Page 46 - Studio International - December 1974

Gualtieri germ made sense in the 20s. But for instance, holds 5000 possible random happenings. They are often
today, the population of objects has variations. For some reason, the motivated by the principle of inversion
di San Lazzaro swelled almost beyond our capacity to images in the drawings are far more — as, for instance, in the undated
imagine something that doesn't already appealing than those in the paintings. Reading position for second degree
On 7 September this year G. di San
belong to it. We might see Kranz's art The paintings have a makeshift look burn. In this didactically conceived
Lazzaro died in Paris, one of the most
as providing us with the chance to about them that makes them seem like episode the artist exchanges his own
eloquent and intelligent interpreters of
catch up in imagination with the pedagogical design exercises. Kranz's role with the physical perspectives
contemporary art. He was not only a
friend of most of the great avant-garde explosion of stuff generated by renown as a teacher can almost be before him and he exposes his naked
figures of the modern movement but consumer industries around the world. inferred from some of his work. And body to the sunshine in order to
also of the famous art dealers, the For his assemblages short circuit the his sense of humour is everywhere become pigmented. The performer
networks formed by things in our apparent in it. enacts the inactivity of the hallowed
leading art critics and art historians of
our time who all contributed to his everyday lives. They acquaint us with The appearance of a travelling show canvas and he surrenders his own
what might be called family of Kranz's work in America now is very active part to a passive agent, the sun.
unique periodical XXe Siècle. This
publication when compared with resemblances among objects, revealing timely. American art, for the moment, Oppenheim's descriptive comments
Zervos's Cahiers d'art (predominantly in them an ironic aesthetic utility. seems to have spent itself in struggles eloquently clarify his thought. These
devoted to the fame of Picasso) or Seriality has been an aspect of over formalism. Kranz's work bespeaks earlier works would be much less
Tériade's Verve, connected exclusively Kranz's art since the start of his career. a truly foreign sensibility, one capable striking without his explanations and
Some of his earliest pieces are of relishing ambiguity and aesthetic annotations. His subdued asides
with the creative happy few, had the
sequences of images that resemble indecision almost for their own sake. clarify his belief that the artist must
advantage of covering a wider range of
trends and personalities. San Lazzaro animation story boards. Each image is If something of the Dada impulse have complete control over his
a variation on the previous one, so that survives in his work, it is the humorous, materials. In the example just cited
was courageous enough even to have
made discoveries outside the Ecole de any portion of the sequence seems to rather than the destructive component. Oppenheim calculates the irradiation of
record a temporal interval. We can see Kenneth Baker the skin and the pain it may cause.
Paris, an unheard of enterprise for the
the same procedure in a drawing from 'I allowed myself to be painted' he
close-knit circles of pre-war Paris. These
1972 called Kommt-geht ('Comes — Paris declares; 'my skin became pigment.
volumes of XXe Siècle, most of them
goes'). This drawing, unlike the early I could regulate the intensity through
covering one main theme, are an One cannot tell when isolated
sequences, is on a single page, but it is control of the exposure time.' Nor is
inexhaustible source of material for the phenomena begin to represent
divided into 20 square frames. As we this enough. The action would have no
art historian. Started in the thirties tendencies. The original work of art
read across, we seem to be seeing a significance without the metaphysical
XXe Siècle continued after a short sports an immediacy which springs from
interruption during World War Two point emerge from a grey field. It the fact that it is its own record and not thrill which is an ineluctable component
expands to fill the frame as a mottled merely the record of a record, like most of every true artistic statement. 'You
as a nouvelle série twice yearly. Special
sphere. Then the mottling turns of the rather arid documentation that simply lie down' he concludes; 'and
issues appeared as double volumes in
brittle and fragments the sphere itself. we accept as a substitute for direct something takes you over. It's like
honour of individual artists, the
'Hommage' series dedicated to The fragments gradually disperse and confrontation. It is neither here nor plugging into the solar system'.
array themselves in an orderly grid. there that object-making has a suspect However, these works rely too heavily
Chagall, Matisse, Ernst, Rouault, Leger,
The grid recedes until it has the same motivation in many cases and that on the artificiality of exegesis. The
Picasso, Miro, Calder; the last two
visual texture as the initial grey field. craft is now often irrelevant. Only the explanation is not built into their
volumes were those on Henry Moore
and Marino Marini. San Lazzaro was (The ambiguity that operates here is primariness of direct involvement is fabric and there is something awkward
also present in the assemblages.) The about their separation from the active
planning a book on Manzù similar to emphasized and the spectator finds this
that on Garallo published in 1973, as impression of movement could be given more readily present in the actual work principles of the object. But
two interpretations. We could be
well as on Kandinsky and Estève, but than in photographs or descriptions of Oppenheim's themes include the
seeing something move toward us,
a long lasting illness finally destroyed it. In the circumstances Dennis subjects of illumination, pain and
diffuse and recede, while our point of
this enterprising and industrious life. Oppenheim's recent showing at the duration even in these very early
Other famous publications by San view remains stationary, or we could Galerie Yvon Lambert in Paris tends to experiments — and they represent the
Lazzaro were the albums with original be seeing something analogous to the have an exemplary character — which permanent preoccupation of the
graphic works. They competed with movement of a camera as it zooms into happens to be reinforced by the parallel metaphysically inspired artist. Hence
a dense field, picks out a microscopic interests of the 'Pour Mémoires' group the major impact of his much more
similar publications by Teriade. In
incident, and then zooms out again. recently shown in the Musée d'Art grandiosely conceived works now on
1949 the Harvill Press brought out in
London the English translation of his There is a kind of 'uncertainty principle' Moderne de la Ville de Paris. view in Yvon Lambert's gallery. They
at work in such drawings. We can't tell Oppenheim has had a large are beautifully executed and almost
book 'Painting in France 1895-1949'
whether we are seeing something retrospective showing in the Stedelijk traditional sculptural statements. In
which established his name in the
characteristic of our point of view or Museum this spring and during the one of them a sculptured dummy
English-speaking world. This book
something characteristic of events course of 1969 Lambert gave him two confronts a suspended bell; and the
surpasses in clarity of judgement and
distinct from our act of attention. separate showings; one in Milan and metallic head of it, impelled by a
sensitivity of approach anything
At certain points in the assemblages, one in Paris. It would be easy to motor, collides periodically with the
produced by R.H. Wilenski on this
subject. In his early years San Lazzaro the progressions of found items trail off discover a classic case of the reverberant body before it. In the
into purely graphic information with conceptualizing stance in the catalogues second composition a series of identical
was in charge of Les Chroniques du
jour an international literary the surprising effect that the painted or which commemorate these incidents in wax figures perspires before the massed
drawn images seem more stable than his career but it seems early to reach glare of floodlights and as they bathe
periodical which helped to introduce
the attached objects. What Kranz firm conclusions. In Oppenheim's in this fierce illumination, their flesh
Joyce, Dos Passos and other modern
seems to suggest is that signs are more experiments with undisciplined and melts away in the heat which probes
writers, and of an art review of the
same name. Among his own books concrete than the things or phenomena anti-historical media there is poetry of their limbs. It is very difficult to speak
they denote. Yet signs have the same a kind; or, maybe it is preferable to about these extraordinarily beautiful
those on Cezanne (1935) and
Modigliani (1948) as well as several ambiguity about them that I just stress a narrative, verbal element in pieces. Their statement is no longer
volumes of reminiscences in Italian are described. If we use them or recognize their design — since the notion of subject to verbal limitations and verbal
of outstanding value. Not only France them without thinking about it, they poetic qualities may well be responsible narrative; but they do not abandon
but the whole world of art lovers have become a feature of our viewpoint for conveying dubious associations. epic qualities altogether. They work in
on the world. His use of found objects, time. In fact, time is one of the factors
lament the loss of this irreplaceable Oppenheim has a truly artistic need for
personality. meanwhile, confers on them a polyvalent instancing the sources of his wish to which they define, enlist and celebrate
J.P. Hodin identity to which no sign would seem to speak up; and, as one examines the list — even though Oppenheim's rites
be adequate. of his contributions, one realizes that observe the ideology of the black mass
Kranz's paintings of the past decade these promptings are equally involved in this framework.
Kurt Kranz fall far short of the assemblages and in experience and in its formalization. No other recent work on view at the
drawings, both in graphic and They are seldom, if ever, arbitrary. moment in Paris measures up to
Kurt Kranz's work of the past ten philosophical terms. But they are There is nothing dadaesque in his quick Oppenheim's but the impact of
years could hardly be more appropriate distinguished by one ingenious feature, disdain for the object. He exploits the remembrances displayed in the Musée
to a culture choking on its own shared by certain drawings, such as conceptualist's mode in order to infuse d'Art Moderne is fascinating, due to
diversity. In his assemblages, the serial Naturgeschichte ('History of Nature') content into the record of controlled the morbid and fetishist atmosphere
structure he has used since the 30s 1969. Kranz has sewn sets of folding action. In the Stedelijk pieces the lack which belongs to every monumental
suggests a proliferation of objects that pages to the picture surface. Each page of conventional materials does not memorial to primitive agonies. It is
has nothing to do with human contains a different fragmentary image interfere with the artistically valid difficult to romanticize the present and
intervention. Objects seem to give rise that interlocks graphically with the nature of his propositions and the it is doubly difficult to pervert evidence
to other objects by a process like that images drawn on the background photographic evidence of his problems with the Frenchman's supposedly
set in motion by the sorcerer's surface. The spectator may, at the risk plots the course of potent actions. analytical bent — but no illusion can do
apprentice. The single found object is of destroying the work through too Superficially, technical and quasi- without compensations and the sicklier
outmoded in Kranz's work, as in the much handling, turn the sewn-on philosophical elements seem to side of emotionalism has, in Paris at any
world. Now one found object leads to leaves and bring about a large number predominate in these performances but rate, always considered the past as its
another and another. Breton's idea of of variations on the design he initially every one of them has a precision which legitimate plunder since Proust erected
the found object as an imaginative sees. The drawing History of Nature, removes it from the coordinates of his stifling monument to the memory.