Page 58 - Studio International - June 1969

Among the most disturbing features of the With deliberate irony Hamilton has called that makes today's homes so different, so appealing?
Rolling Stones Trial at Chichester in 1967 the series of paintings, prints and drawings Hamilton has realized that the camera is not
were the pictures on television and in the press based on this photograph, 'Swingeing Lon- a neutral semiscientific instrument. An early
of Mick Jagger and Robert Fraser handcuffed don '67'. No doubt he was as shocked as other reader of Marshal McLuhan, he knows better
together. Many people were shocked to see people by the harsh sentences meted out by than most that the very act of taking a photo-
relatively mild offenders treated as hardened Judge Block—later reduced in the appeal graph can change the events it is meant to
criminals and The Times came out with a courts—and the hypocrisy which bedevilled record. With television cameras this is parti-
strongly worded leader asking if it was really the whole trial, but in his recent article in cularly noticeable. The clumsy apparatus in-
necessary to crush a butterfly on a wheel. Studio International (March 1969) he maintains volved, the electric cables, the generators, the
One half of Richard Hamilton's recent exhibi- that subjects have little interest for him. It is bright lights can create news by their very
tion at the ROBERT FRASER GALLERY 1S based On the means by which they are transferred to a presence, a fact which was brought home
a photograph which appeared at the time of the two-dimensional plane which are his principle dramatically at the time of the Chicago riots
trial. It was a routine news picture of Jagger concern. last summer.
and Fraser arriving at court, taken in a hurry, `The reason for becoming involved with Bing `Swingeing London '67' is in its own way an
in competition with a crowd of scrambling Crosby in the painting called I'm dreaming of a example of 'manufactured' news. Had there
cameramen and with little thought of its White Christmas', he wrote, 'was not a nostalgic been no cameras at Chichester there would
consequences. affection for Bing Crosby films, rather be- have been no fuss, no story. According to
cause the painting was quite demanding Robert Fraser, he and Mick Jagger were
9 technically, and it also offered some meta- surprised when they were taken to court in
Swingeing London 67(a) 1968-9 handcuffs but it was pointed out to them that
oil on canvas and silkscreen, 264 x 374 in. physical exploitation.'
Robert Fraser Gallery Knowing his fondness for ambiguity, his this was normal police procedure and applied
10 admiration for Duchamp and 'the idea about to everyone. They were not being made an
Swingeing London 67 1968
silkscreen on oil on hardboard, 23 x 31 in. everything having an opposite', it is easy to example of and when they arrived at court
Robert Fraser Gallery see what qualities in the photograph of they displayed their handcuffs because the
Jagger and Fraser appealed to him. For with- photographers asked them. They were not
out a caption this picture is capable of almost trying to shield themselves and they were
any interpretation. laughing and not grimacing or groaning.
For example, it could be a picture of two men `Swingeing London', then, is not a comment on
holding up their arms to protect themselves. police brutality nor is it an essay in the
They might be shielding their eyes from the authorities muddled handling of the problem
glare of flashlights or they might be trying to of drugs and young people. If anything these
ward off the blows of truncheon-wielding works are about the way the mass media can
policemen. They might also, in the manner of blow up an episode out of all proportion to its
long-term prisoners, be trying to hide their true significance, how they can turn someone
faces in a vain attempt to escape recognition. like Mick Jagger into a martyred pop hero or,
Their expressions too are equally hard to de- to an older generation, into the personifica-
cipher. Their mouths are open and they might tion of all that is deplorable in the young.
be shouting, pleading, groaning or grimacing. At the same time these paintings are about
Ever since he began to use photographs from painting and illusionism. By changing the
the mass media back in 1956 with his highly tones of the original black and white photo-
influential and prophetic work, just what is it graph, adding colour (and in one work
chrome handcuffs) to heighten the melo-
drama, making a mockup of a van window
complete with sliding panes of glass, Hamilton
emphasizes the dual nature of his works
which are at one and the same time illusions and
real objects or works of art in their own right.
This exhibition at the Fraser Gallery is a
masterly display of resourcefulness, ingenuity,
imagination, wit and humour. For what is
especially attractive about Hamilton's recent
work, and this applies mutatis mutandis to the
paintings based on a postcard of Whitley
Bay, is the depth of meaning he gives both to
the subject and the means by which it is
portrayed. Unlike the art photographs in the
recent exhibition at the ICA, which for the
most part had a flat unambiguous once-seen-
twice-forgotten quality, Hamilton's photo-
graphically-based works can stand up to any
amount of viewing.
`Assimilating photography into the domain of
paradox', he has written, 'incorporating it
into the philosophical contradictions of art is
as much my concern as embracing its alluring
potential as media.' Photographers take note.