Page 41 - Studio International - December 1974

the centre of a square sheet. lain Baxter ran
school.
the paper through the press blank. It is offered A fair number of prints deal with
for sale with an appended photograph showing photographic or verbal material, a few
this operation in progress. specifically with the nature of those sorts of
Gerald Ferguson's 4 Squares (1973) depends information. Jan Dibbets contributed a
on the fact that the ink takes several hours to characteristic sequence of photographs with
dry. A square is drawn on the stone and then systematically varied exposures, the subject
printed in black ink. It is immediately erased disappearing into light and dark in first and
from the stone and another drawn next to its final frames. Richards Jarden stood in front of
ghost. This is printed before the ink of the first a camera set with a fairly long exposure and
square has had a chance to dry so it offsets onto cavorted around, as he pressed the switch, in an
the stone, disturbing the texture of the surface. attempt to avoid leaving an image. Les Levine
The third and fourth squares are printed in had a colour photograph of Peggy's Cove printed
quick succession, and on each occasion the with the different elements of the colour
previous squares again offset, the first three separation on a smaller scale underneath.
times altogether. The piece is one of great Location Piece#25 by Douglas Huebler was
power and delicacy achieved through the based on a picture-post-card of the Trevi
subdued gradation of 'colours' of the squares Fountain; the artist went to Rome to locate
and the minute irregularities of their formation. the exact position from which the photograph
[2] had been taken, and his reconstruction is the
Principles of self-reference are pervasive in main content of the print; a space is left below
recent art, and what we see very often among to fix the copy of the original post card that he
Nova Scotia prints is the application of that promises to send to the purchaser. College
principle, extracting content from the President Gary Kennedy, as part of his attempt
circumstances of the situation. `Self', however, to remember all the people he ever knew,
may be construed at different levels. For Greg hunted out an old class photograph and wrote
Curnoe, the incidents of his visit to Halifax on it the names — or parts of names — of people
formed the theme of a series of prints he could remember. 'Story' artist Bill Beckley
elaborately disguised to look like a writing pad used black and white photographs of popsicles
with typed notes. For present director, Wallace he had made with fragments of narrative
Brannen, his own printer's mark — known in the dispersed between the paper covers and the
trade as a 'chop' — was blown up to make the popsicle sticks. The title is: The Story is Printed
print; and that involved a double level of self- in Red Ink, The Popsicle Colorless but Flavoured
reference as the mark is itself an image of the Strawberry. Roger Welch's untitled print of
machine used to stamp it, also called a 'chop' — 1973 reproduces a newspaper advertisement of
hence: Chop-chop. [2] 1949 announcing the eighteenth anniversary of
John Baldessari's one print of 1971 his father's paint and wallpaper business along
(emerging as a by-product of another exhibition with his father's typed layout for the
in the Mezzanine Gallery) takes up the advertisement and his own written explanation.
connotation of the school situation. There, he Pieces like this last one bring the print close
had students write all round the walls, in 'lines' to the reporting role of printed matter, but the
of traditional scholarly penance, 'I will not make connotation of print as art rarely leaves the
any more boring art'; the print enlarges a sense unmodified. Les Levine, early this year,
section from his own sample instructions. entitled a series of lithographs reproducing
The relationship with the rest of the school various printed texts: Language Emotion +
is complex. The direction of interest that Syntax = Message. The equation seems also to
emerges in print-shop production is widespread. require some reference to the context in which
The gallery programme and the teaching the language is presented; and the interplay
programme both equally reflect the impact and between the art connotations of the print and
impetus of new post-minimal directions, and the various levels of reference to art of the
both (sustained by a generous visitors' budget) quoted passages may be what gives these very
contribute to bringing in artists who may stay works their interest. So it is too with Dan
to do a print. The workshop does not teach, Graham's Homes for America of 1971. This
but senior printmaking students are employed re-uses an article he did for Arts Magazine in
as assistants; Richards Jarden became Director 1967, and is even divided by lines indicating a
immediately on graduation, Wallace Brannen, double-page spread. The article is about
while he was still a student. As student- architecture (a form of art) but of a type (mass-
volunteers actually constructed John produced houses) that hardly seems to warrant
Baldessari's exhibition, so they also acted as treatment in an art context. The piece explores
draftsmen for Sol LeWitt's Five Lithograph the systematic basis of the designs, but the
Projects with Variations (1971). Instructions information is presented in such a way that one
were sent by mail and were open-ended. Indeed, is uncertain whether to regard it as a study in
at this time Sol LeWitt seems to be testing his the system of architecture or an essay in system
relationship with the artists who worked for as art. Moreover by the time the print was made
him. That the results fall within the limits of Dan Graham's illustrations had already attained
viability is in part due to the measure of the independent art-status of minimal
sympathetic insight they could draw on in the photography.
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