Page 51 - Studio International - December 1973

UK reviews early thirties he must have seemed an and his paintings were stagnant as art than the value of the actual objects.
Ferrari's paintings still existed but
and pretentious as contributions to the
original to be treasured. In point of
fact he had little enough contact, it culture. It could be that it is only the they were no longer a challenge to
René Magritte at the Marlborough seems, with the Parisian surrealists; fact that he has been so over- Manzoni's status.
Gallery, London, 26 October-28 perhaps they were too full of ideas for publicized as a major artist that makes The recent exhibition at the Royal
November. him. He quarrelled with Breton (a one want to quarrel with him. The College of Art Gallery showed ten
Magritte is an odd case, and not only common, though not in itself modesty of his life could have achromes plus photographic
because he attempted to live by sufficient criterion for having been on continued without all the documentation of the other aspect of
paradox alone. It is interesting how the scene in those days) and went nonsense. The man who reckoned his work. The selection ranged from
little there is to say about him, and yet back to Brussels. himself the equal of Hegel had art in early stucco reliefs to bare stitched
perhaps only he could make that very After the short period of his artistic his life in the way that he was always canvas to cotton-wool balls and late
lack into the subject of legitimate formation, the repetition of motifs accompanied by his pomeranian on pebble and stucco reliefs. A distinction
curiosity. Those of his commentators enabled him to paint what he was sure short walks to the shops or the has to be made between their current
who admire him are always forced of. Thus he winnowed out the really brasserie. Perhaps he is not such an significance and his intention in
into bad poetic prose ('Magritte bad pictures which are precisely the odd case after all ; he may be the producing the achromes. They
transforms snuff into fresh green ones that look as if some sort of archetype of those quiet and crazy represent the total reduction of
tobacco leaves') as in his friend attempt has been made to make a symbolists that always turn up, painting. They are not white
Scutenaire's introduction to the painting with life to it. Some of these among flower paintings and canvases but colourless. They are a
current show at the Marlborough, or are in the Marlborough exhibition. landscapes, in the send-in of amateur considered anarchistic attempt to
feel the need to make wild assertions The Great News, The Master of the painting exhibitions. reject the accepted paradigms of
about his intellectuality, while at Revels and The Human Body would Tim Hilton painting. They belong to the
the same time insisting that a be examples. Perhaps the most European tradition of anti-art, not
condition of appreciating him is to be pleasant things in Magritte's whole Piero Manzoni — Achromes, at the to the American concept of
baffled ('rigour and relevance of his oeuvre also belong to this time, those Royal College of Art Gallery, London, abstraction.
thought ... painting was a means of paintings which had their origin in a 5-16 November Manzoni intentionally laid the
evoking a meta-reality which would half-innocent fascination with crime The work of Piero Manzoni has the foundations for future innovation. In
transcend our knowledge of the and detection, experienced via silent ability to ease itself into any slot the one way things have worked out as
phenomenal world'). Others may movies and cheap thrillers— the kind avant garde is capable of defining. he intended, but there remains an
feel that the essence of his art is that of writing later made sophisticated by The good reason is that the work adds essential distinction. The two areas of
the paintings, though initially Simenon. Fantômas was a particular up to more than it contains. The bad achromes and ideas reflected the two
gripping attention by their frozen hero ; Magritte was copying, a la reason is the conformity of the avant sides of his attitude to being an
peculiarity, soon enough take on the couillarde, a 1912 book cover garde. He died in Milan in 1963 aged artist. It is this duality which
dead look of singularity without featuring the mysterious criminal as 30. During his life-time Manzoni distinguishes him from the artists of
significance. lately as 1943. But that is a large showed with Fontana, Baj and the following decade. However
Magritte established the repertory work, and not really very Magrittean Klein and was a founder member of the between 1960 and 1970 a transition
of his motifs very early on, and hardly (the paintings which are most Zero Group. Since his death he has occurred which allowed artists to
deviated from them, though he did obviously from a previous source, a been the subject of an impressive list make revolutionary art for traditional
extend and shuffle them, for the rest postcard or a cheap illustration, like of retrospective exhibitions; last year purposes. The pioneers of the early
of his life ; some forty years. In his Les Amants of 1927-8, have neither at the Sonnabend Gallery in New twentieth century were reassessed,
first period he stripped himself of merit nor interest). Pictures like L'Idee York and next year at the Tate Gallery. the constructivist movement was
anything that could be regarded as Fixe, the best picture in the show, He is established as a forefather of documented, Duchamp became an
progressive or demanding ; the use of The Sleepwalker, The Voice of both conceptualism and accepted master and happenings
collage, the abstract structuring of the Silence and the Tate's Man Reading a minimalism. flourished in a dada renaissance.
painting, the creation of non- Newspaper are of the detective sort. The work divides into two different Politics were no longer a catalyst,
representational shapes, colour with They are small, very often areas, which were produced modernism and progress were
life of its own. His novitiate consisted compartmentalized, are painted with simultaneously, the achrome accepted as self-perpetuating
of recognizing that freedon would the neat cackhandedness of an 'paintings' and 'idea' art. The 'idea' structures. The commercial art world
have meant disaster. He invented a amateur who knows that he is a work includes signed cans of the remoulded the forces of anarchy
prison for himself in which he was clumsy artist, and have a general air of artist's own shit, a Base for the and anti-art into a presentable
ever after content to remain. When he absurdity. They are likeable. A hard World (dedicated to Galileo), an economic commodity. What is now
appeared in Paris, it was with all his view of Magritte would regret that infinite line (which he never accepted as a respectable ideology,
credentials established as a he went on to expand this gloomy managed to complete) and various Manzoni saw as a paradoxical
reactionary. And not only that, a but twee Belgian sense of the people, whom he personally signed possibility. The achromes were a
bourgeois from Brussels too Charm absurd, modulated as it was by a and certified as art objects for a revolutionary traditional art form and
could go no further. In the fetching ineptitude, into a preposterous predetermined period of time. Time is the ideas were a traditional
atmosphere of the illusionistic relationship with profundity. Only an essential point. Manzoni was an revolutionary art form. The two
backlash of the late twenties and his eccentricity veils the fact that he inventor. When he made his work is alternatives allowed him to extend the
all-important. This point was aptly limits of painting to justify the title
Magritte Sleepwalker c. 1927 illustrated by an Italian version of artist and then, with a fair
Watergate. In 1969 it was discovered proportion of irony and humour,
that an old painter living in Manzoni's question his own belief in art.
home town of Soncino had been Anything he established in the
making white achrome paintings in achromes he quickly released in the
stucco since 1934. Enea Ferrari form of an idea ; time, tradition,
quickly became a celebrated materials, procedure and
discovery, he was given exhibitions aesthetics. He produced objects
in Milan, Rome, Brescia and Bochum. which appear to foreshadow
Flash Art published a two-page minimalism and conceptualism but
review and the International their original conception refutes any
Herald Tribune quoted Manzoni and sensible comparison.
Klein as students of Ferrari. It To attempt wallowing in the
appeared that Ferrari, not Manzoni, sensibility of the achromes would
was the innovator. Many important involve calling nothing something.
figures in the art world were on the The relevance of the achromes to
point of reassessing the importance minimal painting can only be made by
of Manzoni. Then the fraud was an individual. In any critical
discovered. Ferrari's achromes had all reference to Manzoni it would be a
been produced in the years since misinterpretation of his significance.
Manzoni's death. There were many They were simply a self-referential
red faces but the essential point had means of documenting his activity
been made. Dates are more important as an artist. His book, 'The Life and
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