Page 49 - Studio-International-January-1974

UK reviews painting no. 61 , for instance, the of photography, mechanical
De Stiji movement; then the theories
three horizontals that block off the
top edge of the canvas constitute three perception and human perception
Richard Diebenkorn at steps down into the picture space, and their inconsistency in
Marlborough Fine Art, London, from clear red, to mauve, to a minty the realm of perspective ; followed
December 1973-January 1974. green. They carve ambiguous depth by the relationship between
Richard Diebenkorn has been quoted into three interlocking slats as firm as a camera's mechanics and the
as saying that he 'got an idea from the underside of an arch. structure of his work. The list could
Rothko of what pure, all-over But straight description fails to continue but the point has been
painting can be. I can't do it myself, convey the singular quality of made. Dibbets has suffered from an
. And maybe it's lucky I can't'. This Diebenkorn's colour. It feels filtered intense attention to his work, too
statement, though perhaps made through the deepest recesses of much criticism, too many exhibitions.
casually, is a key to understanding experience, and is evocative rather The work itself is primarily strict,
just how Diebenkorn is a part of, and than nostalgic. It conveys a particular concise, intentionally limited and
apart from, American mainstream sense of location and atmosphere, conceptually modest. Naturally he has
painting. Though apparently and at the same time an inner and reacted against external impositions
abstract, the pictures belong to a absolute sense of light that is one of on his work. In the recent pieces his
series that the artist has called Ocean the surest signs of big painting. The independence from the
Park, after a Californian town that show as a whole has a density about preconceptions of his public has
edges on to the Pacific Ocean. They it, and an honesty, that makes it one become more explicit. There seem to
are the end products and records of a of the best things we've seen in be two main reactions: one is to
ruminative dialogue between painter London for a long, long time. accept as content ideas with which
and canvas, prompted by visual Diebenkorn can afford to ignore hard he has been identified, rather than
phenomena both past and present. line figurative or abstract devotees, Greenburgian eclecticism this has
Diebenkorn is an artist who has who may feel that he does no justice occurred within an analytical
allowed nature to look at him just as to their respective causes. He has no framework of problem found and
hard as he has ever looked at it. He need of them ; work of this stature problem used ; second, is what
has behind him, remember, a very floats free of such considerations. appears to be a reversal of his working
impressive body of figurative work. While one senses, in the process, documenting and then
The pictures average about eight Diebenkorns, the bleaching stripping an area which is no longer
feet high and seven feet wide. They presence of white Californian necessary. It was always possible to
have narrow margins indrawn from sunshine, there is a total lack of avoid the implications of the work
top to bottom, compressing attention Beach Boys' West Coast, all sand and because it remained visually
inwards into fields of shifting space surf and Sunset Strip. satisfying. (A point which was
depth. The focusing action of these Judy Marle emphasized at Documenta, where
lines states a basic premise of these
paintings: illusion. We are made to
look into the pictures, window-frame
like, and find ourselves looking at the
process of painting itself. Each canvas
is built up from layers, accretions,
Works by Cenogar decisions and the rescinding of those
decisions. They are about time, with
demonstrations against oppression statements from all the various phases
with equally straightforward images of of the painting present in the final
fraternity. Entre El Pueblo Estoy ... he work, interacting simultaneously.
sketches himself in the middle of an The thinly-washed surfaces are
indifferent crowd ; if they are articulated by a scaffolding of crisp
suffering, so is he. The hands which and tightly drawn straight lines. In the
some of the works bind tightly lower part of the pictures they tend
together with cords, find comfort, in to be veiled over, gently accentuating
other works, in the bond of friendship, the subtlest shifts of colour between
in the handshake. The gestures of one area and another. Towards the
restraint melt into gestures of unity top of the pictures, where colour and
. the captive is allowed to embrace incident intensify, they suddenly
a loved-one. The point is almost concentrate. Diagonals that tend to be Richard Diebenkorn Untitled 1972, mixed media. 21 x 36 in.
reached where sentimentality begins muffled in the lower areas come into
to cloy, but the images of brutality their own, angling off into depth and Jan Dibbets attack Wendler, his work was amongst Ryman,
ultimately are so forceful that slicing into the picture plane. The London, December. Martin and Marden paintings.) It is
one almost feels the need for as total interplay of line -vertical, Studio International published an through concentrating on his visual
much syrup as Canogar has to offer. horizontal and diagonal - suggests article by Barbara Reise in December sensibility that the new work appears
Somewhere between the peaks of highways or cartographer's signs, 1972 which remains the definitive to proceed. The use of camera
emotional response engendered by tracking over and defining vast spaces, text on Dibbets. The breadth of that angles and the series of photographs
being simultaneously exposed to the reaching up to the horizon line where article would make any contextual seem to have less connection with a
forces of oppression and those of land meets sea. Matisse and Cézanne information supplied by this review structured content and more
solace and consolation, Canogar have been frequently invoked in superfluous. These two sentences do involvement with the final image. His
pitches the image of his countryman relation to these paintings, but an not simplify the problem of writing previous exhibition at Wendler's
- which seems to ring most true. A equally pertinent comparison is to about Dibbets's recent exhibition at Gallery in 1972 was a piece titled
recent sculpture, and the most Lyonel Feininger's small paintings of Jack Wendler's Gallery but they Vertical0 - 135°, documenting on the
important in the show, is a seated landscapes that he did in the late manage to pinpoint the problem the gallery wall the camera's
figure resting unmolested on a forties and early fifties. involved in reacting to the work : the progression through those angles.
sloping bench. He's of shabby These grid lines brace the free amount of information that is available The two exhibitions demarcate the
appearance, hunched, resigned long floating areas into more precise about the artist as opposed to extremes of his work.
ago to a life of subservience to a power spatial situations, either pinning down reactions to a particular The new pieces demand
which he doesn't understand, the or lifting forward from beneath exhibition. description as opposed to analysis.
power which controls his destiny. He passages of scumbling. Their colour Apart from facts about his life, there is The ideas in the new works are at the
sits awkwardly, sadly, but for now signals precise locations too. also a tradition of referring to an idea moment evasive, the previous
there is a certain dignity in his repose. Against the built-up modalities of the as an idea before attaching them to the immediate clarity has been
The work marks out its own boundary ground colours, tints and stains, the artist. Dibbets's work has long submerged. They no longer identify
with chains. grid lines are made of clear and suffered from this fate. The first point totally with either prior conception or
Tony Rothon stinging lemon, lilac and turquoise. In is always Dutch art, especially the self reference. The transitional nature
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