Page 55 - Studio International - March 1969

Oblomovism in certain quarters for it shows piece hovering in the upper regions of the ing with transparent fibreglass also manages
that a lot of people can do a lot of things rather Whitney's high-ceiling'd gallery. Grosvenor's to get an eerily delicate effect: Eva Hesse, al-
well, and a few people can do sculpture very piece could use a still higher and larger in- though nominally working in the schematic
well. Before I saw the exhibition one of the terior to give the full sweep of its straight but series of the minimalists, mounts a beautiful
artists included in it told me that it had a cer- asymmetrical lines and is exactly what I mean suite of box-like reliefs that in their feathery
tain definite character this year. I never found by fantastic. Although like Bladen's piece, it is edges and ambiguously glimmering surfaces
the key to its character. The Annual this year, dark surfaced and understated, its very aus- are far from the purity and austerity of the
as always, is heterogeneous, democratic, lively terity emphasizes the incongruity of its being fellow serialists' works. One other piece of sur-
and at times exasperating in its lapses of taste. thrust into the undefined middle spaces of an realist origin—Kenneth Price's ceramic object
It aims to show what people are making these interior. encased—was very convincing despite its small
days, and it does. About the only generaliza- Another specimen of the fantasy that creeps scale.
tion I could make is that an air of bizarrerie into even the most severe of aesthetics is Robert There were about twenty other sculptures that
hangs about the place; that the fantastic over- Murray's 'Chinook', a dark blue steel con- breathed assurance, too many to mention here
rides the rational even in those works which struction of impossible workmanship in which (they were mostly by established sculptors)
clearly take their place in the so-called minimal the few simple elements are set at precarious and about twenty more out of the 137 which
aesthetic; and that a great many people prefer angles to unsettle the eye and set up feverish showed promise at least—a pretty good score.
the status of inventor to the status of artist. rhythms within what would normally be a And then, there were quite a few entertaining
As far as categories go, they are nearly all coolly quiet scheme of things. Other artists notions, such as Dennis Oppenheim's Decom-
represented. I'll start with bulky objects as a using basic geometric forms in bizarre ways position, a shallow pile of minerals, nails,
category. Bulky objects take up a lot of space, include George Sugarman who shows a huge crushed matter that resembled an early Ameri-
are sometimes well designed, and are often yellow wood construction composed of square can rug, and Richard Artschwager's 100
begging for a public place where they can frames occluded into an eccentric spiral, and Locations, smallish plaques of steel wool and
escape the competition of other bulky objects. Robert Bart who hangs an elaborate construc- black wood that he affixed here and there
They range from sternly ideological statements tion in steel based on intersecting hexagons throughout the museum. The young delighted
( Judd's large, stubbornly static aluminium box that he justifiably calls Mandala. in this and regarded the treasure hunt as the
and Morris's steel net objects) to massive but More orthodox fantasy occurs in those artists highlight of the exhibition. Naturally there
simple design-school projects that would look still seeking the lyricism in Surrealism. The were things which light up, things which were
all right in any large plaza. They include the most extraordinary in my opinion is Lee Bon- warm and cold, things which were motile and
enormous barrier erected by Ronald Bladen, tecou's acetate hybrid; a flowerlike, insectoid things which were almost no things, so minimal
24 ft long, 15 ft high with 10 ft beams canti- creature of Bontecou's very special imagina- were they. It was all there and no one can say
levered from its top, scarcely visible but lurking tion that, in its delicate transparency, and its that the Whitney staff neglected any single
there nevertheless; and Robert Grosvenor's quivering details, is among the truest objects trend.
cantilevered double-T-shaped (or nearly) in the exhibition. Another woman artist work-