Page 56 - Studio International - July August 1973
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areas depicted on the painting (signed and framed and on view possibly because of the predominantly day and, for once, regarding an
hanging above it. In the sculpture, downstairs) is not.q American ambience of mainstream historical sequence of works is
the empty spaces between the JANET HOBHOUSE minimal art, has rarely shown work in revelatory, not only of Visser's
pieces act as the painted-in white group exhibitions which might concerns, but also of the process of
lines of the picture, and the Carel Visser at the Lucy otherwise have linked him historically reduction which is exhibited in the
relationship between the two is Milton Gallery, 8 May —5 June with the innovators of first-phase development of a single artist's
interesting, in a way which the The Lucy Milton gallery recently minimal art. The work on exhibition contributions to minimalism. Indeed,
relationship between the paintings showed work by the Dutch sculptor at the Lucy Milton gallery consists of it is intelligible as such, as Reinhardt
and the sketches for the paintings Carel Visser. He is an artist who, sculptures from 1954 to the present has so often insisted, simply in its
negation of previously accepted
aesthetic desiderata. So it should not
be surprising that it is revelatory
principally in terms of antecedent
norms and conventions.
The development of Visser's art
over the past twenty years clearly
evinces the motive of the minimalist
programme which is the construction
(or more accurately, reduction) of a
'pure' art rid of all extraneous norms
and conventions which might
interfere with the kind of
apprehension condoned by
minimalism — namely the
apprehension of physical entities
pure and simple. The reductions
exercised by Visser, however, are not
as purist as Reinhardt's (though one
is reminded of Reinhardt for two
superficial reasons; the austerity of
the predominantly rectangular sheet
iron sculptures, and the fact that
many of the sculptures are black) nor
are they as bland as Judd's or Le Witt's.
The sculptures are more gratuitous.
Their superficial austerity veils a less
obvious commitment to the notion of
art works as 'presentations'. Certain
physical qualities are individuated in
the construction of Visser's
sculptures and presented in isolation.
The manner of isolation changes
enormously in the development of his
work. (In this sense he is closer to
Morris amongst the Americans.)
The process of reduction in which
Visser engages is precisely aimed at
individuating and isolating the
physical attributes which he presents
for consideration in themselves, in the
same way as Judd and Reinhardt
present physical objects for
consideration in themselves when all
associated values have been
successively withdrawn from the
'object of art'. Minimal art's
reductionism is based upon an
assumed fundamentalism or
essentialism such that, in the
reductionistic process, all is
contravened except that which is
(by consultation with certain
individual criteria of taste or private
judgement) not contravenable.
These are the elements in the 'objects
of art' which should be forwarded for
singular consideration in themselves
according with the minimalist
convictions. For Visser, it is
undoubtedly a real attribute which is
held forth in this way as the
'fundamental' or 'essence' of which
his art works are supposits. q
ROSETTA BROOKS
William Pye at the Redfern Gallery,
London, 8-31 May
Shelley Fausset at the Mercury
Gallery, London, 9-26 May
The three major pieces by the sculptor
Jeremy Moon No. 3/73 1973. Acrylic on canvas, 66½ William Pye at the Redfern last month,
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