Page 73 - Studio International - April 1973

Art information

composition and interpretation. It is fair to say photo lithos at the DM gallery would suggest. q paintings have refined this illusion to a
from the exhibition catalogue that the artists' CATHERINE LAMPERT distinction between a linear circle and a
statements dwell on their workmanlike circular line. The graphite line functions as a
procedure and on the perennial question of circle but it does not join to completely contain
reality versus illusion, updated to ask what is 'ROBERT MANGOLD, PAINTINGS AND DRAWINGS' a circular area. Illusion is questioned by the
more real, a single point of focus or allover AT THE LISSON GALLERY, FROM 27 FEBRUARY- rational inability of an imperfect circle to
24 MARCH.
sharp-focus verisimilitude. connect, except as an imperfectircle. q
The California painters who commit The minimal painters who worked in New York LYNDA MORRIS
themselves to stringently faithful in the middle sixties are virtually unknown in
reproductions of sterile magazine illustrations London. The recent Ryman exhibition and last
'KEITH VAUGHAN, NEW PAINTING' AT THE
seem to be destined to a depressing dead-end. month's show of Mangold's work, both at the
WADDINGTON GALLERY, FROM 7 FEBRUARY-
Each of their immaculate pictures of a VW, a Lisson Gallery, partly remedy this deficiency.
3 MARCH.
Hollywood estate or another garish roadscape is Minimal sculpture did not suffer from the same
as anonymous and bland as the California neglect, partly due to the system and process Keith Vaughan has been on to something
sunlight in which it is embalmed. By sacrificing involvement of the work, which was therefore acceptable (and lucrative) for some time now,
painterly treatment, the West Coast realists discussed within the conceptual framework. The and we should not be surprised if his show
deprive themselves of the interest of earlier paintings, especially in Europe, appeared to be was in no way a break with a winning formula.
Hollywood artists like Ruscha and Hockney. overshadowed by the challenge of A first impression of his 'new paintings' at the
Within the Photo Realist group, however, dematerialized, non-object art. They implied Waddington Gallery was of someone who had
are artists using their virtuosity for more attention which was apparently incompatible found a strong foothold in abstract painting, a
imaginative ends; for example, Estes' shop with the development of conceptual art. confident if somewhat dull manner of expression,
windows are studies in optical illusion. He treats Mangold's work up until 1969 acknowledged and a characteristic style which has every
the interior with true story-book detail, the the painting as an object. The division of the reason to appear in two-year intervals at the
exterior with flattened, slick precision and the surface was structural and geometrical, the kind of galleries which exist to document the
plate glass itself as the receptacle of both spatial surface was masonite, cut to form physical recent achievements of established painters of
information and the tonal range of daylight. divisions. The change in materials, which was taste and reputation.
Another deviator, Chuck Close, takes his own partly practical, has been fundamental to the But hang about such an exhibition for a few
mug-shot portrait photographs according to a subsequent development. The recent work further intakes, and such foothold as Vaughan
predetermined line-up and depth of field. The appears to reduce the influence of minimal seems to have is revealed as increasingly more
blown-up version is necessarily hyperrealistic, sculpture to an internal refinement of painting. perilous. Behind the solid decorative
though patches of skin, cloth and beard are The present Mangold show raises questions achievements of his recent work there is no
transformed into abstract coloured patterns. which are particularly relevent in this context. supporting vision. His work at best is an homage
The entire Nat or Richard looms before the An interest is emerging in new painting, which to Kandinsky, at less good an homage to de
visitor with a cinematic, fearsome presence would not be extraordinary, except that it is Stael. Vaughan is happiest with collage effects
analogous to the dominating expanses of recent coming from the conceptual enclaves. The that break up the surface of the colours, since
colour-field paintings. implication is not tedium but the logical the conflicting signals can distract the eye, feign
With Ralph Going's Airstream the superb acceptance that if artists need not be painters or harmony by the easy amassing of component
photographic image is the raison d'être for sculptors, they can equally continue to be parts. In the same way, Vaughan's paintings can
the painting. The original photograph was painters and sculptors. Secondly, there has been confuse by the allusion to other painters whose
simplified into a blue sky zone and a neutral a development in painting beyond minimalism: surface effects he throws before us as evidence
brown ground within which lies the shiny 'development' is not entirely accurate, of deeper insight. But neither their insight nor
aluminium caravan, its surface as ideal an area in refinement would be a better term. his can be felt.
which to describe reflected light as were the Mangold's work at the Lisson is the first to be Vaughan is best in those small, controlled
pewter goblets of the Dutch realists. shown in London, but it is not hindered by landscape impressions where he can disclaim
The artist most difficult to summarize is functioning both as an introduction and as new high intentions; he fails badly at the large figures
Howard Kanovitz, who for the last twenty years material. The related group of work divides and at great leaps in colour. Those headless
has kept, artistically, on the periphery of the into three types; drawings, small masonite figures are the unhappy offspring of a kind of
New York scene (as a one-time Abstract paintings, and large square canvases. Between art-history symbolism (certain strokes stand for
Expressionist, Pop Artist, etc.) while calmly them they set up a size and materials dialogue, the way of looking of the French painters of the
pursuing his natural biases. For instance, his while retaining a colour and line continuity '5os) and a worked-up expressionism, a
treatment of silhouette has ranged from the which reflects earlier concerns. The statement of a deep and neurotic character in the
cutout physically attached to the canvas to a recent use of series is altered in favour of a group jerky, melodramatic gestures of the males.
recent contrast of foreground shadow with of individual canvases, emphasized by changes Even so, melodramatic does not make epic in
far-off skyline. Offhand it would seem journal, in colour. The possibility that colour is a these larger works and, again, Vaughan betrays
the 9 ft. recent work in the Serpentine, is a diagrammatic distinction of red, yellow, green his inability to let the statement stand forth in
sidetrack from his usual difficult and blue is questioned by the relationship whatever honesty it can muster. Unhappy with
superimposition of disparate images. But his between specific hues. Colour also qualifies the the large blue spaces in these works, Vaughan
work probably communicates more about drawn circular line it supports, extending the livens and superficially complicates the image
artistic honesty to another painter than to relation between different circles, colours and with some fancy work with the palette knife. But
anyone else. His development tempts one to canvases as an internal dialogue within the however thickly he lays it on, in however many
speculate how long the relatively cohesive group. The two black and white drawings in the directions his strokes move to addle the brains
Photo Realist 'movement' will last before exhibition refer to Mangold's recent distorted of the viewer, he does not hide the thinness of
reintegration into the general bag of stylistic square canvases, which established the illusion his vision or the indecision of his methods. q
options, as the more international selection of of a real circle and a real square. The new JANET HOBHOUSE

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