward har-
approach from the point of view of the spec- a small number of British artists are helping mony of the works he was making, and their
tator, and even less so from the point of view to redress the balance. q possibilities and development. For instance,
of the artist. The spectator would surely be STEPHEN BANN each of his columns carved between 1918 and
wrong to regard a relief of this kind merely as 1930 was a prototype of an endless column,
a variation upon an ideal system in which the one that was to be 400 metres high on Chicago
1 Cf. 'Art and mathesis: Mondrian's structures', in
various elements could be imagined in per- Leonardo, vol. 1, no. 3, 1968. lake, and which was never made. Li's 'points',
fect rectilinear order, as if the work were a 2 Data—Directions in Art, Theory and Aesthetics, Faber and and there is a considerable number of
kinetic system where the elements revolved Faber, London, 1968. different ones, have the universality of Bran-