Page 27 - Studio International - July August 1970

A new gallery, The Room, opened recently at Technology and art 16
5 Nelson Road, Greenwich, London SW10. The
inaugural exhibition showed the work of Ben
Cabrera, followed in July by David Birtwhistle.
The August exhibition will be of recent work by
Malcolm Lauder, art editor of Studio International,
his first one-man show for six years.
`Düsseldorf in Edinburgh' is the title of a major
exhibition being mounted by Richard Demarco
Gallery during the Edinburgh Festival. It will run
from August 23 to September 13. Among the
artists from Düsseldorf will be Joseph Beuys,
Uecker, Mack, Richter, Rinke, Klapheck, Gerstner,
Diter Rot, Ruthenbeck, Brecht, Schmela, and Peter Logan
Palermo. This will be the first opportunity to see Mechanical Ballet
in the UK the work of many of these artists. 2
Joseph Beuys will also make a film for Scottish Section of The Observer 'Spare Part Art' exhibition
Television, to be screened during the exhibition, at Britanic House. Just right of centre are the process
`inspired' by a visit he recently paid to the Moor of heating coils of stainless steel (Tube Investments Ltd)
referred to in the text
Rannoch.
A charitable Trust has been formed to encourage
education in the Arts and to promote art exhibi-
tions. The Trust will be based on and will use the
facilities of the Patrick Reyntiens studios at Loud-
water in Buckinghamshire, where in recent years
the stained glass of the Cathedral of Christ the
King in Liverpool, the Baptistry window in
Coventry Cathedral and many other notable works
have been produced. The interests of the Trust will
extend beyond those Arts having reference to
architecture to include education in graphics and
the Fine Arts. Trustees are Mr Roy Fullick
(Chairman), the Lady Norman and Mr John
Piper, and the directors are Patrick Reyntiens
and Anne Bruce. For further information contact
the directors, Burleighfield House, Loudwater,
Buckinghamshire. Telephone High Wycombe
25068.
Legible City is the title of an exhibition which will
be on at the ICA from mid-October to December.
The exhibition is being organized by Edward
Lucie-Smith and designed by Yolanda Sonnabend.
Edward Lucie-Smith writes:
`Printed and written words become more and more
prominent in the urban environment, contrary to
the theories which have been put forward by men
such as Marshall McLuhan. It seems likely that
they will henceforth play an ever greater part in
moulding our response to life in the city. Words in
a city have many functions: they command, inform,
direct, protect, entertain, cajole, label, protest. We find
them everywhere in our streets and public places, I dislike the term 'technological art'. It application of instrumentalities of physical
often (as with posters) in combination with images, implies that art is forming some kind of and mental breakdown is simply a way of
but equally often alone. Indeed, it seems likely
alliance with technology; and there are grave demanding the privilege of unlimited experi-
that certain words (STOP - NO ENTRY-DANGER)
have now acquired an image-quality of their own, limitations in any theory of 'art and tech- ment on human beings. In self defense, we
and act upon us as directly as a picture of a pretty nology' which does not admit the likelihood ought to assert that there is no such thing as
girl, and much less ambiguously. of a clash between the intuitive concerns of an artist-technologist."
`Legible City will be an environmental exhibition artists and the short-term objectives of We are not told who this 'observer' is who
designed to take a searching and thoroughly irre- technology. But people can't be stopped from equates the 'artist-technologist' with the
verent look at London, Britain's largest and using the words they want. What is important `manipulator of mass responses'. But the
wordiest urban specimen. It will explore a number
of ideas aroused by the current proliferation of is that there be some standards of value. average reader of these sentences, aware that
words and letters: one theme will be the opposition It is a pity that there are established cultural Mr Rosenberg is an influential critic, is likely
between 'official' words, designed to tell us what figures who, rather than come to terms with a to carry away the impression that artists
authority desires (PLEASE KEEP OFF THE GRASS), new creativity, are happy to tilt energetically interested in technology have a lot in common
and the graffiti which are assertions of irrepressible at windmills. Harold Rosenberg, for instance, with the Nazis — for is this not the innuendo
human individuality. Our intention is to make a
show which cannot be experienced passively, but writes as follows in Artworks and Packages: behind Rosenberg's phrase 'unlimited experi-
which offers a series of challenges, much like The present-day "artist-technologist", as ment on human beings' ? Perhaps I am taking
London itself. It will allow those who visit it to one observer recently named the manipulator too seriously Mr Rosenberg's argument;
test their reaction to words: how efficiently do you of mass responses, draws increasingly on the perhaps it is designed merely to stimulate
read the street-signs when driving in London, for laboratory and its products, whether acids or light conversation at Manhattan cocktail-
example? At the same time, by concentrating some
of the city's most important and least understood strobe lights, and his operations have not parties. It is clear from his idle reference to
characteristics, it will provide a distillate of necessarily more to do with art than has the `acids and strobe lights' that he is not very
urban experience.' third degree. To attach the title "art" to the interested in the techniques referred to and