Page 28 - Studio International - July August 1970

has no intention of finding out about them. field, as an interesting experiment (though hands. A less unassuming designer would have
Sure, the operations of the artist-technologist since Stephen Bann's new book Experimental loudly emphasized his own selection process
have not necessarily more to do with art than Painting one must try and use the word (clearly of central importance to the exhibi-
has the third degree. Nor have the operations `experiment' rather less loosely than hitherto tion). Brierley has a good eye for objets
of a painter in the abstract-expressionist in an artistic context). There are seven trouves and a wide knowledge of industry; and
idiom necessarily much to do with art. Isn't largish aluminium sculptures which, under there is some justification in his strategy of
the job of a critic to sort out the good from the remote control of operators with small mounting an exhibition that will intrigue a
the bad ? consoles, are caused to move, separately or conventional public without jarring them at
Rosenberg continues: together. Each sculpture is anchored at its all, so as (hopefully) to lead them on to more
`Though the artist and the engineer are both base, and movement is confined to its 'limbs'. radical things in future. An item such as the
capable of affecting the human organism, the To give a crude account of the effect (at the industrial cathode ray tube contributed by
difference in their reasons for doing so risk of offending the artist) the show might be Mullard Ltd he sees not only as a beautiful
prevents them from having anything in described as 'The night the Caros came alive'. thing— shifting moire patterns are caused by
common.' There is an electronic music accompaniment a spiral pattern in the tube—but also as the
All that needs to be said about this generaliza- by Brian Hodgson. `symbol of a transition from the sound to the
tion is that some individuals are trained as I am reluctant to criticize either the music image stage in electronics'; and this seems a
both engineers and artists. Mr Rosenberg (which may have been too subtle for the un- valid, though rather literary, idea.
may mean something more interesting and less attuned ear) or the visual effect, into which a An example of the more equivocal side of the
demonstrably false than what he seems to lot of skill and discipline and taste had clearly exhibition is a man-size coil-within-a-coil
mean; if so, he should argue from specific gone. I felt a bit disappointed by the show, which bounces and creaks when pushed up
instances. He continues: probably because the title and presentation— and down by the spectator. This compares
`One should like to post these thoughts, and the emphasis on 'dance' — suggested a richer well in effect and in workmanship with most
the notion of the centrality of the hand evocation of organic life than was achieved. purpose-built viewer-responsive sculpture. It
associated with them, on kiosks prominently If the artist had merely announced that he is a beautiful thing. However, the industrial
placed throughout the art world'. was going to 'define a sense of space' (or some function of this object—to cause rapid heating
Here, with his insistence on the centrality of other tired formula of sculptural criticism), or cooling of liquids—is quite irrelevant, as
the hand, Rosenberg makes a challenging the outcome would have been pleasantly far as I can see, to its interest as kinetic
point. I think it is a reactionary point, all the surprising. I suspect that most visitors to post- sculpture.
same. There is no denying that the hand is Caro sculpture exhibitions have rather weak Similarly, one of the most charming smaller
central to traditional painting and sculpture. expectations of the satisfaction they are things in the show is an orange crystal of
But other artistic media have done pretty expected to get. So one up to Peter Logan for gallium phosphide, a synthetic chemical. It
well with the hand serving a more menial trying to do a little more than define some looks like a rare and delicate natural mineral
function: in musical or literary composition, space for us. specimen. But by appreciating it as we would
for instance, the hand acts as a mere notating The presentation of the Observer's 'Spare Part appreciate a lump of (say) quartz—and I
device for the most part, and in photography Art' exhibition— seen recently in the foyer of must say that rare natural minerals are extra-
it acts as a mere trigger and stabilizer. Con- BP's head office in the City of London—was ordinarily beautiful things— we are not really
versely, having seen Tsai Wen-Ying adjust very much as a problem show, a talking- doing justice to its special significance. The
by hand the delicate equilibria of his cyber- point. The exhibits were taken not from point about this lump of gallium phosphide
netic sculptures, I am not convinced that his artists' studios but from the factory floor, or (as Brierley's catalogue observes) is that it is
hands are any the less central to his creative (in one case) a scrapyard. I found the show electroluminescent: when electrical current
process because he happens to know and use witty, though it seems it was meant absolutely is applied to a small chip of it, it gives off
some mechanical engineering and some straight. Consciously or unconsciously, it light. Alloys like gallium phosphide are going
psycho-optical principles. seemed to satirize the desire of the art-loving to revolutionize the lighting industry, and all
I have a feeling that if Mr Rosenberg were to public to absorb the glamour of technology that light means to the environment and to
specify the work he is obliquely attacking in without having to work or think for it. the artist. Artists have always sought an
this essay, there would be little to disagree British Petroleum's very imposing foyer intimacy with specific materials and proces-
with. Of course, there are many bad and seemed like a seductive charnel-house or ses, in which modern industry is very rich;
mediocre artists working in 'advanced' tech- sepulchre of twentieth-century aesthetics as and artists are unlikely to be left out of
nical media. But in the same way as we judge they are generally conceived. It showed how research and development into these new
individual artists by their most significant inadequate it is to approach modern tech- electronic materials and their applications.
work—the summits of their achievement— nology, in all its complexity, with a pedestal- In one of the opening speeches, a represen-
rather than by taking some kind of cross- led aesthetic drawn from painting and tative of the Observer mentioned how hearten-
section of their oeuvre, so we should demand sculpture. Here, apparently, as you came ing it was, in days when industry is being
that a new movement be judged. through the swing-doors, was an exhibition of criticized so much for polluting the environ-
As Edward Lucie-Smith has rightly observed modernistic sculpture, artistically arranged ment, to see a great oil firm doing something
in a recent book, 'The Demoiselles d'Avignon on bases (some multi-storey) or in showcases; as imaginative as acting as host to this
of technological art has yet to be produced.'2 but then they turn out to have titles like exhibition. Here is dilettantism on a corporate
(He adds that 'it is extremely doubtful, in any `Three Phase Spout Bushing' or 'Thermo- scale. Art has in the past been associated with
case, if it will be a single object or picture.') plastic Fork Lift Pallet'. A whole morning sweetness and light, but never hailed till now
But there is respectable work being done, could have been spent in trying to derive the as a solvent of oil slicks. q
which this column attempts to keep track of, different shapes and textures from different JONATHAN BENTHALL
and I have little doubt that work as cataclys- idioms of twentieth-century sculpture. Who
mic as early Cubism will emerge during die has the last laugh ?
1970s. The designer of the exhibition, Paul Brierley, 1 Harold Rosenberg, Artworks and Packages (London
Peter Logan's Mechanical Ballet, recently is a man of gentle integrity, and he makes 1969), p. 130
performed at the Royal College of Art, something indicative and interesting out of Edward Lucie-Smith, Movements in Art since 1945
London, is best seen, like so much else in this what might have proved offensive in other (London 1969), p. 273