Page 46 - Studio International - January 1973

images. They seem to have flown off at some installation. But it's very nice and there's a nice
earlier stage so that only the present kinkiness souvenir poem and photograph to take away.
remains. I'm not sure either about the intentions of
The whole exhibition of forties art jumps Barry Flanagan for his piece at the ROWAN
with exposed nerves and the over-all impression GALLERY. He is exhibiting his maquette for the
is of unhappy flesh, of economies of body and large Cambridge sculpture — which was
spirit. Nicholson's large abstract Two Forms eventually taken down — with various slides
gains in this context from its clean geometry — showing the site for the work, automatically and
the absence of human figures or emotions — as do continuously projected through the maquette
the constructions of Pasmore and the Oval onto the wall. The projecting of landscape
Sculpture of Barbara Hepworth. (In Moore's images through the small posts of the work
sculptures, on the other hand, there's no such creates a very different effect than the work on its
relief from the troubles since there's a certain own, and the interest of the piece depends very
battered clinging in his family groups.) I much on the interplay of different scales — the
suspect, too, that the lift one gets from the view which is a representation of a large area and
abstracts here has something to do with the simultaneously in actuality only a two by two foot
over-all colours of the other paintings, with their piece of wall (produced by a machine, light, and
general murkiness like clothes too-often dyed a much smaller slide of the same image) and the
and their general look of holding back and scale of the maquette itself which is in actuality
making-do. For that reason, perhaps, one's just only 26 inches high but which casts a shadow on
a little bit more attracted to the Nicholson with the wall image to appear in the scale depicted by
its opulent gold frame, and to the polished the slide — perhaps forty feet high. The interest
bronze of Hepworth's Oval than if one had only of the piece also lies in the relationship between
just stepped into the gallery and out of the Barry Flanagan the three-dimensional object which is the
daylight. 6o's Dish 1972 maquette and the two-dimensional slide image,
After the Whitechapel exhibition, Gilbert and Mixed media flat on a piece of wall, but representing a three-
Rowan Gallery, London
George's brand of nostalgia, at the D'OFFAY dimensional scene; and on the relationship
COUPER GALLERY, seems pretty luxurious. pleasant environment, and only occasionally between the three-dimensional maquette and
They've produced a 'sculpture' called The Bar eerie to have their self-portraits staring out at the two-dimensional shadow which the light
which consists of sheets of drawings pasted to you, either because you are the sculpture of the projects. In this way the light produces a double
the walls of both floors of the d'Offay Couper title or because (on the evidence of the lie : it transforms a slide into a deep-perspective
Gallery, and to the ceiling of the lower room. It undulating wall-paper) you are disturbing all landscape and it transforms an object into a
shows views of themselves in various drinking this pleasantness with some alcoholic display. shadow on a wall. This is a complicated way of
postures in a large mock-Tudor pub, with a lot I'm not sure, however, how great the illusion is describing what goes on in Flanagan's piece as
of windows and arches and a peculiar meant to be, and how much the distractions of it was on the clay I saw it, but the photograph
perspective which is meant, I guess, to resemble the gallery furnishings — phones, plush supplied by the gallery doesn't include the
the effects of drink. It's a very cosy, English and carpeting — were taken into account during the projector which is making all these really very
exciting relationships, and no one there seemed
to think it was intended to do more than show
quite unpretentiously how the piece looked
when it was put up in Cambridge. Anyway, I
liked it the way I saw it, whatever were the
intentions of the piece.
The other exhibits of Flanagan's 'Homework'
were less interesting; grouped furniture and
plant-shaped soft sculptures saved a good deal
of cutesiness by their ambiguity, but not totally
saved. His piece 6o's Dish offers a similar sort of
whimsy, though mostly because of the wording
of its title and the curves of the violin, which
Flanagan has sat upright on a small sofa facing
its image in a mirror, an image which is
presumably a bit dated. But the mirror gives the
portrait interest — for reasons which have again
to do with two dimensions and three
dimensions, and with the relationship between
object (violin) and its image representation
(mirror) and between object (woman) and its
artistic representation (violin). It gains too by
having the sofa back to the viewer, which
makes it not immediately recognisable, not
immediately jokey. q
JANET HOBHOUSE

Gilbert & George
Installation view D'Offay Couper Gallery, London
36