Page 48 - Studio International - July August 1974

(Below top) William T. Wiley (Below bottom) Ron Davis
Creature comforts 1971 Untitled c. 1969
Acrylic on canvas, 8 ft. 9½ in. x 13 ft. 7½ in. Poly-resin
University Art Museum, Berkeley. Gift of Mr
and Mrs H. W. Anderson

soft, semi-ugly, anti-precious aura of latex,
which dovetailed nicely with the region's
anti-preciousness.
It's hard to say what, then, we've got now,
other than a recently re-implanted formalism,
steeped in structuralism this time instead of
angst, trying to avoid the pitfalls (eg assumed
innocence) of Bay Area kindliness-type art,
and, perhaps, connect to the dormant spirit
of 1945-5o.
Southern California's rubric has no centre
like the halcyon days of CSFA, but rather
reaches back in beads of activity: I, way back
in the 20S and ios returned expatriates like
Stanton MacDonald-Wright and European
emigres like Ejnar Hansen, Ben Berlin, and
Knud Merrild worked on versions of
abstract Cubism/Surrealism in the peaceful
sunshine; 2, a stream of clean moderns
plugged away at forms of hard-edge painting, Hammersly, and, from the early days, Lorser (compared to the Bay Area's) at Ferus in
tuned themselves into progressive Feitelson) which had ramifications into the 1958-60; 5, a small share of the LA look, but
architecture (Bauhaus glass-wall residences in `LA look' of the early 6os; 4, a spate of LA not much, and Ron Davis's magnetic illusions
the Hollywood hills) and spiritualism via Abstract Expressionism which started with of perspectival solids; and 6, a re-kindling of a
groups like 'Functionists West' and `Dynaton' Peter Voulkos teaching people how to dent up vague AE sensibility, under the strong
in the 4os and early 5os ; 3, the hard-edge orthodox pots and slop on the glazes at the influence of Ed Moses's comeback with soft
aesthetic culminated in a bellwether 1959 Otis (Art Institute) kiln during 1954-8 canvases and paper paintings, and under the
show called 'Four Abstract Classicists' and led to Craig Kauffman's, Ed Moses's and pervading process-and-materials licence
(John McLaughlin, Karl Benjamin, Frederick John Altoon's relatively clean, open paintings promulgated in the magazines.

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