Page 61 - Studio International - September 1973

great.) The photographic supplement
is a useful reminder of absent friends
and of the way his peremptory energy
constantly quickened the pulse of
pre-war pioneering. In the context it
seems a small, obvious turn of mind
from the papers he was using in
collages to the use of paper,
cardboard, string, wire, painted wood
and metal in sculpture. The Russian
and Futurist contingents upstairs
suggest just part of the enormity of its
import.

Brancusi dominates upstairs. Without
him the exhibition might have
suggested that painters invented
modern sculpture. While he obviously
learnt something from Cubist
experiments with media, he alone saw Dubuffet Nos Chateaux Peu Denses
it through in terms of sculpture. The
1957
taut sensitivity of his bronzes
blossoms into a maturity of prolific swanks an equally impressive
originality and invention. The few catalogue line-up. A random selection
pieces shown here encompass his of 'D's includes De Chirico, Sonia
highest sophistication, his sometimes Delaunay, Delvaux, De Stael, Jim
whimsical speculation and the driving Dine and Dubuffet (not to mention
formal invention from rigid symmetry Droungas), each name represented by
to a dramatic asymmetry which a substantial number of minor works.
emancipates that sense of theatrical Wandering around this tightly-
rhetoric we can see fettered in the packed show inevitably causes the
Salon pieces. His re-thinking of metal dilemma of just where to position
and stone sculpture appears a truly oneself without doing an injustice to
phenomenal single-handed one of the 'greats'. It is only by
achievement. turning one's back completely on two
not-to-be-seen-at-the-Tate-in-1965
Beside him, many contemporaries Giacometti drawings that it becomes
take their natural places in a modern possible to enjoy the set of delicately
Salon. Duchamp-Villon and Lipchitz hammy Patrick Proctor watercolours
(at this date) look very sound ; of a dead pop-star. Proctor's Hendrix'
Modigliani strong but limited ; leer out from the wall six times :
Epstein and Gaudier-Brzeska erratic finished, crossed out, incomplete, and
and rather disorientated ; while flanked by Horst Antes's (b. 1936)
Archipenko seems the perfect chic Profiles. The table-top sized Henry Patrick Procktor Jimi Hendrix 1—IV 1973
Salon performer, his art polished until Moore in Rose Aurora marble cruelly
it disappears up its own boutique- uses Antonio Tapies's sandy-coloured
modernism. Matisse looks very strong Les Cils (eyelashes) as a backdrop, Most of the works on show are very own brew. The Redfern aura is a
in the context because he knew what although the two works do look excellent brand names but in too powerful one; works merge and
he wanted from sculpture, or at least rather nice together. Fontana many cases one is looking at the disappear beneath names and frames
he knew the area in which it was provides a note of colour in the corner supermarket dented can, the contents and qualitative judgements become
worth speculating. He seemed, too, to with the wickedly beautiful Spatial of which become suspect once the impossible. The gallery is to be
maintain a higher discipline in his Concept Red— a very red canvas with labelled seal (the Redfern frame and congratulated on its anniversary but
sculpture than his painting, no five slashes in it. the right markings) are removed. unfortunately this show can only be
relaxation, no easy poetry. The Strip a Barbara Hepworth 'oil and taken lightly.
lyricism of La Serpentine has a The Vasarelys (and a small De Stael pencil on board' piece of its de-luxe TONY ROTHON
muscular almost coarse elegance. collage) stand out amidst a number of surround and what is left ? — vague
'faded postcards' from the age when 'it greeny wishy-washy atmospherics in Hans Hofmann and Kenneth
It is an original and stimulating was very courageous to paint pictures oil with white blobs, supporting a Noland at the Waddington Gallery,
exhibition, supported by perceptive with blocks of colour that sang and working drawing for a sculpture, London, 10 July-4 August
and exhaustive catalogue essays from buffeted against each other'. Sonia signed and dated on the reverse of One of the logistic drawbacks of the
Albert Elsen. It's good for widening Delaunay wasn't lacking in courage in course. Why can't Hepworth work out exhibition of watercolours by Hans
one's perspective, good for making or 1911 and I might have enjoyed her her sculpture on a piece of paper and Hofmann and paintings by Kenneth
breaking one's prejudices, with plenty five listed works of the 70s had I found if she is really interested in 'mood' in Noland at the Waddington Galleries
of food for speculation. As a teaching them. This wasn't on the cards, the two dimensions, why not a painting ? in July was that you had to see the
rather than a summer-tourist reason being that the Redfern set-up paintings first. For the maximum
exhibition, it might have been more this time is even more analogous with A couple of Robin Denny prints, not in of pleasure — as well as for reasons of
fruitful in the winter, but you can't marketing shelves than usual. As one the exhibition but nevertheless historical decency, it should have
have everything. There's a great deal work is sold another is produced from hanging on the wall downstairs where been the other way round. After the
to be said for alternatives to the somewhere to replace it. The shelves the quick turn-over 'de-luxe' seems to ego-inflamed passions of the older
monolithic retrospective and it might always remain full but one searches be stacked, are absolutely perfect and artist's works, the eye and mind
even do us good to get into a in vain for a lot more than half the immediately forgettable, a nuisance to needed the cool, almost self-effacing
different rut for a while. q works listed. I did not expect to see nobody and the ultimate in discreet art lucidity of Noland's elegant canvases,
NICHOLAS WADLEY everything that was promised, but at objects. It is interesting that even which cleaned the aesthetic palate
the same time I wondered how Karel Appel's Savage Horse is tamed from one's earlier experiences in the
Summer exhibition at the Redfern directly the catalogue listing relates to the same state of repose by its same way that a glass of white
Gallery, London, 3 July-27 September to the Redfern stockroom. A return Redfern presentation. Bordeaux would counteract the
The Redfern Gallery celebrates its visit at some later date might reveal effects of an orgy of Crème de
fiftieth anniversary with a Summer the Braques, Hamiltons, Hockneys, A visit to this Summer Show could be Menthe. But together the two artists
Show styled with great refinement for Warhols, etc. Perhaps it is all the fault equated with a wine tasting session presented a dichotomy as old almost
the citizen art-lover of yore, wherever of Wunderlich who is taking up too where tastes are strictly tastes and as art itself— Claude and Poussin;
he is. Every letter of the alphabet much space with his erotic air brush. each sample is spiked with the host's Delacroix and Ingres.
107