Page 63 - Studio International - May 1973

Art information

Recent shows that there is a cranky scientism in Latham, who Johns designed). That the stance was not
would doubtless appreciate de Selby. But the developable and had no interest except as a
flasks cannot do what is claimed for them. stance is damaging to Cork's view of exciting
Physics is the science of what is, and is not, new vistas opened up by his artists. A
RICHARD CORK'S 'CRITIC'S CHOICE' AT ARTHUR
measurable: its conclusions are as little characteristic of this exhibition is its faded
TOOTH'S, 6-30 MARCH
invalidated by gestures within an art situation period charm. Well, not charm. It looks weary
One approached the latest 'Critic's Choice' as is Greenberg's culture by savage chemistry. not only because Cork follows two- or three-
exhibition aware that it was going to be more What more needs to be said ? Only perhaps year old exhibitions very closely, not only because
on the ball than Messrs. Tooth's last two that an unwillingness to be bemused is certain contributors (Bob Law, Richard Long)
anthologies. The catalogue further persuades especially a virtue nowadays. clearly weren't bothering, not only because of
us that the show had an importance and Cork would agree, it seems (`debate . . . the poverty of spirit of certain others. It looks
relevance not usually encountered. The young thrashing out . . . propositions . . . philosophical weary because of the remorseless concentration
selector, Richard Cork, is accorded a great argument to clear the ground . . . trenchant on the past five years' failures. The badness has
deal of space every week by the Evening conclusions . . . verdicts delivered with to do with bad taste. The phoniness on the
Standard, the most sophisticated evening resolution . . . '). Why then the cop-out, artists' part is largely to do with an obtuse
paper in the world. And when, for instance, he immediately abandoning this stance when reaction to what is thought of as the 'art
expresses a preference, vehemently, for the dicussing his inclusion of Gilbert and George ? situation'. Why should Conrad Atkinson's
work of Gilbert and George over that of They are exhibiting some childish limericks. manifest inability to produce a political work
Anthony Caro, we all need to listen, as In common with most others who have of art be allowed the shelter of a lefter-than-
respectfully perhaps as the senior staff of the publicly stated an admiration for Gilbert and thou arrogance ? About the situation generally,
Tate Gallery, whose policies were clarified in George, he takes refuge in a combination of a more tenaciously theoretical art in England
this journal last month via his magisterial knowingness and bafflement CI suspect that long ago dealt with the fact that 'declaring
mediation. His personal choice — the people they are cocking a snook . . . ') But suppose as . . . ' is as difficult a task as its obverse,
he really admires — has now been on view, you had a cocked snook and it didn't taste too `calling into question'. (I am surprised that
accompanied by a credo. The show was quite good ? Could the proof of the pudding be only John Stezaker felt able to show in this
appallingly bad. in the recipe ? Are there not things to be said company.) Art is more to do with solving
Cork has no time for quite a lot of art. He about this ? G. and G.'s assumption of a problems than with posing them, and it is not
talks about some contemporary artists (painters faux-naif mode initially assumed a fairly only 'obsolescent practitioners' who know this.
and sculptors, for instance) as 'obsolete sophisticated agreement with the spectator that It takes rather longer, of course, and it's
practitioners' who 'fail to discern the bankruptcy things might not be what they seemed to be. harder. Cork mentions (and I feel for him)
of the language they employ.' The oldest of his But they furthermore asserted that their the problems of running a column. Most
own non-obsolescent artists, presumably purpose, to themselves if not to anyone else, working journalists make terrible mistakes, as
employing a perfectly solvent language, is was ineffable: 'oh art, what are you ?', 'to be I well know. But a considered 'Critic's Choice'
John Latham, who exhibits a small transparent with art is all we ask.' Thus, we presume that exhibition should concentrate on remedying
flask within a larger one. Both are vacuums, they planned off-stage to make public on-stage, the promotional scene, not exacerbating it. q
though you wouldn't know this from the look `in the thinking suits of our art', their TIM HILTON
of them. Cork explains, Just as Latham inability to come to terms with where art was
reduced the critical standpoint of Clement at. Given their St Martin's background, and `DAVID BOMBERG: PAINTINGS, DRAWINGS,
Greenberg's Art and Culture to a bottle of the intense theoretical work going on among WATERCOLOURS, LITHOGRAPHS' AT FISCHER FINE
liquid, so he uses the evacuated glass flask certain of their contemporaries, this seemed ART, 15 MARCH TO 13 APRIL
placed inside a larger evacuated flask to signify fetching at the time, as open to sympathy as
the reduction of the physicist's solid material many other declarations, in other spheres, of David Bomberg was an extraordinarily good
world to the artist's indefinable alternative.' He not being good enough. That they had the painter. He was extraordinary among his
refers to the occasion when Latham gnawed up, comfort of clownish companionship was nice British contemporaries in the works he
then expectorated into acid, that important for them, and their early marathon dirges were produced in 1912, and he was extraordinary
book. Imagine it. The obsessed tired eyes open okay, if recognised for what they were, a good still in 1957 when he died. Yet for nearly all of
but looking at nothing, the hands ripping turn at the party after the Dip show. That his life he went without the recognition that
apart, the mouth working without words, the nobody said this at the apposite moment could now seems irresistible.
gorge rising, the tearing, chewing and account for their subsequent disastrous career, The recent exhibition at the Fischer Fine Art
spitting ! But that there is a striking difference urged by uncritical acceptance into a plethora Gallery assembled some one hundred and
between the high cultivation of the book and of activities in which, since the 'art' produced forty paintings, drawings, watercolours, done
the bestial excitement with which one copy of it or claimed had either to stand on its visual throughout his long working life. It was in its
was destroyed seems not to have suggested to characteristics or its relation to a presumed way a small retrospective of the artist's work.
Cork that Latham's action, not rational, not aesthetic, turned out to be Midas's gold, nothing. Certainly there was enough here for dazzlement,
human, had no intellectual or artistic validity. There is an element of this throughout the and enough for David Sylvester's claims for
Yet great emphasis is laid on the intelligent show. G. and G.'s early activity was clear Bomberg as the greatest British painter of this
power of the work in this show. We are told of enough to relate to things then in the air: century to seem correct, almost obvious.
the impression made by Duchamp, whose art Beuys (especially his How to Teach Art to a The sheer weight of Bomberg's work makes
seems 'closer to watching scientific experiments Dead Hare) and the blank fusion (see the this so. There is an epic quality in the first
conducted in a laboratory than sampling normal Future of Art book) of the iconic with the works he made while he was connected with
art gallery fare', and who 'precisely expounded indexical also employed by American artists the vorticist movement, in those many drawings
truths.' Leaving aside the question of how far of the sixties (often coming in repetitions or of angular figures caught inside the picture
Duchamp's art was based on the precise identical pairs, like Johns's Ballantine cans, or space. Bomberg creates a live tension in these
exposition of untruths, one does indeed recall Morris's mask of his own features, which works, for the figures seem both trapped inside
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