Page 52 - Studio International - February 1970

New York Edwin Ruda John Clem Clarke
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Mixing Crux & Cracks 1969 Judgement of Paris iv 1969
commentary Acrylic on canvas Oil on canvas
Courtesy Paula Cooper Gallery, New York
Courtesy 0. K. Harris Gallery, New York
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Gary Bower
Night Ralphie 1969
Acrylic on canvas
Courtesy 0. K. Harris Gallery, New York
If interest in painting is flagging, as we keep
hearing it is, then the WHITNEY ANNUAL is
something of an anomaly since it has pre-
sented no less than 143 artists, more than half
of whom must be considered the young. They
are not only very young, as painters go, but
they are very ambitious. Their canvases tend
to be large and emphatic— asserting vigorously
the uncounted satisfactions still available in
the act of painting on canvas.
The patently ambitious character of much of
the work has stimulated a great deal of dis-
cussion. One young artist (a sculptor) told
me he found the show very depressing, and
when I asked him why, he replied : 'Because
it's so trendy'. Which is quite true. There is
no question but that the young curatorial
staff of the Whitney was thinking in terms of
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the immediate, and that they selected the
works which seemed to indicate the very
latest trend among the newest generation of
painters. What the sculptor implied was that
the 'trends' were somewhat artificial, and are
partially created by an avid cosmopolitan
crowd of curators, dealers and would-be con-
noisseurs who are ever hungry for an identifi-
able 'school'.
The character of the most distinguishable
`trends' is not, to my mind, artificial. On the
contrary, it indicates a sincere appetite for
the sheer pleasure of painting. The only
trouble is that throughout the exhibition one
felt the feverish haste; the urgent demands of
`style'; the thinly disguised impatience with
the demands of the craft itself, and a certain
devil-may-care, uncritical willingness to let
whatever transpires on canvas pass to the
public spaces.
Thinness, in fact, is a literal and figurative
characteristic of much of the young contin-
gent's representation. There is a distinct
interest in the old abstract expressionist
legacy, particularly the amorphous staining
and blotting of Pollock. To this we can add a Certainly the most clearly defined 'trend' is large recent paintings are totally anarchic,
strong Morris Louis accent. Not only are the trend toward the lyrical aspects of ex- spilling out between the bars of colour,
Louis's methods of pouring and staining emu- pressionism. The senior 'young' artist working creeping behind the light, transparent planes,
lated by many, but also his later experiments in this direction is Ed Ruda who had just and syncopating the whole with the verve of a
with paths of bright colour which are roughly recently had an exhibition of his new work at good rock rhythm. I would say that Ruda's
described as stripes. the Paula Cooper Gallery. As a document of new work falters fairly often from his exces-
These younger painters seem to start with a his voyage, we can note that his work in the sive high spirits and haste to get on with it all.
composite model of the immediate past. They past has been exhibited in other 'trend' This he shares with his younger co-exhibitors,
think nothing of mixing metaphors—vague exhibitions, among them 'Cool Art' and rather than those more nearly his contempo-
staining with sharp geometry; modular com- `Shaped Painting' and 'Systemic Art'. Ruda's raries such as Edward Avedisian and Darby
positions with sweeps of de Kooningesque leap into the free world of free form and free Bannard.
spume, and hard-edge forms with visible colour obviously exhilarates him. The latter two painters continue to explore
brushwork. It is as though they are always There is a zest in his work that pleases me a colour as the primary means, Avedisian in
ready to see what will happen IF, which I great deal. While he holds to certain compo- closely thatched, bleeding-edged bars of
don't think is a bad way to begin a life as a sitional limits, working often with major colour that spread along the horizontal can-
painter. It is only a bad way to follow forever. bands of bright colour, the minor forms in his vas, and Bannard in delicately plotted
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