Page 57 - Studio International - June 1972

in controlling detail, or even making the
individual panel complete enough to stand on
its own. The 'Surface Veils' on the contrary
are required to hold the spectator's interest
unassisted. They are Ryman's best statement
of his love of light.
If, however, we are to take Ryman as a man
of his generation, bound by its strictures, these
paintings are regressive. They are just
paintings. The decade image is weakened by his
apostasy. Even his all but exclusive use of
white which has been mistakenly attributed to
the demands of the 196os doesn't appear to
be anything more than the evidence of a
delicate sensibility enchanted with the
possibilities of the clarification of light. The
breathing space required by a painter, denied
in the decade wrap-ups, must be restored. It is
not the object that needs to be de-emphasized
now but the obfuscating rhetoric around it. history of his art. admits these allusions and even underlines
In presenting James Rosenquist, curator It is not accurate, in fact, to assume that their significance.
Tucker offers a candid discussion of her own Rosenquist's profusion of interrupted images What becomes a central issue then, is how
assumptions which also tend to confine him reflects a `new' way of seeing. Leger had already much of a metaphor are we to make of
within his decade. But in a broader sense, postulated the importance of the object in 1935, Rosenquist's ongoing production of rapid
Tucker's argument is itself confined within particularly when seen close-up as in the juxtapositions and ambiguous magnifications
its decade since it is based on a series of movies. He had even talked about the varnished of detail ? If we say, as Tucker says, that the
speculations concerning the nature of perception. red fingernails that we find fairly often in work is not about society but 'subjectively a
Since perception is generally discussed as Rosenquist's inventory. The photo-montage, part of it', the dimension of metaphor must be
nearly as possible in terms of scientific which Rosenquist's later work most nearly sacrificed. But she is unwilling to sacrifice
observation (even the existentialist philosophers resembles, had a venerable history and that classic measure of a work's complexity,
keep invoking experimental results), and since ought not to be shunted aside in favour of an and even goes as far back as I. A. Richards to
scientific concerns saturated the 196os, it aesthetic that takes no account of form. Even support her thesis that Rosenquist's is a
works out very well as a basic framework for though Rosenquist insisted to Tucker that his metaphorical art. This contradiction, it seems
Rosenquist's work. I found the catalogue essay techniques are what he calls 'anti-style', he to me, is inherent in Rosenquist's art.
very appealing. Nevertheless, it works by cannot have it both ways. If we strain to decipher one of his enlarged
tautology. Basically it says that Rosenquist is Tucker is reluctant to admit Pop art as forms individually, the visual reward is
only painting what he sees, and that if it relevant to Rosenquist's endeavour, and with relatively limited because of his avowed
doesn't look like what we see, that is because some justice. All such designations are 'anti-style' technique that is very repetitious.
his seeing is the way we really see, but we restrictive and what she obviously loves about If, on the other hand, we try to relate his
don't know it. Rosenquist, and expresses very well, is the disparate visual thoughts, we are defeated by
Once we accept the perceptual argument sense of his freedom to go anywhere he chooses. his unwillingness to deal with the root
wholly, there is no need to review Rosenquist's All the same, Rosenquist's allusions cannot be meanings of his juxtapositions. The power of
painting in the light of its genesis, but only to ignored, nor can his techniques, anti-style or metaphor resides in the precise location of the
wait until he has his next session of seeing and not. `If Pop art is to mean anything at all', two entities coupled to make the third. There
try to 'see' them as we are supposed to wrote Robert Rosenblum in what I regard is something powerful in the way Rosenquist
according to all perceptual theory. as the best critical discussion of Pop, 'it must makes segmented ensembles overwhelm the
But the evidence in the exhibition, which have something to do not only with what is sightseer, but the power does not so much lie
begins with work dating from the late 1950s, painted, but also with the way it is painted; in his juxtapositions, as in his sheer sensational
does not suggest that Rosenquist leaped full- otherwise Manet's ale bottles, Van Gogh's enlargements. As he charges through modern
grown into the centre of perception. He had flags and Balla's automobiles would qualify as life with unabated energy, Rosenquist gets
studied painting, and he had been around fairly Pop art.' The characteristics of Pop, according a lot of zest into his work and he is without
sophisticated environments even before he to Rosenblum, are that 'The authentic Pop question the most interesting phenomenon
became a billboard specialist. His encounter artist offers a coincidence of style and subject, of the Pop movement. It seems to me,
with the work of Rauschenberg and Johns that is, he represents mass-produced images and though, that his new interest in the motion
probably informed his work of the late 195os objects by using a style which is also based picture and stereoscopic experiment is much
and early 196os, and made it feasible for him upon the visual vocabulary of mass production.' more apposite to his 'perception' than
to include real objects, or rend the surface of Rosenquist's visual vocabulary derives from painting is. The grandiose scale he requires to
his canvas, or build out from it three- mass-produced printed matter. His way of effect the photomontage principle is much
dimensionally. His spiritual sources were even rendering is given in the tonal effects of the better suggested on the moving strip. The
richer : it seems obvious to me that he liked the reproduced photograph. The coincidence of F-III for instance would escape the unwanted
kind of ironic play with objects and their style and subject is obvious. It simply does not (by him) associations of social commentary if
dissociation embodied in the work of make sense to ignore such clear allusions to it were treated full-scale in cinemascope.
Magritte. Not only did Rosenquist interrupt the industry as the giant rendition of a telephone Everything would fall into place once Rosenquist
figure and use inserts in the Magritte way, but cable in Horse Blinders and the intended removed himself from the contradictions
he even echoed Magritte's obsession with association in F-111. The montage technique, implicit in the use of two-dimensional surface
blue sky and feet. His 'perception' then, magnified and amplified thanks to Rosenquist's for the depiction of kaleidoscopic vision
partook of certain enrichments offered in the unique experience as a billboard painter, rather than of metaphor. q
271