Page 54 - Studio International - June 1969

London its obviously celebratory lyricism seems to me line of a joke (a punch-line does not resolve, it
to be focused on the structure of the female
overthrows). Alley's Slow liquid (1966; really
commentary pelvic anatomy. Its voluptuousness is not a nice) and her intimate, shelf-sized, inter-
locking, chrome-plated rings, are good be-
matter of turning from diatoms to flowers, but
of noticing that one is as structurally wonderful cause in them there is no such implicit
as a diatom (and even as structural as a man). contradiction and lack of resolution.
ANTHEA ALLEY AT ARNOLFINI GALLERY, When I say that being a woman affects Miss The flat bases or mounts of the sculptures
BRISTOL, TO JUNE 26; SEVERINI Alley's sense of composition I mean the way sometimes tend to be too important in
RETROSPECTIVE AT GROSVENOR GALLERY, she sets up a form first and then slices into, proportion to the sculptures proper, resulting
JUNE 3; KHMER AND THAI SCULPTURE AT penetrates, or even violates it, and even the in a kind of inflation whereby the piece
ROLAND, BROWSE AND DELBANCO; WILLIAM PYE similar way her problem of bases (apparently over-extends itself beyond the power of a
AT REDFERN GALLERY, TO JUNE 13; RICHARD now overcome in Dome [1969]) reveals a dwarfed object to sustain formal interest. It
HAMILTON AT ROBERT FRASER GALLERY. desire to make something first and then do is not as if Miss Alley were unaware of this;
something to it. indeed, it looks like a considered part of the
The two step 'violation' procedure (upon effect of Ziggurat (1967-8), where the shiny
For Anthea Alley, being a woman and an which Francis Bacon has built a career) flat mount seems meant to be large enough so
artist affects her actual art (as it does not, for involves what could be called a post-industrial that its edge does not, from most views, cut
example, in the case of Kim Lim). It affects fallacy of technique as processing: a complete off the silhouette of the (already squat)
her imagery and even her composition; and entity is made—in other words, something is pyramid—in other words to prevent the pyra-
for a time it seemed to produce a bit of a conceived and executed—in so complete a mid part from being a blunt shape laying on
hang-up which now looks resolved. form that it is already at that point rightly a slab and instead, to make the whole a kind
The imagery problem is that her motifs seem susceptible to judgement; but then this of mood piece with silvery metallic shines and
so easily to evoke feminine associations. On realized idea is rejected by its submission to icy reflections. But this, in turn, although it is
the most banal level, I notice how many of some separate process (in Bacon, smearing), the rationale for the relatively oversized base,
the forms look vaguely domestic (cookie- thought of, as it were, too late to be incor- seems to weaken the whole as a sculpture,
cutters, a potato whipper), and with only a porated in the creation proper. In art this reducing the motif to the mere occasion of an
little more dignity I observe that they also necessarily implies that the first concept was incident or effect. Sculpture, of course, is free
resemble those 'tough' forms in nature which wrong and had to be subsequently corrected— to do that, instead, if it wants to, but then it
a 'tasteful' sense of natural beauty may prefer that, had he the chance, the artist would do must play down the prominence of material
to the vulgar gush of indiscriminate love with it over a different way. To approach a second and the material workmanship of complex
which the less sensitive may attempt to work the same way is violation of aesthetic combinations of simple parts which Alley's
embrace the more florid side of 'nature'. I economy. It is wasting half your argument by sculptures like to play up. My advice would
mean especially those tiny structural things explaining what you do not mean. In Anthea be to forget about illusions and concentrate
whose beauty seems generated more by Intel- Alley's work this one meant, for a while, first on the physical stuff; then, if she likes, she can
ligence than Sensibility, and in which Nature making something whose proud and assured always step back and also enjoy the finished
puts aside painting (and posing for painting) symmetry, or whose cool stoicism, was just (aesthetic) illusion, which is always available,
in favour of architecture or sculpture: not her cup of tea, and then assaulting or free of extra charge. There may be a kind of
diatoms, the seed-pods of floating algae, sea- invading it (in Yellow Circles, 1967-9, with a luxury in the big bases, partly out of material-
urchins' shells, or those dried remains of bouncy, hearty, freewheeling `lifeline'). If ism (sheet metal, we know, is sold by its pure
blooms which look like glass bases for flower that is how one feels, one should forget about area) and partly out of politesse (like an
arrangements and which teeter between ugli- the discs and concentrate on 'lifelines', be- expensive picnic). And it may also be sweetly
ness and 'purity'. Arabesque 2, which seems to cause the result is by no means dialectical (if modest, for it seems moved by a desire to
free itself from these preferences, does so, in that is the intent) ; on the contrary, it is minimize the intricacy and labour of the
fact, by pushing them as far as they will go : rhetorical, like the set-up and then the punch- primary motif. JOSEPH MASHEK.
q

Anthea Alley Ziggurat 1967-8
polished aluminium. Arnolfini Gallery
2
Anthea Alley Arabesque 2 1969
painted aluminium and painted plaster ball
3
Gino Severini Futurist drawing
ink/chalk, 9¼ x 7¼ in. Arnolfini Gallery
4
Gino Severini Girl reading on a table
drawing, 11¼ x 8⅛ in. Grosvenor Gallery
5
Gino Severini Composition still life 1913
collage, 26½ x 19 in. Grosvenor Gallery