Page 45 - Studio International - November 1973

to satisfy the needs of an earlier time, latterly, humorous ceramic sculpture) and serpent group and many pieces Hudson himself a few years ago,
and just as it is said no perfect since the middle sixties. featuring Osiris as a frog. could induce a real sense of menace,
military machine has been allowed but whatever frisson is set off by
to rust from disuse, so the history of The largest and probably the most One is hard put to guess whether Hudson's and Shaw's current work is
painting and sculpture and ceramics popular piece in the Monsen show Gilhooly intends to remain at the likely to be soothed by the associations
has run riot in Arneson's work, set was Clayton Bailey's Bigfoot level of myth and allegory, expressed of their found objects. What could
free by the certain knowledge that all (Sasquatch) Skeleton. It was a in a genial but vacuous style. I have be further from urban terror, or
the important art, if there is any, is fanciful skeleton, more than nine included him in this survey because political anguish, than a duck decoy?
going on elsewhere. feet long, purporting to be that of a he was born and educated here, made
larger -than-human creature that his reputation here, and shows here, When the forms are less allied to
Arneson has done series based on roams the Northern California but in fact he moved to Canada in that Boy Scout arcady in which we
flower pots and bricks (which are woodlands, as the Abominable 1970, and his move has been reported have all been brought up to believe,
ceramic, but not usually art) and Snowman is said to lark about in the to me as a political self-exile in the the frisson resonates longer and, as
dirty dishes (in essence watercolours, Himalayas. Bigfoot, hand-built in style of the latter sixties. However far as I am concerned, better.
which are art but not usually ceramic) bone china, was supplemented by felicitous he finds his new life, he Hudson has done a bottle combined
and celadon signs reading 'Art documentation of the legend — may nevertheless be cultivating, with an S-form, a raw gem stone
Works' (celadon is ceramic and invented by Bailey himself, as far as behind the good humour of Patrick of some kind, a miniature classical
sublime, but signboards are not). As I know — and the discovery of the Pig and other smiling creations, a pedestal, and a small stone ; with
one might guess, he admires skeleton.
Duchamp and Magritte.
Amazing as this may seem, I spoke
His most recent one-man show, at with visitors to the museum who
the Hansen- Fuller Gallery, either believed or were inclined to
introduced his self-portrait series, believe that the skeleton was as
recapitulating two millennia of art described. Such is the power of our
and craft. Observing that a plate is school trips to the natural history
a circular form, he has done Robert museum, apparently, that a similar
Arneson as the Leonardian man who installation could blot out the fact
symbolizes humanism ; scapegrace that the other objects on display
Arneson as the measure of all things in the gallery were works of art, many
puts the matter in a new light. of them boisterous jests.
A Hollow Jesture, a mammoth
head of the artist with his tongue If Bigfoot Skeleton had been
sticking out, opposes Arneson's exhibited in New York or any of a
bravura technique — his glazes are number of European cities, there
masterly —to his rude expression. might be a dozen critical essays
about it. For better or worse,
In another piece, he captures the Bailey lives in an almost total
grandeur that was Rome, except for critical vacuum, and thisjeu d'esprit
the cigar in the emperor Robert's is likely to be associated with the tall
mouth, the toes peeping out from the tale of Mark Twain, rather than the
base of the pedestal, and the unsmiling poetry of Bachelard.
genital organs protruding from the David Gilhooly
middle of the pedestal. But all of it is David Gilhooly has reached a kind of Patrick Pig
classical in detail ; I look forward to artistic maturity, or plateau, at the age
the Arneson Belvedere, if he does it, of 30. For some years he has been sense of the fall of man and the its variously finished surfaces, it is a
and I suppose I could do worse than making enormously popular animal expulsion from Eden that will show tiny aggregation of nature and art,
become a West Coast Winckelmann. figures that have many of the itself in his sculpture. and a work of casual brilliance.
resources of cartooning and
Last fall the San Francisco Museum painting as well as those of sculpture. Arneson and like-minded teachers All of these sculptors are playing,
of Art put on a show based on the Somewhat more adventurously, he have done so well at promulgating the and even where disquiet is manifest
collection of Professor and Mrs R. has begun to recapitulate the history idea that ceramic art is super fun in the work, it is not explicit horror
Joseph Monsen, of Seattle, who of mankind in a series of sculptures that several established artists have at the cultural or political situation.
have been buying serious ceramic whose subjects are frogs. His most made at least temporary use of the One cannot easily live in a suburban
sculpture (which has meant, recent show included an Adam, Eve, ceramic medium. Whateverthe reasons, or semi-rural area of Northern
it was only a mild surprise to learn California and feel like a member of
that the sculptor Robert Hudson, some vanguard to which the world
whose earlier work was in painted looks for guidance.
metal, often forbiddingly painted
metal, is now working in porcelain. Perhaps the ideal American artist,
from this point of view, was the late
Collaborating with an experienced Joseph Cornell, who made his
ceramist, Richard Shaw, Hudson exquisite boxes without apparently
took a pack-rat's nest (or lumber- paying much attention to the
room) of familiar objects and cast fortunes of one art movement or
them. From the resulting moulds, another. He lived in an unfashionable
combined with such classic ceramic and certainly unsophisticated
forms as the cup, the teapot, and the neighbourhood of New York City,
vase, Hudson and Shaw do gently somehow embracing mdernism
surreal assemblage objects, with but not fashion.
surfaces ranging from trompe-l'oeil
painting through abstraction to the As long as important art is thought
white of traditional porcelain. to be somewhat dull or somewhat
difficult, Arneson and his colleagues
Many of the found objects— will remain little honoured and little
waterfowl decoys, fish, twigs, stones, constrained. With the greatest respect
doughnut or torus shapes — belong to for the view that any scrutiny must
the domain of Americana, and the have its own consequences, I wish
result on the whole is an ingratiating there were some gentle way to honour
Iry Tepper body of work. The incongruities of these California ceramists.
Lemon Meringue Sea Chirico and Ernst, and indeed Jerome Tarshis
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