Page 62 - Studio International - June 1974

distance this colour modulation is process than before, and is much less The tree's immaterial presence is to be glimpse an enlarged sense of
virtually subliminal, no more visible a culprit in this than those that felt but not intellectualized. occasion, but sadly, like the work's
than the linear relief of the white append time/motion studies to The glass's transformation, formal organization, doesn't push it to
shapes. Greater discrimination close paintings, or churn out all those films, however close to hocus-pocus it reach the artistic product elsewhere
up shows where minute differences videos, photos about clocks and sounds when read as metaphor, is advertised. Oak Tree is carried to its
in texture and translucency calendars. In fact what used to be important comment on the object in 'meta-actual' conclusion by a shift of
distinguish white on white from zealously non-gestural processes art. By isolating the material means in its terminal round : a
white that never totally conceals its have now become habitual characteristics of the object from its potentially full dramatic interlude
black undercoat. Other colour-clues techniques. These paintings are less alleged substance, appearance is kept turns to half-baked clearness in
come from the smaller marks, as when compelled to their completion by dead and static in a manner similar to written words.
a spot reveals itself as the original circumscribed visual demands than the self-referring object of minimal Craig-Martin by the end has spent
undercoat, masked out till the final by their adequacy as paintings. art. The oak tree when thought of as all bravado of invention on his
layer; when a yellow spot The finest paintings maintain an category (and by allusion, the status sparsely decorated stage set. Similar
concentrates the colour distended illusion of an independent vitality. A of ideas in conceptual art), deprived originality in the dialogue is all but
through an expanse of white ; when smaller painting, Two Quite of particularity also lacks immediacy. missing. None but the philosophically
a row of dots are progressively buried Different Things (66 in. sq.), is What is needed to make the object illiterate will find his mode of argument
under successive coats. These marks coherent enough to allow the alive and present is the fresh. And then there are a number of
are diverse enough to take on other attention to relax from the exertions elementary terminology mistakes.
functions than locating the depth and of deciphering the larger ones. The More's the pity ,since heights of
colour of the surface. Some are arbitrary sprawl of white, the natural imagination might be scaled by
applied singly, with spray, thumb or centres of clusters spiralling into the something expertly written along
other means of leaving small lumps of surface, the submerged colour cut- these lines. Even if these lapses are
pigment, others are piled on top of out formations, are superbly forgiven, Oak Tree remains dependent
each other. Sometimes they occur convincing. As in Long Song and on this dialogue and its success in
alone, sometimes in rows, sometimes Awaiting Name the full potential of working a special identity bond
as a fingerprint motif. They are the colour is released and Cohen's between artist and reader.
classifiable in two ways ; by the visual curiosity becomes infectious. Craig-Martin's latest venture
constant way a given formation is Their capacity to sustain this spell is at the Rowan could be magic.
located within a white area, and by their critical factor; this in spite of all Instead I find an inhabitant of Babel.
the repetition or mimicry of that the rights and wrongs of illusionism Oak Tree's unrounded language is at
complex at least once in another part and the reality principles of 'just fault for the work's indecisive shape.
of the painting. Thus the often object' art. When a black spot Once again an artist's ill considered
ornamental colour incidents serve to positioned close to a margin area format does't let his exciting content
characterize localities, like markings stained with black, betrays their come through.
identifying species and their habitats. common substance, the spell is Caryn Faure Walker
For all their complexity they are not broken. The realisation that it is all
diagrammatic, not structured for the made of paint is a rude awakening, Masters of Graphic Art, Goya to
sake of displaying structure. but more a disappointment than a Henry Moore at Fischer Fine Art
Analogies between zoological, revelation. Ltd. London, April to June.
musical, even mental structuring and James Faure Walker This exhibition consists of prints of
the layered organization of their marks Michael Craig-Martin An Oak Tree 1973 superb quality, some extremely rare,
Mixed media, 17¾ x 5 in.
might be apt but are not stated. Nor Michael Craig-Martin at the taken from Fischer Fine Art's stock.
can the segmented white areas be Rowan Gallery, London. 11 April- Those whose visit to the gallery is
uniformly resolved into the colour 9 May. transubstantiation of appearance prompted by a perusal of the fully
field of the smaller marks. The Michael Craig-Martin, at the Rowan powered by belief ; a strength of desire illustrated catalogue may be
complexity serves to keep the Gallery in April, gave us the to experience the artist's non-material disappointed that only about half the
viewer's curiosity alive, steering him experience of visualized philosophy. imaginative production in situ, a prints are on show. The rest are
from one unfamiliar cluster to another, His new work looks simple. Oak Tree desire which Craig-Martin believes hanging in the adjoining showroom
surprising with bizarre changes of consists of a shelf of glass sheet, artist and spectator must share. By (which opens officially in the
scale when a complex is recognised 18 x 5 in. in size, supported at either re-introducing this non-cognitive autumn) and can be seen by the rich
as a repeat, contrasting a crowded end by steel brackets attached directly proposition, one in which the object's or bold on request. Most of the big
embellished figure with an empty to the gallery wall. On the shelf is sensible attributes are overriden by names are represented by fine
space, or fixing his attention on a an ordinary clear drinking glass filled older connotations of the word 'real', examples of their work : Goya,
focal centre. This unfolding of with water. This otherwise plain Craig-Martin undercuts the quasi- Delacroix, Whistler, Lautrec, Degas,
sensations, sharpening one by the arrangement is eccentric only in scientific object coding so fashionable Picasso, Braque, Kirchner, Kandinsky,
softness of another, gives the works position : the shelf's height puts the in recent years. Oak Tree just manages Schiele, Malevich, Ernst, Klee,
a slow diffusive power. It links them glass out of the spectators reach. Its an uneasy alliance between its written Matisse, Miro, Sutherland and Moore.
with those unsurpassed paintings of usual function removed, normality is catechism and its objects. These two Everything is for sale, with prices
Newman and Rothko, without using disrupted : this is the first clue to the sections are presented to the spectator quoted in Swiss francs. The show is a
their enveloping colour or wholistic glass's change in identity. at different points in the gallery, little thin in the early years, but then
images. Like most visual art that The method of change which isolated they remain. The first the there were only a few famous names
aspires to revelatory experience, the Craig-Martin proposes for his objects spectator sees, the shelf arrangement, in the field of graphic art before the
perceptual threshold is lowered, and is not surrealist : neither a re-match of serves a limited function. Its formal foundation of the Société des
an initial obscurity induces label to object nor visual distortion properties—the shared parallels and Peintres-Graveurs in 1889. Few
sustained contemplation, kept free through recombination of appearance. perpendiculars, the centred glass, the major painters or sculptors devoted
of mysticism by its explicit paint He makes this clear in a printed material's common transparency — much time to print-making and
facture. But the indirect way painting statement, the shelf arrangement's seduce, hold attention. Front facing artists who concentrated exclusively
processes are yielded, the sense of a written accompaniment. This symmetry inspires a religious awe. on the art of black and white did not
designer applying his will from hand-out, the second key to the Beyond utilizing the hypnotic make big names for themselves. The
outside, does on occasion make the present work, is presented as a properties in objects, tying them public were not eager to buy prints.
experience feel staged. The hand question-and-answer monologue together plastically goes forgotten. Goya, in this context the most
motif, for all the double-takes about by the artist. Its sense of exchange Our attention is soon diverted by the influential artist at the beginning of
primitivism when carefully decorated depends on a metaphysical notion, gallery's emptiness. Presuming his the nineteenth century, is represented
with rows of tiny dots, sometimes the distinction between substance intention is to use the in-built by four prints. La Lealtad (Loyalty) is
seems self-conscious in the bad and attribute, which also maps theatrical tone of this situation, this from the artist's last series and was
sense. And the methods of applying out the artistic lie of land. Craig- use is to the artist's credit. The made when he was old, deaf and
the paint are so abstruse as to Martin maintains, in discussion at ambience, hush and seriousness rub isolated. Showing a tormented soul,
constitute a mystique in themselves least, that the appearance of the glass off to solemnize the drink-as-offering torn between the teachings of the
that over-runs the contingencies of an can be constant for the spectator, and transformation act implicit in the grotesque priest on his right and the
individual painting. Yet Cohen is while at the more essential substance shelf arrangement. This combined scorn of the monstrous rabble on his
making much less of a god out of level it is transformed into an oak tree. object-environment effort lets us left, it gives us a glimpse of the artist's