Page 59 - Studio International - July August 1974

from his own. He wouldn't believe that Henry Mundy at the Hoya Gallery, picturesque chinoiserie. A few arrival of taking off into the blue. The
the products of different viewpoints London, 19 June to 20 July. drawings try to make something of a heart of this exhibition appears flawed
actually differ with respect to nature Henry Mundy's show at Kasmin's two more solemn mood, using a lead by incompatibility of temperament,
of the film sign. The latter would be years ago was impressive—the ground covered with a metallic linear the yoking together of talents better
thought to remain the same in a watery lines of the grid breaking up scheme; whether the more massive left separate.
film by Eisenstein or a fi Im by into mazy rhythms, the colour qualities of the grey can come off in a If we turn to another poet,
Rosselini. Structuralism cannot aerated by the vacancy of bare canvas, larger painting remains to be seen. William Empson, Auden's
evaluate a world-view or ideology the whole disembodied sensation These drawings are looking around contemporary near enough, we find
in whose name signs are used and under the direction of a firm for a more elaborate figure/field words that embody many of Moore's
codes developed. It can note only sensibility. They were emphatically situation than the simple one of mark own gropings and interests with the
inter-, infra-, and supra-systematic visual, they fizzed. They were busy, on support. The constricting factor is precision of true art. Writing of
regularities. As a consequence such sometimes optically, tracking the support's colour, which can only Tangaroa, the sea god, creator
cultural analysis cannot speculate themselves ad infinitum across the be modulated so far before it falls himself of man and gods, also in the
evaluatively on semiotic use, nor by surface. Since then the work may away as a negative area : within these British Museum :
virtue of the presumed objectivity of have been less easy; some of it looks terms the colour relationships the There is a Supreme God, in the
such analyses (and by the presumed transitional — not to belie some very initial lines can set up are limited —for ethnological section ;
objective character of the object of fine new paintings. Perhaps the example they are frequently greeny A hollow toad shape, faced with a
research), can they themselves be latent hedonism had to be qualified, at grey, tensing the paper or canvas into blank shield.
regarded as ideologically any rate much of the recent work is a pinky coloration. The secondary He needs his belly to include the
determinate uses of sign systems. It taken up with testing out the limits of patterning adds variety rather than Pantheon,
may be possible for Burgin to use the form, reassessing the procedure in range to the colour. The background Which is inserted through a hole
such criticisms and analyses each painting. noise of graph paper, canvas weave, behind.
evaluatively as a manifest piece of Technically they are disarmingly and silted pigment can muffle the At the navel, at the points formally
semiotic use in his work, thus simple and direct : using a grid set on colour chords behind a textural filter, stressed, at the organs of sense,
accepting his own ideological graph paper (or light pencil lines on giving them an illusory purity, Lice glue themselves, dolls, local
operation but only inasmuch as they canvas) marks are ruled along it with implying they have faded away. deities,
can be used to ground a distinction a fibre-tip pen or brush, breaking off By comparison some recent His smooth woods creeps with all the
between such use of signs (in art) and crossing each other at irregular paintings appear liberated : the scale creeds of the world.
and broader cultural use. That is to intervals. Then (with the exception of of mark is increased (up to 1" wide Though partly comic in intention, that
say, the degree to which some single line lattices) further instead of ¼") as if the painting had poem has a gravity that Auden toyed
semiological analysis can be useful coloured lines are added alongside
in art currently is in constituting a these. The colour is dilute enough to
modus operandi based on a cultural sink into the canvas, which retains the
relocation of art in terms of semiotic uniform texture of the weave, so that
use. Where modernism has got into the marks appear through, rather than
difficulties in attempting formality in on, the surface ; their fortuitous
a separation from convention and similarity to colour separation in
dominant values, an identifying basis blown-up photos may have
for art-creativity in semiotic use would something to do with this
then need to be constructed adopting immateriality. The colour field is
Burgin's stance in terms of social equally mark and canvas, controlled
contribution. as the lines accumulate.
The 'signs' utilized in the arts Mundy insistently uses the support
freed from the clichés and habits for its colour, be it graph paper or
of artistic use can either be isolated canvas. This distinguishes his work
in the absence of significata (minimal from that which displays the material
art) losing on the way their defining quality of a support for its own sake,
properties or else one can resume turning it into visual incident
on the plane of ordinary social usage according to the attitude cultivated
of signs at the expense of a defining towards it—basically an objet trouvé
property for art (conceptual art). ploy that gets arty when the objet is
Victor Burgin's use of signs belongs to canvas or an art gallery wall. The Henry Mundy Acrylic on Graph Paper 1973 with, but did not master, and for which
the second side of the crisis, using nearest Mundy's pictures get to that Moore has aimed but at too great cost
signs inhabiting a broader cultural is when they have the look of faded zoomed in on a detail of the larger in loss of suppleness.
realm and simultaneously attempting madras cotton, and then the allusion ones : the marks are more exposed, Moore himself is his introduction
to construct a specific usage which is peripheral. set on diagonals, without safety in in the catalogue puts a number nine
can define or begin to define artistic The field of broken colour is further numbers : interspersed along the gaps boot in it : 'The pictorial drawing
usage—the definition process being separated into bands and rectangles of the low key lattice are staccato jabs called Crowd looking at a tied-up
his form of coping with the crisis in of differing colour and texture. of primary colour, working as spices object has a close affinity in theme to
form. Of course, a crisis in form in the Breathtaking colour-changes can rather than ornaments. With less my interpretation of the Auden poems
inability to sustain a formal definition occur close-up as one area passes into textural fuzz the colour is definite and —the mystery of what is under the
of the 'arts' is equally a crisis in style. another, but farther off these clear, the crazy-paving patterning shroud is somewhat akin to the
Moreover it is a crisis of style treated divisions can lock the paintings' comes into its own. mystery in poetry. It is this element of
as divorced from purpose (means movements into stabilized James Faure Walker the unknown that fascinates me in
from 'ends'). Victor Burgin's work compartments pitted against each caves and the holes in the side of
operates in the interface of other, as if the mark activity wasn't hills ...' The drawing, of 1942, is
conventional signs attempting to interesting enough in itself. But the Henry Moore and W. H. Auden indifferent, a phony problem picture
develop and define such a purpose simple juxtaposition of a diagonal at the British Museum, April. that has no remote connection with
for his art in relation to social usage lattice next to a perpendicular lattice Is it lèse-majesté to suggest that the skill and open dexterity of Auden's
of signs (codes). In his own terms works better for the colour than more Henry Moore with this group of work; all it does is lumber Auden's
(from Althusser) his work must complex patterning, where the colour lithographs accompanying the clarity with ponderousness.
operate thence as a form of 'critical changes are ruled by proportions; the printed work of W. H. Auden has Searching for the mystery under the
practice' simultaneously defining a edges cut off a fragment of a larger illustrated the wrong poet? Despite shroud is like looking for the heart of
modus operandi and engaging in it. pattern, an unnecessary hint at the bond of their native Yorkshire, the onion, a process of destruction
Whether the work operates in this infinity that probably compromises there seems little in common between rather than enlightenment.
way is questionable. It may better their here-and-now frontality. This poet and illustrator. Moore's Besides his own work on show —the
be regarded as a manifesto for future resolution of the visual texture into aspirations towards the monumental Auden lithographs being a small part
'realizations' or as a résumé defining rectangles gives them a slightly are widely at odds with the poetry, only of a larger tribute by the Museum
the point reached in a programme of ponderous formality at odds with the whose prime constituent, especially to the poet and Moore — a number of
activity and probably best as both. predominant lightness of colour; the in the earlier and shorter work, is one superb works have been gathered
John Stezaker texture rebelliously lapses into a of busy-ness, always on the point of from the department of Prints and