Page 45 - Studio International - November 1970

For most of the 1960s, complexity in advanced plexity, long a hallmark of his art, to new most characteristically heraldic paintings of
US abstract art has been in ideological quar- extremes, while, at the same time, opening up the 1960s. In the case of Kelly and the earlier
antine. In an era of stripped-down, primary new directions not seen in his work since 1960. Stella and Noland, it is possible to take in their
sculpture and three- or four-colour emblematic Stripes vary in width, bare canvas abounds object-oriented works in very nearly a single
painting, it seemed, at best, of peripheral in- and colour reaches new peaks of subtlety. The inspection. So-called `non-relational' art in-
terest. An obvious exception is Op art which exhibition included a number of works which vites this special kind of response. It is a
derives mainly from European sources. deserve to be ranked among the masterly different experience to be confronted by a
A number of years ago, Frank Stella and examples of American colour painting. 20-foot Davis in which, say, 500 stripes are
Donald Judd set forth aesthetic guidelines for The demise of the minimal approach was aligned in some 50 colours. Even more
American abstract art in the Sixties in a inevitable, as Robert Morris, one of its leading demanding is the recent 60-foot painting Sky
widely-publicized interview with Bruce proponents, was perhaps the first to prophesy. Wagon containing 720 one-inch stripes, com-
Glaser. Both contended vigorously that With irrefutable logic, he once noted: 'One missioned by Nelson Rockefeller for the South
`composition' and the formal relationship of does not seek the gestalt of a gestalt.' This Mall Project in Albany. The result is a work of
`parts' were anachronistic concerns more re- observation, in effect, sounded the death knell sharply contrasting sensibility.
lated to European tradition than the new of reductivism in advanced abstract art for a Davis's paintings must be looked at on their
wave of American art. Their appeal for a time at least, since theoretically no further own terms. He presents us with a time ele-
`non-relational' art seemed compellingly logi- distillation of form was possible. The ad- ment that is uncommon in recent abstract art.
cal at that time. With Newman, Reinhardt vanced artist, regardless of his aesthetic per- That is, it is seldom possible to experience one
and Kelly as mentors, the central thrust of suasion, had no choice but to move toward an of his large works as a unified visual object.
American abstract painting throughout the art form of parts. The painting must be entered into, explored
1960s has been to reduce the number of pic- Gene Davis faced up to this dilemma some and the eye permitted to meander about in
torial situations per canvas. Sculptors have eight years ago when he abandoned his two- leisurely fashion. It has not one but multiple
been motivated by a parallel sensibility. and three-colour stripe paintings (which were points of interest, a quality that, at times,
As a new decade begins, however, an increas- both minimal and essentially emblematic in threatens to shatter pictorial unity. The
ing number of artists, in their individual ways, character) to move toward increasingly intri- experience is not unlike, but not precisely
have turned to complexity as a way out of cate orchestrations of colour on an ever- similar either, to that of watching a film or
what has now become a burdensome stylistic expanding scale. In the past few years, Morris, listening to music. These are forms that utilize
convention—the minimal approach to form Stella and Kenneth Noland have pursued time/movement, and the participant must
and colour. The large, excruciatingly complex their own paths out of the minimal cul-de-sac, experience them as progressions, since the entire
stripe paintings of Gene Davis have posed a as has the new generation of painterly artists. work is not immediately available. This ele-
formidable challenge to this aesthetic for Davis's involvement with complexity makes ment is present to some degree in such paint-
nearly a decade. In his recent paintings at the stringent demands on the spectator. His works ers as Bosch, Breughel and the Flemish primi-
Fischbach Gallery in March, he carried com- cannot be viewed in the same way we look at tives whose pictures are often so interspersed