Page 54 - Studio International - December 1974

special show. The exhibition was one this concern and because of his longer reaction of unconventional associations. adopted a cheeky look, like lucky
of paintings (by ten artists) which are interest in the dramatic combined with What is more Flanagan's fame is not orphans carried from the Italian
'classified' as post-minimal, though in pure economy, makes his work purely regional; he was honoured by a hillsides to cushy Bond Street to amuse
a sense they are purely minimal. Where Hommage to Courbet more successful. one-man show at the Museum of the sophisticates. In fact if the stones
we take Judd as the sculptural paradigm Robert Hunter uses simple Modern Art in New York a year ago, were seen in a domestic setting one
we find Reinhardt and Stella as uneasy geometrical shapes, painted in silver and his reputation has survived past the might feel better about admiring the
correspondences. The work of Marden directly onto the wall. In this way, period when as a very young artist he delicate lines chipped into the surface.
and Mangold is much closer in a sense utilising gallery lighting, he can evoke a showed 'soft' art, to the present time As art objects they should be receiving
to the paradigm of minimalism. One transitory experience of the actual when he has been exhibiting, without tougher scrutiny.
might even say of the new wave of 'thing' itself. (Silver painted shapes apology, portrait and landscape Two pieces, Tantric Gardens and
contemporary painters that someone viewed into the illumination source drawings. Tantric Figures, stood apart from the
like, for example, Alan Charlton is disappear or merge with the white walls During November Flanagan's recent other rocks, being both definitively
closer still. The elements of formal whilst they appear dark grey viewed series of sculptures and drawings, carved and partly painted. In the first
elegance in Stella and the mystical away from the dominant lighting.) 'Somethings Etruscan' was shown at one Flanagan obviously enjoyed
negativity of Reinhardt are eliminated Peter Joseph and Edwina Leapman are the Rowan Gallery while a more working his cube into a reclining female;
for the blandness associated with the perhaps the only artists who are complete survey of work on paper, to transmogrify is Flanagan's way of
best of Judd in sculpture, or Marden associated with the new wave of 1966-74, hung, very comfortably, at making analogies, of finding the abstract
and Mangold and the materiality of minimal painting who are not specially the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford. associations between dissimilar species
Ryman in painting. dramatic and they seem closer to the Several months ago a forerunner to the and their equivalent primary forms.
However, the contributing artists initial concerns of minimal painting. stone sculptures, a chipped limestone This woman's position was more poetic
are very conscious of the dilemmas Leapman, like Ryman, is concerned piece, appeared in the Rowan Gallery. than possible; her legs were doubled up
associated with the activity of painting with paint qualities, whilst Joseph In any case it was not such a surprise to against the sides, mouth tilted back,
in the seventies, and many of the works attempts pure blandness. learn Flanagan was carving as he has breasts like upright starbursts and a
on show (particularly those of the All the works on show looked like always preferred to work intuitively vagina more a cave splashed with red
younger artists) aim for dramatic the best examples of the different with a material rather than go through paint. The effect was as awkward and
qualities alien to the original polemics artists' work and there was a sense that the advance planning required with squeezed as that of a trussed and
of minimalism. Obviously this concern, even within the limitations of economy casting. These new Italian rocks — stuffed chicken.
in the case of many of the artists, is not inherited from minimalism, quite marble, limestone and beer stone — On the other Tantric piece erotic
a primary one. However, it is a concern powerful works are possible. I felt this were richly titled but seemed to have figures were etched on the four sides of
which helps unify a discussion of the in nearly every case. By comparison been reluctantly changed from their the block and linear detail was restricted
different kinds of involvement in with the chaotic Arts Council-organized original states. Their labels were and made bumpy by the resistance of
painting. This is not true of the Ryman 'British Painting 74' show at the specific and crafty; they included Arno the material to the hammer taps.
and the Mangold works, but it is Hayward Gallery, the Edinburgh Pebble (the Elephant), Italian sandstone, Characteristically Flanagan chose his
certainly true of Alan Charlton whose exhibition was a refreshingly orderly The Stone that covered the hole in the marks judiciously, in a manner that
large four-square painting with four presentation, encouraging the kind of road (skull), sandstone carved with showed his understanding of the way
small square holes at each corner, aims contemplation dictated by the nature point and Via del tempio di Giore, we are convinced of volume in two
at dramatizing its own blandness. of the works exhibited. loosely translated 'the way of a dimensions, i.e. the exaggeration of
Similarly Jo Baer's paintings are Artists taking part were Bob Law, temporary life; marble with point. accents — in this case the marks for the
luminescent dramatizations of Daniel Buren, Alan Charlton, Robert On the whole the work looked even navel, the dimples between bulges and
whiteness (using graded boundary Hunter, Peter Joseph, Jo Baer, Edwina smaller and more remote than it actually some body hair. Throughout his work
stripes as a minimal suggestion of light). Leapman, Robert Mangold, Brice was by virtue of being deliberately Flanagan stresses the discrepancy
If Jo Baer is concerned with dramatizing Marden, Robert Ryman. placed in the centres of large white between visual perception of form and
or exploring the qualities of lightness, Rosetta Brooks rectangles, the tops of wooden bases. the accepted ways artists can remind us
Bob Law seems concerned to dramatize Flanagan's intelligent placement of the of what is there. In addition these
the qualities of blackness by the use of art object on or within the space is one figurative pieces possessed an Eastern-
'deep' colours like violet and crimson Barry Flanagan, Drawings 1966/1974 of his consistent successes. A few years type sensuality with the usual
as they merge into black. Even Daniel at the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, ago at the Hayward the four tapering coexistence of opposing aspects of one
Buren's work has taken an apparently 20 October to 24 November columns of his installation enhanced form and the distortion of limbs into
dramatic turn (at least within his own Somethings Etruscan at the Rowan the void of the gallery by the exactness parabolic curves, in this case drumstick-
oeuvre). Where previously his use of Gallery, 8 November to 5 December of the relationship between mass and shaped thighs.
vertical stripes have been deliberately If an everyday object were described as space. More recently in the line At the moment Flanagan does not
defiant of determination by 'a Barry Flanagan' it would probably drawings of Etruscan statues the appear to be worriedly striving for
conventional artistic choices (he uses be assumed to have the irreverent, subjects are totally isolated, deprived originality, but seems to be looking
standard ready-made striped canvas in homely qualities of his filled hessian of perspective lines or shading. Hence instead for a personal answer to
his hanging works), his introduction of bags or perhaps the spareness and wit they are seen, very flatly, as though problems both abstract and art historical.
diagonal insections across his vertical of his line drawings of ducks and dogs. pressed into the smooth page. Some years ago his work resembled the
stripes introduces a spatial component Flanagan's work has acquired a certain In any case the new stones were environments of the Arte Povera
which had seemingly been deliberately identity that remains distinct from the themselves very common and just the group — both used worthless materials
omitted from previous work. In Brice individual pieces. In fact his thought shapes to be expected from the such as rope and sand and placed the
Marden's work there has always been a pattern is very reminiscent of Rube material — ovoids, sharp marble raw stuff informally, without
sense of the dramatic which, perhaps Goldberg's, the artist whose name did fragments and cut blocks. Brought to explanation, in the total gallery space —
because of the self-consciousness of become a noun to describe a chain the environment of an art gallery they on walls, floors and suspended in
between. The over-all mystery of the
pieces provoked the viewer to fill in
Barry Flanagan George Melly
Installation shot Scottish Arts Council Gallery. Photo: Tom Scott the silence with his own associations.
Flanagan's past work blended ideas
that Robert Morris, Richard Long and
Eva Hesse had also pursued, not
necessarily before him. But they were
often more articulate in print and
showed greater theoretical development
of their individual positions.
The comparison of Flanagan to
other artists comes to mind because in
the Oxford show there were a 'series of
portraits (etchings) that approached
Hockney's territory, his life drawings
of friends. Flanagan's subjects were
also English personalities — George
Melly, Mark Glazebrook, Richard
Hamilton, Mr and Mrs Nigel Gosling
and soon. The lines were thinner and
more sketchy than those in his felt-tip
pen studies and had a tendency to
break into hatchings and stitch marks
that supported the flabby facial
structures and gave expression to the
careworn eyes. Flanagan's drawings
were blunter than Hockney's, partly