Page 46 - Studio International - November 1970

with detail that they must be inspected and the Corcoran in Washington. Large pieces of 1970s.
even returned to, in order to perceive what metal in varying shapes, sizes and even colour The largest picture in the Fischbach show,
the artist is saying. Davis's work is clearly an were strewn seemingly at random around a Saratoga Springboard (10 by 28 feet), appears
art of parts and relationships in a fast-fading gallery room. It was clearly the most demand- to be a transitional work. While it features
era of 'less is more' taste. ing work in the show, because, unlike earlier edge-to-edge striping, as in previous paint-
One of the interesting questions posed by the scatter pieces which featured small objects of ings, the stripes now vary in width from
most recent and intricate of Davis's paintings similar size and shape, this one seemed to ¼" to one inch. It is undoubtedly the most
seems to be : must a work of art necessarily pro- sacrifice cohesiveness and raise troubling complex colour statement Davis has yet at-
ject a sense of unity? Put another way, how questions about the dispensability of whole- tempted. In other works such as Penrod's
far can an artist go in disregarding wholeness? ness or unity, as, indeed, do the larger, more Perambulator, stripes range up to 18 inches
In the art of the past decade the hard-edge complex works of Gene Davis. across and areas of bare canvas cover as
stripe had emerged as one of the formal Morris's current preoccupation with com- much as 36 inches. For the first time in nearly
mainstays of abstract painting. Davis has plexity was foreordained, since it issued ten years, he has introduced 'breathing space'
played a pivotal role in making it so. Not only logically from his earlier work. In his con- into his tightly-woven picture surface. The
has he been its most single-minded user (since tinuing essay on sculpture, he once observed result is a dramatic clarification of his colour
1958), but he was, in reality, the first to fully that 'Unitary forms do not reduce relation- relationships.
recognize its virtually unlimited potential as ships. They order them ... (so that) ... the situ- Davis's preoccupation with the vertical stripe
a vehicle for colour exploration. It is not gener- ation is now more complex and expanded.' first surfaced in the mid-1950s when he was
ally realized that his preliminary experiments If anything, minimalism, to Morris, is not so deeply committed, along with many others, to
with the stripe format preceded those of much object-oriented, as it is for Judd, but de Kooning's mystique of painterliness. The
Morris Louis by two years and Noland's by relationship-oriented. picture, Black and Gray Stripes of 1957
at least five years. Granted that the perceptual conditions in is only one of a number of his basically
It is noteworthy that Robert Morris, Stella minimal sculpture seem more complex and abstract expressionist paintings in which
and Noland have all sought what appear to be expanded, since the containing room becomes Davis flirted with the vertical stripe as
`about-face' solutions to the minimal impasse. a factor, it does not follow that true complexity an escape from the pictorial informality of
Stella, whose (temporary) indifference to is established. Seldom in installations of mini- that era. Despite its general casualness of
composition and relational art was eloquently mal sculpture is a fully relational environ- handling, the painting clearly anticipates the
outlined in that early interview, seems lately ment achieved. At best, the minimal object later hard-edge works in its use of 'clustering'
to have second thoughts on the issue. Today, becomes a visual sounding board, an inert and 'empty space' as a backdrop for stripes.
he is 'composing' in complex colour arrange- resonator which, because of its self-sufficient It was but one short step formally from this
ments and, in a few cases at least, has aban- wholeness, renders parts of the environment 1957 work to the hand-drawn painting (no
doned the shaped canvas for the more tra- more conspicuous. Complexity, rather than masking tape) of 1958, Red Rattle.
ditional rectangle. Stella does, however, being a characteristic of the object, becomes a By 1959-60, Davis was experimenting with
maintain a single-relational character to his quality of the room itself. Or if the minimal the stripe format in a dozen contrasting direc-
work by utilizing equal-width divisions in his object is placed outside, then complexity tions. Some, such as Yellow and Violet,
overlapping circular patterns. Moreover, he involves the surrounding environment. used diagonal stripes. Lemon Look (1960)
continues to work within a systemic format in It is not surprising, therefore, that a majority clearly pays conceptual homage to Newman
order to avoid that busy and fussy appearance of the earth works or the 'new picturesque' in its use of two violet stripes on the right- and
which characterizes so much European ab- artists, as Sidney Tillim calls them, came from left-hand sides of the canvas. Paintings such as
straction after Mondrian and the de Stijl. In the minimal camp. In their desire to manipu- Blue Broadjump (1960), with its juxtaposi-
fact, the best of Stella's recent works should late this great arena of possibilities, Smithson, tion of 1-inch- and 10-inch-wide stripes in the
serve to remind us that he has emerged as a Andre, Morris et al, went to the environment same picture, anticipates not only his most
decorative artist in the grand manner, the directly in aerial art, earth removal, situa- recent work but also the horizontal stripe
like of which Western art has rarely seen since tional events and so on. paintings of Noland. Unpainted canvas is
the Moorish influence in Spain. The complexity of Davis's large stripe paint- brought to the fore in Sweet Hopscotch,
In Stella's work of the past few years, there is ings is obviously of a different order. It re- Three Columns and Color Needles, all executed
a division of the whole into parts, resulting in poses in colour alone, since he limits himself in 1960, while the painting, Fragile Blue,
a strikingly ambiguous image in which the formally to the vertical stripe—in equal- of that same year, already is deeply involved
determining primary shape, the modular width overall distribution during the mid- with Davis's later intensified pursuit of colour
system and the residual parts left over from 1960s and in varying widths intermingled with complexity.
the overlapping semi-circles are exposed to unpainted canvas in both his early and recent In retrospect, 1960 was a decisive year for
view. The general feeling of complexity has work. The paintings shown at Fischbach Davis. Without being fully aware of the im-
increased from his earlier circular interlock were a surprise to many, but not to those plications of his labours, he explored with con-
paintings to the most recent ones in direct familiar with the 1960 works, Sweet Hop- siderable formal inventiveness the potential
proportion as our ability decreases to read the scotch, Three Columns or Blue Broadjump. as well as the limitations of the stripe format.
canvas as shape. In Davis's work, canvas From these early works, Davis has drawn The variety of his output during the period is
shape, while not entirely so, could almost be half-explored ideas and developed them in a remarkable and it is deplorable that few of
characterized as a formal irrelevancy. new open-ended way. these works have been exhibited outside
For Robert Morris, the movement away from Few artists can claim this prerogative. It is Washington. Beginning in 1961-62, Davis
minimalism led to 'anti-form', where objects axiomatic that a man may plunder his own embarked on a decade-long courtship with
exist as fragments and wholeness is sensed work with impunity only if he is ahead of his equal-width, edge-to-edge stripes employed
through scanning the relationship between time. In a number of ways, Davis was, and in increasingly colour alignment. Davis owes
juxtaposed parts, at times dissimilar in nature, the early works seem as relevant today as they and acknowledges a considerable debt to both
or with the architecture or environment. were nearly a decade ago. The most recent Newman and Jackson Pollock. Newman was
Note especially the recent scatter pieces of paintings, embodying an accelerated involve- the first to isolate the stripe as a formal pic-
Morris (also Carl Andre, Le Va and Serra), ment with the intricacy of colour, appear cen- torial device, and, although he used it princi-
one of which was shown in his exhibition at tral to certain emerging aesthetic issues of the pally to fix or identify colour planes, Davis