Page 44 - Studio International - May 1970

Gallery, were Ad Reinhardt, Agnes Martin, debted to David Smith, but less in its formality individual work is necessarily of its time, place,
Sidney Wolfson, Leon Smith, and Ellsworth than in its choice of oddments). Liberman had and circumstances.
Kelly. The exhibition was well-received, but learned to weld in 1959, but the hard-edge But, also, the effort toward a solution can be
its disparities seem overwhelming in retro- sculptures, like some of the early paintings of protracted and intense. Many paintings are
spect. It was only in 1964 that Liberman was that mode, were the work of craftsmen. destroyed in process or are judged insufficient
seen in force (both paintings and sculpture) at Liberman's need for a personal and im- to the artist's idea.
Robert Fraser. In the meantime, he had mediate stake in the artistic process has al- When the work is hard-edged or is precise in
continued to show paintings in New York and ways alternated, and sometimes coexisted, some other way, the critical decisions may be
had begun to show sculpture (Betty Parsons with his need to think art. The results are taken in stages before it is actually made. It

1959, 1963, 1964). Curiously enough, by the analogues for the physical and intellectual doesn't in this context matter whether the
time his Fraser show was establishing him in aspects of artistic creation. For Liberman, the work is done for Liberman or whether he
London—it was an extraordinarily elegant ex- problem is always the same, to embody the himself is the workman. Even with paintings
hibition — he had moved somewhat away from conception, to refine it without losing its or sculptures of this sort, there is nothing
the approach it represented. original energy. His perceptions are often significant to stand against radical alterations
In 1963, Liberman avoided the hard-edge moments of arrest, a suggestion caught in the at any stage, if they seem desirable to the
style and painted expressively. Symmetry was air. Or they are ideas with so much body that artist.
abandoned; personal intervention was made they must be essentialized rather than The difference is perhaps that works for which
evident in the play of paint. What remained developed. critical decisions can be made in process are
constant were the motifs, arcs, circles, bars, At all events, the process of gestation is likely more frequently subject to revision and are
and the drama of relationship in which the to be a long one, though decisions, once taken, more extensively revised. Precision of concept
artist involved them. The palette, too, was will be executed quickly. Sometimes, perhaps and the need for exactitude of plan are
stable; black, red, orange and yellow domi- under some external pressure, the artist determinants. Sculpture appears to be more
nated. settles for an easy solution, and the work is susceptible to Liberman's revision than paint-
A parallel development was Liberman's junk lesser. But this conforms to Liberman's belief ing. Probably, this has to do with its manner
sculpture of 1963 (some of it, however, in- that art is basically fecundity and that the of facture. Eve (1969) is recorded in fourteen