Page 42 - Studio International - June 1971

UK commentary the paintings, but yet preserving both Hicks showed reliefs and constructions
continuity and a feeling for possibilities. His use `inspired by' Vietnam, largely dependent on
Timothy Hilton of metallic paints, which one might have what we already knew about the war. Far more
thought would either stop the flow or too disturbing than these was Stuart Brisley's event
greatly dominate the surface, is blended in with at the exhibition 'London in Berlin Now'
a tough skill that I find admirable, and certainly (Akademie der Kunst, West Berlin, April).
without a parallel in English painting at the Brisley's artistic and political nerves were
moment. clearly tautened by the atmosphere of the
Howard Hodgkin's new paintings at the German city; he collected mounds of old
KASMIN GALLERY were often on wood, and newsprint and grey factory refuse, made a
occasionally stepped back the image half an structure out of a dozen old doors, and
inch from a mount that was also painted. None introduced a car into his arena-like space.
of them very large, they seemed to transform Props such as these became much more
his remarkable use of colour from a potential important than mere background as Brisley
expansiveness into something nuggety and and his associates played on their own
Paintings that were around in thousands a year clenched, all the more so in that there was aggressions and the responses of the spectators,
or so ago—unadventurous English hard-edge usually a lot going on inside them. Any finally involving the participants, other
using diagonal latticing and polite colour, or relaxation from this tightness therefore had a English artists and the largely German audience.
spruce rewrites of thirties moderne—have now curious effect, as in View, which put one in mind
practically disappeared from the scene, though of a Milton Avery landscape in a very hot Readers of this journal will recall a survey
painters in both modes still have a lot of climate. Hodgkin's well-known admiration for conducted among art students and publishers in
wall-space in a certain kind of gallery. Instead Matisse and for Eastern miniature painting quest of the ideal book on Cubism. No such
there seems to have been something of a came together most successfully in The thing has yet appeared, but people keep trying.
resurgence of a kind of painting that has been Terrace, Delhi, with its reminder of Matissean English interest in the subject has been
grumbling beneath the surface for some time window perspectives, while Saturday sluggishly aroused by a number of new books on
now, and which currently shows signs of incorporated a Légeresque cityscape. Perhaps the period, and the promise of more with the
attracting a new set of devotees; broad, the best painting there—which means a really celebrations of Picasso's ninetieth birthday.
expansive, cursive rather than uncial, owing very good painting—was Mr and Mrs Richard The most handsome and potentially the
most to Pollock, Still, Rothko, Louis, Sam Smith, sparer but with lots to look at in it. most interesting of this bunch is Douglas
Gilliam perhaps, but not a mishmash of such Cooper's lavish catalogue of the major exhibition
influences. If this constitutes a trend, it is as yet The Arts Council began its new season of he mounted, which has recently been in Los
a minor one. And if painters like Alan Gouk, young artists at the SERPENTINE GALLERY with a Angeles and New York. Like the exhibition
John McLean, Basil Beattie and Bert Irvin show whose main interest was in introducing (but even more so, since it reproduces and
constitute a group, this would be largely on the Fred Brookes, a Newcastle artist whose discusses works which were not shown), it
simple basis that they know each other and reputation had preceded him, to the London attempts to be a survey of the whole Cubist
have on occasion exhibited together. But one scene. Brookes used to be a painter, and thinks `movement'. Whatever that was. Was it
of the most interesting shows recently has been that he will go back to painting some day; co-terminous with Cooper's 'epoch', for
the grouping of Gouk, McLean and Beattie he wants to re-engage the wall into his instance ? And does his 'aftermath' (1914-20
together with Geoff Rigden at the MUSEUM OF activities, which for the last two years have been belong to the epoch, or after it ? This is simply
MODERN ART, OXFORD in February. Bert Irvin totally on the floor. He has been working with the recurrent modernist problem that the
showed at the NEW ARTS CENTRE (discussed in five hundred house bricks, stacking them beginnings of things are more interesting than
this journal in March) and Beattie at the lumpily in twos and threes, stepping them in their ends, and while Cooper is handy with the
MAYFAIR GALLERY in May. Beattie and McLean, long diagonals, building thigh-high towers, chopper, quite firm in knowing when to stop,
taking full advantage of the Whitworth's vistas leaning them against each other, on occasion it cannot be said that this over-simple
and helping-hand towards drama, dominated making small arches; none of this in any normal historiography has a critical view which places
the exhibition of large paintings which was bond, and never using any mortar, occupying Cubism as the most important thing that art
held in Manchester last month. The other quite a lot of floor space and providing a did this century. Nor is there any book which
exhibitors, cooler artists, took no risks; there shifting and ongoing set of perspectives and does this, and such an enterprise is clearly
might be a great opportunity for a little compositions that continually confused one's overdue. I imagine that it needs to be done by
old-fashioned pictorial daring nowadays. feelings between ground-plan and the modest someone whose critical gifts were as fully-
John McLean's work over the last five years elevation of his structures. For the Serpentine's developed as art-historical sharpness. In this
seems to have swallowed various hard-edge, rooms Brookes used 150 larger concrete blocks area the best thing on Cubism is still Clement
stripey, or optical methods of working rather in variegated groups , and the effect was Greenberg's 1958 essay on collage.
than to have developed from them; he is much correspondingly more massive; his projected Stylistic change, as one well knows from all the
the same painter that we saw at the Axiom years use of still larger elements might push his art analyses of Cubism's progressions,
ago, with much the same kind of colour over a boundary which one feels is close, into consolidations, breakthroughs and slackenings,
sensibility, as in the way that an adjacent chrome sombre weight and mysterious bulkiness. still leaves a lot of unanswered questions. I
green and viridian are whitened to pull the At the CAMDEN ARTS CENTRE politics have couldn't find that Paul Waldo Schwarz was
green's yellowness tantalisingly but sharply been to the fore, but the brouhaha surrounding particularly successful at answering or posing
towards a new feeling of blue—the sort of effect Marc Morrel's difficulties in having his work them, despite the fact that his book tends
spelt out in wide stripe paintings but now more shown was immediately dispelled by the neat towards the interpretative and has generous
subtly and continuously employed over the and twee appearance of his rather cuddly historical proportions which end way up
multiplicity of routes and reroutings that can structures made out of the American flag. towards our end of the century with Broadway
engage one's reading of the new paintings, David Medalla elaborated on the theme of Boogie-Woogie. But probably no book can
whose optimum size seems to be about ten slavery with a few too many words—one does not comprehend Cubism which does not get way
feet by seven — plenty of room for McLean's need to be told about the choice of chains as an beyond De Kooning, which does not discuss why
intense interest in dramatising the surface of image—and not enough art-work, while Philip Picasso never had a Fauvist period (I must slip
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