Page 57 - Studio International - July August 1974

approximating another geometrical Society in Stuttgart to continue its Groningen. With texts— often a kind difference between the photographic
ideal, a plane. The resulting piece is a journey to Cologne. It is an of diary — photographs and diagrams and the painted image. As a result
record of how the material interfered exhibition of art by prisoners, called he documents what goes on in and conflicting styles are brought
with the artist's effort to make a 'Art in the Nick'. There are about 350 around his house : stages in the together in the paintings and
perfect cut. What he got were two works, chosen from 1,500 sent in by process of growing certain vegetables, comments on famous paintings and/
interlocking pieces of foam rubber prisoners. Beside a lot of imitations the pedigree of a geranium, or the or photographic images are
whose inside surfaces have been and copies, one finds pictures and dead animals (cats, birds, mostly rats) formulated.
marked, indeed shaped, by a rough sketches that give an insight into the he finds run over by cars on the roads Of the four artists who are showing
pattern of knife-strokes. Here nothing psyche of the artists. Released near his house. Sjoerd Buisman at the Serpentine Gallery, London,
has been thrown away, all the original prisoners are reconvicted at a rate of documents his own intervention with from 23 August (Cornelius Rogge,
material remains, attesting to the eighty per cent, which is an nature— like the planting of a willow Rudi and Jochum Van de Wint, Jules
possibility of making the sculpture indication of how little upside down. Natural and unnatural de Goede and Douwe Jan Bakker)
disappear by putting it back together. rehabilitation there is in Germany. situations are created and Douwe Jan Bakker is perhaps the
The point of the work seems to be This is hinted at by the exhibition, photographed or filmed by Mari most interesting.
that nothing mysterious comes into which has been heavily criticized Boeyen ; for examplefour photographs Like many of his contemporaries
being with the making of it or would throughout the whole country. of the shape his hair takes when he is interested in man-made objects,
disappear with the unmaking of it. Another thing that's moving close blown by the wind from four different but more than most other artists his
Kenneth Baker to art and important enough to be directions, or a film of two drinking interest focuses on the way these
museum-worthy is the German glasses on a table, one of them slowly objects function. Tools are made for a
Germany Playing Cards Museum which has melting away. Cultural phenomena specific purpose. By using them, we
function according to an existing
are the object of the projects realized
opened in the city of Leinfelden near
In Berlin one never knows where Stuttgart. It is considered unique by by Lex Wechgelaar and Wim Gijzen. model of society, Douwe Jan Bakker
irony ends and sincerity begins. That the international Playing Card They present their projects with an makes tools which can only function
one has to help oneself away from Society, and holds a very valuable almost bureaucratic precision and in the art world, because they are
the grant-aided 'art world' has been collection. In the new building there 'useless' according to society.
known for a long time by many are 10,000 historic card games, Nevertheless they are made for
young Berlin painters. They are old card-presses, counting machines people to handle, and handling them
helping themselves now with a and other curiosities. to become aware of other possibilities
remarkable undertaking While Klaus Gallwitz in Baden- of behaviour and of functioning. He
courageously named 'First Berlin Baden gives his last exhibition of has devised strange costumes,
Biennale 74'. The ten artists who work by Almut Heise, his successor walking and playing machines and
have gathered together this very Hans Albert Peters is showing disguises; they make clear to what
strange exhibition in a new building sketches by Romane Holderried extent our behaviour is defined by
in the Budapesterstrasse, do not want Kaesdorf, thus introducing himself as existing forms. The original
to compete with Venice; they use director in a very cheerful way. relationship between those forms
the word Biennale as a parody but Kaesdorf is a relatively unknown and our needs or the needs of a
they don't participate irresponsibly ; artist, except amongst the society geared to production is rarely
every one of them has a good cognoscenti. She captures the odd realized. The tools point to other
reputation in the German and silly manners of people, possibilities of behaviour, to a new
contemporary art world and nobody sketching in a brittle, cramped way. freedom. The same applies to his
wants to risk his name. They have Nothing is tasteful, everything is recent research into language. Words
formed a loose cooperative to enable harsh : like Eulenspiegel being taken are abstractions, language is a
them to develop their plan. The DM seriously. Almut Heise, born 1944, Robert van Koningsbruggen Untitled system of conventions. When we
7,000 cost was found by each artist who suddenly became famous five want to express ourselves in
giving thirty sketches to be sold, and years ago, gives her Realism free completeness. E. G. Wechgelaar language we are tied to fixed
because each one of them, from range as she paints the interiors of shows full documentation — letters to abstractions, which limit our
Hermann Albert to Jurgen Waller, the fifties : German comfort and authorities, maps and photographs— possibilities. The awareness for
from Kaminski to Koberling, from cleanliness is carefully portrayed, with on the realization of his 'modern ruin' : instance of the material aspects of the
Paul Uwe Dreyer to Gerd van the Kandinsky print over the beds, the one vertical and two horizontal objects described by words is often
Dülmen, from Markus Lüpertz to heavy abstract curtains on the concrete piles, which indicate the lost. Bakker is looking into the
Eugen Schönebeck, is a good painter, windows. She says she experienced height, width and length of the units possibilities of a different language
the thirty folders of ten sheets each it like that as a child. Now she is older of a modern flat building. They are system. For more than three years now
sold out on the opening day. Each and cannot get rid of it. Painting like firmly planted on an open space he has been constructing his
folder cost DM 2,500, so all the this can keep a trauma alive. between modern apartment buildings 'pronounceables' : small, wooden
expenses were covered and the Finally, a lot of German galleries at Maastricht. With the same objects, in series, which should be
thick book-form catalogue made great preparations for the Art accuracy Wim Gijzen photographed 'handled' by the mouth. Instead of
financed. This typifies the Berliner's Fair in Basel, where they expected all the streets with the same name in pronouncing words, you take one
attitude : everything is good business. two different cities (Amsterdam and object after the other in your mouth.
unaccountable, but sometimes it Günther Wirth Rotterdam) and aspects of his visits Some series are figurative : a violin, an
works like clockwork. to all the 675 municipalities of ear, a piece of bread, a staircase a
The exhibition is not very Holland Holland (this project kept him busy for house, a table, a chair, a window, an
exciting but it is interesting. It had a more than two years). Pieter Engels eye ; others have abstract forms that
lot of press coverage and all Berlin Some young Dutch artists will be also occupies himself with our are difficult to describe (a series of
attended. Paul U Dreyer, the Berlin visiting England in August; their work present-day culture by making neo- these is reproduced above). The
constructivist, whom I met a few days will be on show in London and dadaistic useless objects and objects are painted in different
ago in the Academy of Art in Edinburgh. The work of the eleven environments, all meticulously colours, which suggest relations
Stuttgart, where he is a professor of artists, exhibiting at the Fruitmarket in executed and beautifully polished. between the different
painting, told me that the Berlin Edinburgh from 17 August onwards, This is in strong contrast with the 'pronounceables'. For carrying a
Biennale would appear every two gives a fairly good idea of what is environments of d'Armagnac and series around with you the artist
years in the future, to encourage presently going on in Holland. Dekker, who show the more sordid has constructed a beautifully
artistic self-help and as an example The work of Rob van and unfinished situations in our finished case. More analogous to the
of how to manage without state aid. Koningsbruggen, Jan Hoving and culture. written or spoken language than
The ten artists want to remain Paul van Dijk investigates more or Rudy and Jochum (Van de Wint), traditional painting, these 236
together, but it would be very less intuitively the properties of the 'The Painters', as he calls himself 'pronounceables' literally form a
uncharacteristic if no row were to materials they use : canvas and paint, following Gilbert and George. 'pictorial language'. Bakker explores
occur in the two years. paper and pencil, paper and the Splitting himself into two is directly the field between visual
On a completely different track is imprint of an undressed copper, zinc related to his paintings. Jochum communication and language. By
an exhibition that started in the or iron plate. Hans de Vries and Sjoerd simply loves painting figurative doing so he makes explicit the limits
Ministry of Justice in Bonn, then Buisman both explore the 'forces of images on canvas. Rudy does not of both.
went to Hanover and has now been nature'. Hans de Vries lives as a deny him this pleasure but ponders In this century visual artists have
taken up by the Württemberger Art farmer in the northern province of the concept, different styles, the augmented their material with the