Page 65 - Studio International - June 1973

Review
conjunction, disjunction, interrelatedness, and
invariance. The gallery note stated that the
fundamental issue in Rockburne's art is the
problem of 'how thought gets into an object or
how an object can be said to contain thought'.
The artist herself has described an earlier work
as an 'extensive thought grid'. According to the
blurb, Rockburne has now replaced the use of
set theory 'as an imposition from without with
a logic which structures the work from within
it.' The publicity around the art and the claims
made for it seem to be at odds with the work.
Rockburne's art is similar to a lot of work
around now. The ideas behind the show
exemplify a conventional wisdom and the
work is consequently artful and contrived. It is
also a bit provincial, rather prim, and
careful not to exceed the bounds of propriety.
The infatuation in recent art with philosophy
and its techniques is very suspect. Much
current work, including Rockburne's, sustains
itself in the belief that presuppositions and
prior knowledge of art are not essential to an
Wassily Kandinsky understanding of the work. The usual practice
Triangle Integue 19 24
is to draw up around the art extraneous
imperatives, often badly assimilated from other
intellectual disciplines, in order to buttress it
broken chains, antitheses, contradictions — these hidden in their midst. I wanted something and thereby prescribe the desired aesthetic
make up our harmony . . . Legitimate and topsy-turvy (I still like it): a fiery "stuffing" inspection. Criticism is thus hopefully diverted
illegitimate combinations of colours, the poured into an icy cup.'q or resisted. This kind of art which imagines
silencing of one colour by another, the sounding JANET HOBHOUSE itself to be separated from history is based
of one colour through another, the checking of on a rule of laissez faire which Darby
fluid colour spots by contours of design, Bannard has characterized elsewhere as
the overflowing of these contours, the mingling DOROTHEA ROCKBURNE AT THE LISSON GALLERY, 'neo-Dada'. Art is thus conceived to be a
and the sharp separation of surfaces, all these 30 MARCH-23 APRIL catch-all for indiscriminate theory and wanton,
open great vistas of purely pictorial possibility.' There were four wall designs in Dorothea irresponsible practice. Everyone is very tolerant
It may be argued that this process lies behind Rockburne's exhibition at the Lisson Gallery. about it and thinks it's great. It's disreputable.q
any complex abstract work, that Kandinsky is Each design incorporated a large sheet of R. J. REES
a theorist after the fact. But what is unsettling double-faced carbon paper. The carbon depicted
about the experience of seeing the works a lopsided X inscribed over a previously folded
themselves is precisely that the theories seem crease in the paper. This image generated the
to have been prescriptive rather than design. In two of the pieces the X was impressed
descriptive. on the wall in several positions to form a
His paintings have none of the look of the repeat pattern. The carbon with the prototypical
happy accident which makes us comfortable X was then nailed to the wall in correspondence
with the work of post 4os abstraction. Or of a with the design. In the remaining pieces the
safe arrival after the long journey of exploration. inscribed paper formed an axis to the pattern;
Kandinsky's experiments seem to have a few impressed lines were drawn as if extended
preceded his results far in advance of what we from the X and some were drawn perpendicular
can be familiar with. His paintings do not to it. The show was bland and ordinary. The
recreate the act of exploration, they set up work looked a little dated: the designs come out
explorations for us. The original trek was done of Minimal and Conceptual art. A gallery blurb
long ago. said the work was the result of an informal
This element of foreknowledge in logical operation. The show was entitled
Kandinsky's work might account for that `Carbon paper. Functions, operations,
distance which it still seems to have. It may be transitions.'
for this reason that Britain has been so backward Much of Rockburne's art is allegedly derived
in its reception of one of the greatest artists of from mathematics and logic. Her previous work
the century. The element of 'calculation' in made ostensible reference to set theory. The
Kandinsky is equally foreign to us, what he assimilation, however, is not very clear.
called the 'purposive playing upon the human Fortunately, Mel Bochner has the lowdown:
soul.' In 1935 he wrote about this element in `If we ask how it is that ideas and objects
his painting: 'What I wanted was not rigidity intersect and what is the nature of the
but coldness and a considerable degree of it; reciprocity between thought and sight, we are
even at times a positive iciness — as it were one asking the essential questions to which
of those gateaux chinois which, though piping Dorothea Rockburne's art addresses itself.' Dorothea Rockburne
hot when turned out on one's plate have an ice Evidently, the work is inspired by concepts of X's (Isomorphic structure) 1973
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