Page 51 - Studio International - April 1974

Contributors drawings 'announce a new feature in derived by completely different other hand film by film-makers has
means).
the rules or give them a new twist.'
been held back by the cultural need to
Clive Phillpot is Librarian at Chelsea The 33 drawings selected are Clive Phillpot establish a 'filmic' sensibility, almost
School of Art ... Malcolm Le Grice is reduced to a quarter of their actual a deliberate construction of an
a film-maker and teaches at St area, and four of them are reproduced 'appropriate' historical context for
Martin's School of Art ...John Walker in colour; they were not made with Vision current film work (Hollis Frampton
is an artist, writer and art librarian ... the idea of a book in mind, nor, but for has expressed a similar idea).
Film in the museums
Paul Martin is an artist and teaches a few exceptions, were they intended Though it can be argued that the
Recently a number of events have
sculpture at Goldsmith's College, as drawings for paintings. The care aesthetic standpoint of underground
drawn my attention to the problem
London ... Günther Wirth is a which has gone into faithfully films is relatable to earlier artistic
of film in the art gallery/museum.
German art critic living in Stuttgart... reproducing, say, Drawings 9a and movements, when the quality of the
For the past four months, films from
Barry Martin is a sculptor, the editor 9b of Group VI, in which there are work itself is considered (as opposed
the London Film Co-op library have
of One, and is currently writing a book stains and smudges around and on to inference of its intention, or the
toured Holland. Regular weekly
on contemporary British sculpture ... the drawings and a few blobs of work as a substitute for work in
programmes have been organized by
Ian Breakwell is an artist, shortly to colour notation in a corner, tends to another material form) in almost every
Barbara Meeter and Peter Gidal and
exhibit new work ... Gary M. Dault is falsify the nature of the work by case, the films of film-makers are
have been shared by three museums :
a writer, teaching at the Ontario, suggesting affinities with a finished superior. The truth is that much of the
the Stedelijk, Utrecht and Groningen.
College of Art ... Bernard Denvir is artwork, rather than presenting them recent work of film-makers is not
A large proportion of the shows have
London Correspondent of Art as the working drawings they are. plagued by this retardation and is as
been of British films and have
International and Arte Due Milla However this does not make the book pertinent as work in any other area.
included live presentation by eight
Judy Marie is a free-lance art any the less covetable. Gordon House,
film-makers (Sally Potter, Mike
critic ... Rosetta Brooks is a free-lance who designed it, has given the book Film collection in Holland
Dunford, William Raban, Gill
art critic and writer... David Brown is something of the feel which Hansjorg I was very frustrated by the attitude to
Eatherley, David Dye, Tony Hill,
a research assistant at the Scottish Mayer imparted to volume 20 of film in museums and official art
Annabel Nicolson and myself) using
National Gallery of Modern Art... Dieter Rot's Collected Works. collections. For example, during 1974
non-standard projection formats
Fenella Crichton is London It will be appreciated that the the N KS (Dutch Art Foundation)
(wrongly called Expanded Cinema).
correspondent of Art International.. configurations arrived at by Kenneth made a collection of 15 films by
The best audience response,
Martin, while they employ chance, Dutch artists, spending about £8000,
surprisingly, was to the most recent
are subject to his control, he but arbitrarily excluding important
and strongly formal British work
establishes the parameters of the films by Seip and Schoffelen as work
which has often caused difficulties by film-makers. In Amsterdam, I took
Feedback experiment, he develops a sequence with audiences on previous up the question of the attitude of the
occasions. Poul ter Hofstede, of the
Chance and Order is a paperback Groningen Museum, was the Stedelijk to film collection with
book of reproductions of works from organizer of the shows at Groningen, Gus van Tuyll, who had initiated the
ten series of drawings made by and is deeply interested in film as art. idea of the weekly film tour, and
Kenneth Martin between 1969 and He is a frequent writer for the discovered the standard inconsistency
1972, it costs £2.00 and is available Museum Journal (a publication that whilst film could be accepted as
from the publishers : The Waddington shared by all the major Dutch part of the 'educational' section of the
Galleries, 2 Cork Street, London museums) and assisted in the museum's activity, only film by
W1 X 1 PA. It is not just a collection of production of Film Beeld, an artists recognized in other fields was
reproductions. Because the drawings informative catalogue of film and suitable for purchase, and collection.
are interrelated one becomes involved video collections, distributors, This attitude was confirmed in a short
in a narrative as one reads the notes exhibitors and education, not just discussion with Mr E. L. L. de Wilde,
and examines the drawings, and as confined to the Netherlands (for the Museum's director, emphasizing
Andrew Forge says in his further information contact Mej. D. the lack of awareness of film as an art
introduction, 'the sequence given Bijleveld, Oude Boteringestraat 81, medium in its own right.
Malcolm Le Grice
by the form of the book gradually Groningen, Holland). Ter Hofstede
imparts body and focus to the said that, with the exception of some
inventive work that takes place of the recent British work, the Books
between the drawings.' underground film-makers produced A history of American painting by Ian
Kenneth Martin used the drawings less interesting work than artists like Bennett. 240 pp ; over 240
as a means for exploring the Kenneth Martin Chance and Order VI/7 Dibbets and van Elk. Though with illustrations, 43 in colour. Feltham,
combination of chance and 1971, 13½ x 9 in. significantly different conclusions, his Hamlyn, 1973. £4.25.
programming. The first drawing of standpoint has some relation to my A well illustrated account of
Group I illustrates the parameters only as far as he thinks fit, he decides own, that compared with the painting in the United States
within which chance was allowed to which drawings might be translated aesthetic developments of painting covering the period 1564 to 1972,
operate in most of the groups. A into prints or paintings. It is and sculpture, film work has been and including chapters on 'Luminism',
rectangle 40 units square on a sheet surprising how different the character generally retarded. This retardation 'Art of the West', 'Naive painting' and
of graph paper is sub-divided into of the finished works can be ; all of can be understood as a result of the 'The Eight'. The author of the
sixteen smaller rectangles each ten them suggest recession and late realization of film as a 'plastic' informative text developed an
units square and the intersections projection as well as flatness, and all medium. Whereas the cultural enthusiasm for his subject while
of the resulting grid are numbered of them have a peculiar, sometimes movement growing from employed at Sotheby's. The section
from one to twenty-five, then cards jazzy, dynamism, while the (now underground film has concerned on painting since 1945 is rather thin,
also numbered from one to twenty- hidden) rectangular or circular itself with the development of the e.g., no works by Barnett Newman or
five are selected at random, each substructure simultaneously gives film medium as material — language — Ad Reinhardt are illustrated, but as a
successive pair of numbers chosen a sense of coherence— not only chance cinematic context, many artists who general survey this modestly priced
indicating the starting and finishing and order but kinesis and stasis. concern themselves primarily with book is excellent value.
points of a line on the number grid. Is it too much to hope that the three concept and have 'made use' of film
The potential of this simple procedure series of recent drawings entitled from time to time, have tried to side- The playing card: an illustrated
is then explored and complicated Metamorphoses, exhibited at the step this retardation by ignoring it. history by Detlef Hoffmann. 96 pp;
further so that the actual sequence of Waddington Gallery with some of the The work produced, for example the 104 plates; fully illustrated, many in
selection becomes important. Other 'Chance and Order' works and Dartmoor Walk film of Richard Long, colour; bibliography. Edition
number grids and nets based on a drawings, might also be reproduced may signal an advanced sensibility, Leipzig, 1973 (English distributors—
lozenge and a circle, as well as in book form ? (A riffle through the but, through the artist's ignorance of George Prior). £6.
numbers on the perimeter of a square, splendid catalogue of the 1969 fundamental areas of the film A thorough history of European and
are also employed to generate new exhibition Abstract Art in England problematic, it leads to meanings and Oriental playing cards, and other
configurations.Ten groups each 1913-1915, still available at £3.00 implications at complete variance cards used for educational and
consisting of several drawings were from the Anthony d'Offay Gallery, with that of his sculpture. Lack of political propaganda purposes, by a
completed, but only certain of these 9 Dering Street, London W1, after attention to the issues of the 'medium' German scholar. The author's
works have been reproduced, the looking at Chance and Order, suggests have tended to reduce film to the detailed notes describe the owners
basis for inclusion being that the some affinities with past works function of documentation. On the and locations of the most important