Page 55 - Studio International - February 1974

Structurally his paintings have Towards a new
developed from monochromes to the
simple combinations of canvases of way of behaviour
differing hues. The colour changes
are dominated by their surface. They (Braco Dimitrievic was born in
mellow through their relationship to Yugoslavia. Post-graduate student,
the process which achieves them and St Martin's, London, 1971-72. First
the edges which contain them. show, Situation, London, 1972.
All the work in the exhibition Current show, Galerie Sperone,
represents various expressions of Turin. Lives in Y ugoslavia.)
simplicity but their combination It took me a long time to realize
reflects the depth available in each that art does not change. It remains
individual expression of paint. The the same because a fundamental
work represents a painter's distinction was once made between
understanding of his medium ; there the circle and the square, which
is no attempt to channel that prevented the entire system of
understanding, only to take it even observation and cognition from
further. To achieve the balance departing from the surface of the
between a person and an object. painting. Adaptation and habit have
The work makes one think of seeing a a negative influence on originality of
painting for the first time, as a thought and our ability to make
painting not as an image. The tactile independent distinctions in all
veil of an intricate pattern of brush creative activities, and make for
marks which is the surface of every static relationships in art. Therefore,
painting is isolated and standing Barrie Cook Black Box 1973 disturbing and ambivalent sensation I have tried to find a kind of activity
Acrylic, 108 x 84 in.
free from any function. It is the means of pictorial space, ably demonstrating which will enable me to overcome
by which we stop trying to a powerful case for proper restraint the framework of formal evolution and
understand a painting and begin to in the handling of colour to its which will attempt to fundamentally
see what it is. optimum usefulness. change our passive relationship
Lynda Morris John Mitchell shows Lock III, to the environment. Starting from the
one of a new series of medium-sized well-known fact that environment
Midland Art Now at the Ikon paintings that further extends his plays an active role in shaping the
Gallery, Birmingham, January. reduction of ambiguous elements, mind, I have attempted to change
'Midland Art Now' at the Ikon the present result being a serene and our customary relationships and
Gallery in Birmingham was an accurately organized fusion of two reactions in our encounter with every-
assembly of strikingly varied points of colour fields in an especially complete day reality. Since it would be
view drawn from the West Midlands. painting. impossible to consider this
In conjunction with the exhibition, In direct contrast to Mitchell's relationship in its entirety, it is
the Birmingham Post, in its deliberately substantive approach, necessary to restrict our attention to
Saturday Magazine of 5 January, the latent imagery of Roger certain fragments of the whole :
published one example of each Westwood's Question of Windows I my interest is in specific, rather than
artist's work, affording an opportunity invites enquiry as to the presence of a general information. By specific
both fora wider dissemination of Barry Burman Untitled 1971 narrative, but the mystery of this information, I mean information
currently exhibited works in Drawing, 16 x 18 in. piece lies in the alternating current of transmitted by contemporary mass
reproduction than is usually doubt and certainty. Initially, the media as well as by 'historical'
possible, and a chance to compare appropriate to the ideas and meaning certainty that such close attention to media : monuments, memorial
the objects themselves with the implicit in it, presupposing a notion of plastic considerations denotes an plaques, books, pictures,
results of capricious processes of rigorous procedural correctness. easily unravelled iconography, photographs etc. On the other hand,
photography and half-tone This, together with due sensitivity countered by doubt, engendered by general information is usually
reproduction. to tools, materials and their the juxtaposition of visual understood to consist of a wealth of
There is no evidence of a regional consequences may result in work information of an apparently arcane data which the environment offers in
identity, in that the works shown such as IsIwyn Watkins Small nature. However, the real secrets of its totality.
conjure up distinctly separate ranks Relief with Grey, reiterating its own this work are those brought to it by the My work's first intention is to
of heroes and their influences. horizontal axis with harmonious onlooker. establish a new qualitative
However a prominent number, bands of colour and the organic, Anthony Everitt states in his relationship between man and
whose genealogy suggests distinct sandwiched edges of natural wood, catalogue commentary : 'It would specific information, and secondly
debt to the surrealist tradition and its so small it could be held in the palm have been easy to devise a show, between man and his exterior
own fantastic ancestry, makes itself of the hand ; whereas Trevor consisting no doubt of large reality. It is important to change
strongly felt in opposition to those Halliday's powerful painting canvases, which would have that with which, as a result of
whose course is dictated by the projects its own aerial space beyond illustrated the prevailing acquired and inherited experience,
prescription of purely plastic, formal the confines of its already impressive transatlantic orthodoxies and we have a definite and established
values. To accept this division area. Common to both is a genuine reproduced the bland flavours of a priori relationship. I refer primarily
per se would be to miss the more precision of scale which vindicates what has almost become an official to our automatic acceptance of
significant partition between those and strengthens their built-in advanced taste.' particular forms of information
artists actively risking an ideology dynamic and makes viewing both, in If the adoption of an alternative, dispersal, while disregarding its real
(for extension and amendment) in the quite different ways, a moving more universal means of selection content, and to the passive and
procedural exercise of its propositions, experience. (which has certainly resulted in the negative attitude which is passed,
and those content to settle in the Despite the fact that in one sense widest variety of concern and through education, from one
fauteuil of a sterile sense of history, the show is saturated in colour, there approach) were to provoke a generation to the next. We accept the
atrophied and denied its momentum is little positive colour interaction in measurable response and involvement messages transmitted through these
by their reluctance to contribute its many of the exhibits, where it is often from that part of the public already channels automatically and
essential ingredient— change. An employed locally to serve the primed by the Birmingham Post unconsciously as important
unquestioning employment of purpose of illustrating essentially reproductions, that alone would historical and social facts. As we
the mannerisms of the past is no literary concepts. Black Box is a indicate a strong argument for further discover new content within old
substitute fora real understanding of sprayed painting marked by dark exhibitions to a similar specification. forms of presentation, it is possible
the issues from which those vertical striations rifted by lighter Harry Snook that in the future we may doubt the
mannerisms sprang by necessity, and transverse halts, and a discreet exclusiveness of one-way information.
are recognizable only in retrospect diagonal in which Barrie Cook This may also result in the creation of
as style. A prime and universal interposes a warm/cool colour a new system of associations well
requirement of art is that the methods mechanism, with an economy that outside the established form. Realizing
that give it existence should be moves toward austerity. He elicits a that the faces and names on the