Page 33 - Studio International - September 1972

think. The marketing of prints during the
past few years has become a far more lively and
sophisticated exercise than ever before, and it is
significant that Alistair Grant, with his students
and staff, have published a folio Printmakers,
June 1972 of seventeen signed artists' prints, in
an edition of a hundred—those by David
Brown and Gisela Weimann are especially
good—as well as producing a mini-pack of
postcards. Few painters or even sculptors can
hope to sell the works they produce as students,
yet there must be an enormous stimulus
implicit in the acceptance by others of one's
own creations. For this is one of the features
of the current art scene which tends to escape
the notice of the outsider. At a time when the
mere deployment of technical skills has a
minimal significance, a great deal depends on
the validity of an artist's own vision, and for
the young a rejection of this may also imply a
rejection of the personality. More egos are
swamped in studios than we dream of.
It is worth remembering that the only real
contribution which Britain makes to the
international art calendar, the BRADFORD PRINT
BIENNALE, originated from the art college in
that city. This year's, the third, open until the
end of September, has been hung with a great
deal more freedom than previously, and many
of the exhibits are optimistically left in piles on
tables to tempt spectators to pick them up and use of blue, or more probably from the of busts —or rather truncated heads —he reveals
inspect them with the dedication of a explicitness of the skill deployed. an astonishing range of inventiveness and
Daumier-dilettante. This points to the major It is precisely this need forinvolvement, this displays a grammar of imagery which may
problem implicit in any large print exhibition desire to be emotionally touched, which is govern the future development of his career.
(it was evident too at the similar display in catered for by the other approach, which sets Painting too has its dichotomies, and they
Venice at the Ca' Pesaro) —that the uniformity out to arouse disquiet by emotive imagery can be included within the peripheries of the
of texture and the prevalence of similar rather than to allay anxiety by the solution of hard and the soft, the problem-solving and the
standard paper sizes tend to impose a certain formal problems. John Davies, whose work was emotive. But there must be some form of
drabness of appearance. I suspect, however, on view at the WHITECHAPEL in the summer, dialogue within the confines of any one work;
that at Bradford the general lack of visual certainly does not attempt to do the latter— an emotive monologue, or an unfelt exercise in
stimulation owed more than a little to the actual though some critics have been tempted to ingenious manipulation, are both equally
selection. There was an unjustifiable amount criticize him on this score—possibly from a ineffective. I felt that, on the whole, Patrick
of craftiness, evident even in the works of some covert sense of stylistic Puritanism—his Heron's paintings, which were on view at the
of the prize-winners, and an overall ambivalence drawings indeed do show a certain ambiguity Whitechapel at the same time as Davies's
about what prints are supposed to do. of intent. But the figures themselves, realistic figures, fail on the former score. 'Hand-stroked,
Sculpture seems free from the problems mannikins, life-size and all-pervasive, some hand-scribbled, hand-scrubbed'—as he himself
which fret painting, and this was apparent in with the air of potential 'flashers' hanging round describes his application of paint—they hinted
the art-school world—notably at Chelsea, the Gents at Victoria, others with the seedy at miracles of sensibility, and suggested an
where the contrast was most marked. Here sanctity of frustrated suburban evangelists, are infinity of emotional responses. But somehow
there are two main options open. The one firmly set in the de Sade-Udolpho-Beckett these were never really fulfilled; the initial
admirably illustrated by Phillip King's new tradition. To stumble across one seated in a impact tended to be the only one, and prolonged
work, which was on view at the ROWAN chair or suddenly to feel an anonymous inspection provided no further pleasures. Why
GALLERY in July and August, depends on the macintoshed figure virtually breathing down this should be I find it hard to explain—perhaps
mechanical solution of certain formal problems your neck is to experience an unequivocal there has been some change in the temper of the
within a clearly defined visual framework; frisson, the exact nature of which it is almost times—for Heron is a most skilful manipulator
gravity, dimensions, directions, planes, are impossible to analyse. Spaced significantly of colour, whose compositional abilities,
weighed against each other, and eventually around the whole floor of the upper gallery, especially in the use of space, bespeak an
orchestrated into a unity, the effectiveness of sometimes in vaguely humiliating positions, like immense seriousness. His art has not remained
which ultimately determines the validity of clients in a Genet bordello, they do not form static, and the development which has taken
the object. In Blue Between there are three the closely-knit ambiance of a Kienholz place between the horizontals and verticals of
major components, each of which is subdivided tableau, nor are they so statuesque as the more the 'fifties, and the larger, more rhetorical
into constituent elements which interplay with rhetorical figures with which the Polish artist canvases of the 'seventies is both logical and
each other and with the total structure. The Karol Broniatowski packs his gallery space. stylistically convincing. But few of them ever
effect produced is indubitably impressive, and There are certain props added to nudge us in really come to life (in the way, for instance, in
King deploys his forms with an almost the right direction: a false nose on one; a which Morris Louis's large painting, on view
magisterial self-assurance, but there is an dunce-like cap on another kneeling figure. Nor at the Waddington Gallery at the same time,
implicit coldness —stemming possibly from the are these gestures merely theatrical. In a series seemed to breathe out of the canvas, a living
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