Page 49 - Studio International - October1973

everything he disliked in
contemporary Hungarian art : NEWYORK
pseudo art, infantilism, anti
communication, humorous- October in New York will see the
conceptual-kinetic, scientific and auction of some 50 paintings and
pseudo-scientific strategies, visual sculptures from the collection of
and verbal 'torso-problems', etc.). Robert Scull at Sotheby Parke Bernet
Mr Scull, owner of a fleet of taxi-cabs
The exhibition produced (dare I say and a well-known collector, will
it?) the only really sensible, though dispose of the art in orderto
not wholly convincing, article on concentrate on collecting the work of
conceptual art which I have so far young and unrecognized artists.
read. It was by Nena Dimitrijevic. Among the works offered for sale are
In a way she undermined a third of Target, 1961, by Jasper Johns,
the exhibition when she said, quite Double Feature 1959, by Robert
rightly to my mind, 'an art procedure Rauschenberg, Franz Kline's 1959,
which is basically non-formal and non- Orange and Black Wall and Willem
visual has become identified with a de Kooning's 1955, Police Gazette.
particular form of presentation'. But
perhaps in doing so she raised a Shah 'Abbas and the Arts of Isfahan
serious question about the correctness opens at Asia House this month. The
of considering conceptual art as exhibition, presented by Professor
something that belongs to the visual Anthony Welch of the University of
arts as we have conceived them. Victoria, Vancouver, will include
Safavi pottery, illuminated
The perceptive reader will have manuscripts, textiles and examples of
noticed that I have so far said very the famous Persian metalwork of the
little about the exhibition itself. This sixteenth, seventeenth and early
was deliberate. To my mind the eighteenth centuries. Among the
crisis of the concept of 'new imperial artifacts to be included will be
Edward Zajec principle when it was stated that tendency' is far more interesting a letter from Shah 'Abbas to King
T.V.C. 784781972 'execution is no longer in the hands of than anything which might have Charles I of England.
the creator of the idea or design of the been exhibited in Zagreb this year.
It is questionable whether the work, but is realized by specialists Where else in the world will you get 'Reality and Trompe L'oeil', an
original New Tendency movement in workshops or else in factories'. a group of international artists and exhibition of French realist paintings,
(if it ever was a movement) survived critics ready to hammer out the has just closed at the New York
beyond the third exhibition of 1965. The confrontation and discussion, problems which they know in their Cultural Center. The exhibition was
This is a point made by one of the which might have produced some hearts matter not only for art but, intended to be a survey of ten years
organizers, Boio Bek quoting interesting results was fettered by its more important, for society, and for work by four French artists, Henri
Alberto Biasi. It was for this reason title, 'The Rational and Irrational in individuals in society? Cadiou, Pierre Ducordeau, Jean
that computer art was introduced in Visual Research', where neo- Malice and Claude Yvel. The 75
1968 on the advice of Abraham A. constructivist and computer art It might be worth remarking that examples of painting, drawing and
Moles of Strasbourg. The intention ranked as rational, while conceptual the meeting of the International watercolours are typified by Claude
was good, but the advice was bad. art was classed as irrational. Yet the Association of Art Critics, which Yvel's statement, 'In refusing to use
The intention was to continue to intervention of an East German coincided with the exhibition, did photography, preferring to work
give haven to avant-garde movements, critic, Frieder Nake, in a curious way not leave a ripple on the surface and directly from the model, like Cézanne,
but even in 1968, computer art was justified the whole exhibition. In the remarks of some of the local "sur le motif", we find it difficult to
not an avant-garde movement; it was his view it marked stages in artists from Zagreb who attended a remain completely neutral. The
and is merely one method among alienation. First, the neo- few meetings do not bear repeating emotional involvement with our
others of putting marks on paper constructivists who actually produce on these chaste pages. So there is, subject matter is communicated to ou
(pace Prof. Moles and his pseudo something by their own effort perhaps, a case for New Tendencies paintings.'
aesthcio-scientific theories). As one (except Vasarely who gets others to 6, though, since, presumably, it will
participant in the recent exhibition put do it for him — and should not be there be beyond conceptualism, this may be The estate of the late David Smith has
it, you might as well speak of paint anyway) ; next the computer artists open to question. been transferred from Marlborough
brush art as speak of computer art. who programme but do not produce; Cyril Barrett Galleries to Knoedler Contemporary
and finally the conceptualists who Arts, according to Lawrence Rubin,
In 1968 Jonathan Benthall is produce nothing at all. (There was the new Director of Contemporary Art
credited with suggesting that at the also a splendid intervention by a (On the wall) Reliefs by Dobrovic at Knoedler. Currently, there is on
next exhibition conceptual art should Hungarian who praised conceptualism (Foreground) Diagonal Reliefometre view at the Hyde Collection in Glen
be included. Whatever one may think because it could rid the world of by Richter Falls, New York, an exhibition of
of conceptual art, that was a sensible David Smith's sculpture and drawings
suggestion. And so this year the
three 'new tendencies' (all a little New York's Guggenheim Museum
aged, perhaps) were: neo- presents two large shows this month.
constructivist, computer and A survey of the work of Richard
conceptual art. Whether these are Hamilton contains approximately 150
even the most important tendencies drawings, paintings, watercolours anc
at the moment (whatever their collages from 1949 to the present. It
novelty) is irrelevant. They are at will remain on view until 25
least controversial and one of the November. The collection of Lydia
chief, almost unique, features of and Harry Winston opens this month
previous New Tendency exhibitions and runs through 6 January. It
has been confrontation and includes drawings and paintings of
discussion between artist, critics and the Dada period by Balla, Boccioni,
other interested parties on Severini, Picabia and Schwitters and
controversial topics, that is, where sculpture by Arp, Brancusi and
certain forms of art challenge the Moore. Also on view at the
accepted norms. Moreover, as one of Guggenheim are several scale models
the executive committee, Marijan of airplanes painted by Alexander
Susovski, pointed out, as far back as Calder. The models are on loan from
1963, conceptual art was admitted in Braniff airlines for whom Calder
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