Page 46 - Studio International - May 1970

versions, over a period of five months. pictures are a new development for Liberman. Eros (1969), and Path (1969-70) point a new
Liberman's paintings were at their most They are, I suspect, a feedback from certain direction, far more sculptural than the work,
violently expressive in 1964. The familiar recent sculptural concerns (see, for instance, say, of 1966.
shapes sometimes seem inundated in a lava of Adam 1969). I am not condemning the pictorial in sculpture,
colour; the rational world of the circle, bar, In general, Liberman's sculpture has counter- or the emblematic. Liberman's early work in
and arc almost overwhelmed, or perhaps these pointed his painting (or perhaps syncopated sculpure, clear and elegant, is a personal
forms are emergent, the painter having gone it!). The activities have not been precisely statement of aesthetic consequence and intel-
back to the beginning of time to find them. parallel. It is as if the one art provided relief lectual authority. Such works as Clytemnestra
The role of accident in these pictures is hard from the other, even as it prepared to feed the (1963), Time (1959), & The Black Riddle (1963)
to define. Paint quality is sometimes a dis- other. But of course painting, especially in have the power of a permanent freshness.
traction in them, interesting but offputting. its graphic aspect, has dominated Liberman's Indeed, Liberman's work, the great stream
But sometimes, too, the accidents are persua- thinking. (This, by the way, is not to deny and variety of it, reflecting the play of a com-
sive, seeming to involve the forms necessarily him a sophisticated grasp of colour.) In sculp- plex personality, gives insights and satisfac-
or to have developed mysteriously from their ture, too, his interest has been mainly pic- tions on many levels. In this sensibility,
relationships. Perhaps the difficulty, when it torical. The works are incidents or emblems, Europe and America have come together and
occurs, is that while in the hard-edge paint- paradigms of activity or verbal symbols given seem at one. But Liberman's art, grown public
ings the circle, bar, and arc are forms con- visual form (if the titles are to be taken in scale, remains personal and intuitive. This
cretely, independent and austere, in these seriously). is its mystery and strength, the source of its
expressive paintings they are now and again Recently, the sculpture has taken on a new excellence : a humanist speaks through his
merely shapes, arbitrary and only casually spaciousness and vigour. The scale has been shifting forms to the mind of another man.
connected to the activity that surrounds them. right—a sculpture of large ideas, whether in Often, a personal solution is offered that is
When these paintings are of considerable size, large format or not. Adam (1969), Eve (1969), compelling. q
as they often are, the viewer is more likely to
become engaged with their activity in general
and to lose sense of the motifs as discrete
figures acted upon.
This 1964 series led, I think by way of intense,
muted colour, to a dark series (1965), where a
field is variously invaded by Liberman's
characteristic motifs. These pictures propose a
slow, brooding motion, a sense of pressure and
counterpressure; at the same time, they re-
store something of the emblematic force
notable in Liberman's earlier work. They
have, too, the suggestion of symmetry. They
are banner-like.
Other paintings of 1965 continue the random
exploration of paint energy, but through an 10
Six Hundred and Thirty-Nine 1959
even more subdued palette. On the whole, Acrylic and oil on canvas
35 x 100 in.
however, 1965 marks the beginning of Liber- Coll: S. I. Newhouse Jr.
man's return to a simpler and clearer style.
11
While he does not go back to hard-edge, he Passage 1959
Enamel on copper plate
does approximate to the unified impact paint- 9 X 6¼ X 5½ in.
ing that was his concern in the 1950s and in Coll: Museum of Modern Art, New York
the early 1960s. 12
Personal signs are not eliminated, but disci- Omega III 1961
Acrylic on canvas
plined, in the paintings of 1966-69. An impor- 80 x 160 in.
tant series involves segments of arcs, usually 13
Aphrodite II 1963
painted upon a tall rectangle, which inflects Aluminium
and stabilizes them. In these paintings, the 76 x 83 x 20 in.
colour bands expand upward and downward 14
along the picture plane compressing narrower Orange Splash 1963
Acrylic on canvas
bands (arcs themselves), that act as interstices 82 x 165 in.
and show a ragged edge between the active 15
hues. Sometimes these narrower bands sug- Red Fading 1964
Acrylic on canvas
gest that the adjacent colours are being forced 82 x 165 in.
apart or dissipated. 16
In 1969 Liberman began his 'vector' series. Realms 1966
Painted steel
This introduced a dominant triangular motif 81 x 125 in.
(the form is seen or implied many times in the
sculptures). In these paintings, the choice of
colour, taken in relationship to the form, and
to the scale of the statement, seems to stretch
the shape. Colour rises or floats in these
triangles and plays against other elements in
the picture to give an awareness of through-
going and surrounding space. These buoyant