Page 49 - Studio International - July August 1973

until this evening I've never had a found Serra's more direct and simple by Joseph Beuys, is a televisual the sheet is pulled away, a trace on the
good look at it. It is, let us say, full of work, which survives (and even record of his process of erecting an tube or in the eye ? Is the tube like
slobbish old veal slaps posing as art, accepts) picture interference, most installation in a gallery. Personally I the eye?
and yet it claims to represent a satisfying, whilst work like Knoebel's would rather see the action itself Both the Serra and the Baldessari
movement comparable in importance Projection X and most of the Land Art than the tape. The tape functions as a showed an implicit understanding of
to the conceptual folks whom we've tape — particularly Walter de Maria's poor substitute. Unless there is a more the relationship of the scale and
come to love, by God. Still, one has an Lines in the Desert and Long's positive role for the use of the medium, resolution of the video tube to the
eye, and there are some pleasing Dartmoor Walk —were often significantly transforming the information on it. Neither tried to
things here as everywhere. Get it up ! destroyed by bad picture quality and experience, so that viewing the tape contain elements of information
poor definition. There is more to it itself is the major and most which approached the threshold of
The English Sunrise by Brian Rice than this ; the crucial issue lies in the satisfactory aspect of the work, then resolution, in such a way that the
and Tony Evans. Mathews Miller question of the neutrality or otherwise there is little to choose between these viewer was frustrated by the sense
Dunbar. £2.95. of the medium. Implicit in the work of works and standard television that there would be something there
I spent several hours over most of the artists associated with documentary. For comparison, two to look at, if only the picture were
Ovaltine at the Bloomsbury Ovaltine Schum is a reaction against McLuhan works, Folding Hat by John clearer (a sensation I had in almost all
Lodge looking at this sweet little and artists like Nam June Paik, who Baldessari and China Girl by the other tapes, particularly the Land
volume and had myself a time, let me deliberately treat the equipment, its Richard Serra, both created a reality Art tape). Particularly in the Serra,
tell you. What it does is show you all electronics etc. as the basis for 'idea' in the video presentation which the hands were about 'life' size, they
sorts of curious sunrise motifs in development. Rosetta Brooks, in an depended on and dealt with that were working on a grey paper
windows, gates, plates, mates, dates, article prepared for but not yet presentation. In both cases it was (which looked just like a video screen
grates, fates, Players Weights, published in Screen, sees the lack of a essential, looking at the tapes, to looks with no image on it), in a
fish baits, pates, Yeats, rates, 'gator cultural history for video as a positive consider the nature of the current completely flat on orientation to the
buckets, and Skeffington's Gyves. advantage for artists over film, experience rather than see it as a screen, so that many interesting
These are good fellows, Rice and because it leaves them freer to allow representation of an art work achieved one-to-one conceptual/perceptual
Evans. the concept to dominate (precede the in another time and place. Folding relationships were formed. This
object). This leads to at least two Hat achieved this through the slow constitutes a form of aptness to the
Modern Landscape Painting considerations. One, is it an illusion and casual exploration of a minimal medium, which is not incompatible
edited with extensive remarks by that any medium in its physical and insignificant variety of with conceptual complexity.
Pier Carlo Santini. Phaidon. £11. (phenomenological) sense can have manipulations of a soft hat, always in
This book, an anthology of landscape a neutral relationship to the 'idea' ? close up, accompanied by a soft, Festival of Independent
as opposed to a random selection of Two, TV certainly has got a cultural melodic, lazy, repeated whistling. Avant-Garde Film. NFT London,
nothing much, includes 245 plates, history, which indicates the need to During the thirty minutes of the tape 3 to 16 September 1973.
52 in colour. It travels around, this distinguish carefully between video you start to see yourself sitting I announced this festival in an earlier
book, the more primitive as well as and TV. The showing of the Schum looking, asking why, and how, it is issue. For a change I have the
the most highly sophisticated of tapes in the context of the Hayward different, for instance, from what opportunity to get in before an event.
twentieth-century landscape Gallery, via Sony 2 inch tape (video), appears nightly on TV. China Girl was This two weeks of films and film
artists, from Grandma Moses, bless was certainly not the same as more direct, with a clear 'content', events looks as if it will be the biggest
her, to Braque. There is, moreover, a their transmission on a national using the limit on information, through and most comprehensive review of
selection of literary comment, high network (TV). The problem is the framing, video's lack of textural recent developments in avant-garde
voices like Kafka, Eliot, and Faulkner. degree to which the artist is influenced resolution etc. to present an image cinema so far. Plans for the NFT
by an awareness of the contextual and actions, the nature of which are aspect of the show are well advanced.
Tomorrow's Ghosts, 28 poems by reality which his work will encounter. not instantly obvious, so that you are Over a dozen American film makers
Peter Stark,14 original etchings Much of the work, as it was available forced to speculate on how things have said they will be present, and it
by Arthur Boyd. Circle Press for viewing in the Hayward show, are happening. Then the mental is unlikely that many of the
Publications. Edition 100. £140. seems to have been made with a lack speculation turns to the terms of the Europeans will fail to get here. q
Portfolio £550. of awareness of the limitations and development of the action. Subtle MALCOLM LE GRICE
Quarter bound in aubergine canvas nature of the medium, or of the nature by-products which the close control
and grey calf; poems hand-set of the reality which exists in the of a limited situation allows to
in sepia Helvetica on Saunders 'viewing' of the work. Eurasienstab emerge — is the trace-line, left after
mould-made paper. FOCUS
The etchings printed by Mati Bassis in
his atelier, on Crisbrook hand-made Despite its critics, photography is
paper. 'Sour faced Calvin art thou very much a part of the art world. In
whining still ?' Distribution : Idea a recent article in the Financial Times,
Books London Ltd.El 19 May 1973, it was well stated that
TIMOTHY CRAIG the Sotheby Belgravia gallery's
photographic sales are now
something of an event.
Growing interest by collectors in
VISION Daguerreotypes, Calotypes and
Ambrotypes, prints and plates has
Gerry Schum — Hayward Show stimulated the market and in turn has
I recently made a visit to Germany brought early photographic material
hoping to talk to Gerry Schum. into the open. Some of the going
Events overtook this intention. This is prices have brought anywhere from
in no way an obituary; Georg Jappe's £100 to £700 for individual prints.
piece in the May issue of Studio did On the contemporary side the Arts
that more genuinely than I could. Council's first major project involving
However, both in Köln and in eight photographers and eight towns
Düsseldorf it was difficult to avoid was shown at the Photographers'
considering him. First the Hayward Gallery. The aim of the project was to
show. Again, I want to complain highlight the differences of approach
about presentation, particularly open to a photographer and to reveal
in the 95 Piccadilly part of the to the people of each place
show : the monitors were badly themselves, their towns and their
adjusted, the sound was bad, and it environments as seen by two
was hard to find what was what and outsiders. The commissioned
where. The information on the work photographers will also form the basis
was very scant. Perhaps bad of the Arts Council's collection of
presentation of video is part of the contemporary British photographs.
medium, and maybe this is why I Untitled photograph by Thomas Lüttge. Photographers Gallery The Tate has just made its debut
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