Page 55 - Studio International - December 1970

Supplement December 1970 think they're decorative and they mean-I

Lithographs and original prints don't know if this is a correct rationalization
or not-but I think they mean two things: one
is simple data information, and the other is a
way of making another value out of the same
Lichtenstein's graphic The artists or designers of the thirties didn't colour-50 per cent red or 50 per cent blue.
Actually, in these prints the dot colour had to
works: Roy Lichtenstein have the same remove as I have. I mean they be changed several times. The red dots are
in conversation with were more serious about it, and that results in not the same ink colour as the flat areas of
John Co plans a certain difference: It's not that I am not inked red. In printing commercially, the pur­
serious, but if they were serious in one way, I pose of the dots is to get a free pink out of the
JC Most of the new prints seem to have direct am in another. It's something like my Picasso deal. However, because red dots printed with
references-at one level or another-to specific or Mondrian paintings-mine are not really · the same ink as that of the flat areas don't look
aspects of modern art. like either of these two arfists. I also think the same value, the printer changed the dot
RL Yes, the Cathedrals are meant to be there is a great similarity between thirties' art colour to make them optically match the flat
manu­factured Monets and so are the and much present-day art. Both are concep­ areas. Anyway, the dots can have a purely
Haystacks. The modern prints-I mean the tual and both do certain things which are so decorative meaning, or they can mean an
various ones of Peace Through Chemistry-are much a,like in style. It's only that today most industrial way of extending the colour, or data
muralesque. They are a little like W.P.A. artists don't employ the more obvious aspects information, or finally, that the image is a
murals. of the thirties' look. But the fact that there is a fake. A Mondrian with a set of dots is obviously
JC They also seem to be very Leger-like. sort of thought-out�beforehand, measurable, a fake Mondrian. I think those are the mean­
RL Yes, and they are a play on cubist com­ geometric, repeated and logical appearance ings the dots have taken on, but I'm not really
position. Of course, the imagery has also to do to most current art is very close to the thirties' sure if I haven't made all this up.
with the thirties. The theme is hackneyed, thinking. There certainly are many differen­ JC It·also seems to me that in your Cathedrals
which is part of the idea. ces, but it is very close in some ways, so I'm and Haystacks, unlike the Impressionists who
JC Why? not only playing on the thirties, I'm also suspended colour in a veil of choppy brush­
RL I thought something could be made out of playing on present-day geometric art. Current strokes, you do the same with a veil of hard
these old images. I don't know exactly why art is frankly decorative, at least a lot of it. optical dots.
they appeal to me, but I like the idea of a JC In what sense do you use the word deco­ RL Yes, it's an industrial way of making
senseless Cubism. At first Cubism had signifi­ rative-do you mean it's pleasing, sensuously Impressionism-or something like it-by a
cance, it was saying something about vision, pleasing? machine-like technique. But it probably takes
about unity, especially the relationship of RL Yes, it covers big walls with all kinds of me ten times as long to do one of the Cathedral
figure and ground. But following Cubism­ glorious colours and shapes. I think it's a or Haystack paintings as it took Monet to do
particularly in twenties' and thirties' art question of the level of relatedness and the level his.
moderne, the style lost the point of Cubism of meaning that distinguishes today's work from JC Unlike the paintings, in the Cathedral
completely, especially in the decorative arts. the thirties and the thirties' work I'm working prints the image is stabilized. I mean the view
JC Your sculpture also refers to decorative from, and say the thirties' work of Leger. of Rouen cathedral is identical in each print.
Cubism of the thirties. JC How do you see your sculpture in the RL Yes, I think that changing the colour to
RL Yes, I think I make images that are context of this notion? I mean your sculpture represent different times of the day is a mass­
purely cubistic, but the Cubism doesn't really isn't in actual fact so much copied as invented. production way of using the printing process.
tell you anything. RL Even though my work is similar to some On the other hand, the paintings in any one
JC If you are using such cubist-derived forms, thirties' sculpture, mine is really more derived set are different from one another, and I'm
is it only the image that is cubist, or the com­ from architectural details, for instance, rail­ not too sure why I did them this way, but I
position as well? ings; and railings have a certain similarity to planned them as four sets consisting of three
RL The subject is Cubism and the image a lot of the sculpture being done today. I paintings in each set, although I may extend
therefore becomes Cubism, but this has noth­ think the same is true ofmy paintings. They one set to five paintings. Each set has different
ing to do with the formal qualities of com­ also refer to architectural detail and deco­ images. I mean there are no two images or
position-its real relationships. This is a ration, but there wasn't much serious abstract colours the same in any one set. Identical
matter of whether the relationships are seen painting that was this stylized. Mine are much images are dispersed in the various sets, but
and felt. No compositional devices really hold more removed, even though I think one could the colours are different.
a work together. have painted like this in the twenties and JC Then are you going to insist that the
J C What then makes your thirties images thirties. I've never seen any painting like the paintings be kept in sets and not broken up by
look as if they are made in the sixties ? The Peace Through Chemistry image. There should a purchaser?
element of parody? Surely formal properties have been images like this; it's a mixture of a RL Yes.
outside the question of parody link these kind of W.P.A. mural painting and Cezanne JC On the basis that the serial idea is more
images to the sixties? or Grant Wood, �ed with American pre­ coherent with three images seen at once?
RL Of course parody and irony are not cisionist use of city imagery. RL I think it explains the serial idea much
formal aspect�. But these are probably the JC It also has overtones of the thirties' poster better, and a lot of the time the i;mage of the
most obvious link to· the sixties; but also the style. cathedral is not very apparent. It is more
direct­ness and the paint quality. RL Right, this is probably a more immediate apparent in one of the three than the others,
JC But what I'm really getting at, I suppose, source and brings in the simplicity of poster • and this gives coherence to the other two. But
is, what really differentiates one of your sculp­ reproduction. I've combined a lot of images the other thipg is that though Monet painted
_tures from those of the thirties, apart from the into what maybe thirties' murals looked like. his Cathedrals as a series, which is a very
question of idiosyncratic placement of each Then, of course, the dots I use make the image modern idea, the image was painted slightly
element? ersatz. And I think the dots also may mean differently in each painting. So, I thought
RL I don't know, I guess it's hard to say. data transmission. Previously they meant using three slightly different images in three
Maybe it's getting inside what the thirties' something more to do with printing, now I different colours as a play on different times
style is really about that makes the difference. 263