Page 44 - Studio International - November 1974

restretched and painted a different aim of 'truth to materials'. If she is these for which she is best known. It is rubber mould is derived and another
colour, the new work instead attempts reconciling painting and sculpture as during this period that her work wax figure is cast from this mould.
a subtle re-positing of Duchamp's work categories she is attempting (and in her becomes the purist representation of A further mould is made from this
on the Large Glass during his sojourn last works achieving) a reconciliation 'truth to materials' to a compatible figure by coating it with china so that
in Zurich. Throughout the piece, of emotive content with material form. degree with Robert Morris's post- the surface of the resultant bronze
oblique and ironic echoes of The Bride There is more than merely a minimal sculptures. Using latex and casting has an extremely refined finish,
Stripped Bare . . . are to be found. The structural analogy between the fibre-glass, her remaining works consist, a silkiness that attracts light in a gentle,
posers themselves compress the attempted conciliations which most characteristically, of open-box mellow way.
personages of the nine Malic Moulds characterize her entire ouevre. The forms strung together into lines, still The figures immediately draw one
into their own three-part functions of pictorial tradition of painting, however using both the wall and the floor as a to them, they intrigue and invite, and
static, dynamic and responsive posture. reduced, maintains a residual invitation last residual gesture to her commitment yet remain constant to themselves.
The Oculist Witnesses are replaced by of 'looking in', though the truth to to the painting/sculpture dualism. But They involve one physically, indeed one
three rectangular mirrors, while the materials dictum, taken to the extremes by 1968-69 the 'truth to materials' identifies with them, but only partially.
Draft Pistons are represented here by of American painting, demands only a conviction has fully taken over and the For there remains something illusive:
cunningly hinged deflectors, which 'looking at'. Materially painting box forms appearing (in a slightly there is a kind of introversion in their
appropriately obscure whole areas of becomes sculpture, but can never be amorphous way) to hang from the wall aura which renders them mysterious
the third and final Blossoming... the sculpture until historically severed and drape across the floor, come over and remote. In one of the pieces two
list of correspondences could be from the tradition of illusionism and almost as a lament to painting and figures recline on either side of two
extended indefinitely, but it is pictorial content. 'Truth to materials' sculpture in the momentum of the strips of mirror which face in opposite
important to note that in Nice Style's is a material aspiration rather than a sweep towards pure materiality. Would directions and which are so placed that
treatment of the towering yet elusive realization for American painting. it be extending a point too far to they reflect parts of each figure. Their
work we see, at last, the 'Large Glass Similarly 'looking in' for emotive suggest that the open container form postures are stylized, modest, still.
Consummated': Robin's descent via content is incompatible with 'looking is similarly a bland gestural lament to One sits leaning with her hands behind
the simpering Bridal Mechanism, at' materials and purely natural form. the dualism of 'looking in' and 'looking her and the other lies back. Both have
denoted here by a suitably flushed Eva Hesse invites contradictions at', the loss of expressive content in the one leg outstretched and the other bent.
Lansing-Bagnall fork-lift truck, is a declaring that her work 'has to do with minimalist surge towards pure As the spectator passes laterally the
perfect evocation of post-coital disgust. contradictions and oppositions'; the physicality in form? reflection of one overlays the
I have barely suggested here the wealth struggle of making appear compatible Rosetta Brooks corresponding head, shoulders and
of meaning to be found in 'Baroque with consciousness what is by its nature breasts of the other, so that there is a
Palazzo': I will mention only in passing incompatible, making natural form flicker, a re-adjustment in one's
the richness of illusory depth conveyed house something other than inert Robert Graham at the Felicity Samuel conception of the figures. Their
by the precise relating of mirror to matter ie. emotive content. Gallery, London, 23 September — apparent movement, however, far from
door, of elbow to collar, in the piece. Her earlier works (1965-67) offer 1 November. making them more human, places them
The accompanying statement, in sound reliefs as a merger of painting and Robert Graham is the man who used to further away from one, for in the next
cassette form, published by the sculpture categories. The earliest work fashion little female nude figures from second one is fully aware that the
enterprising Audio Arts magazine, is of these on show Ring Around Arosie, wax. He would put them in bright relation between oneself and the figures
essential listening for anyone seeking two circular shapes with central cones perspex boxes with a miniature bed is all of one's own making. There is no
the full socio-ergonomic significance of built onto a vertical rectangular surface, and some scraps of miniature cloud: attempt on Graham's part to disguise
the work, particularly that of the make clear the interrelatedness of the nice, neat table-top erotica. There the mirrors as part of the stage set (at
Italianate pool-cum-couch. The dualisms of emotive content/material wasn't a great deal to say about the one time I feel he might have been
dangers, and rewards, of the group's form and painting/sculpture. The pieces for they were hardly complex tempted). They are clear in their
casual yet intense devotion to modern sculptural aspect gives the forms a and somehow their aseptic aura denied function as devices to manipulate
styling is summed up in the closing physical, deliberate immediacy, whilst one the chance to react. His 1970 optically. Yet there is still the
remarks of the cassette: 'Bigger than the pictorial suggests female breasts exhibition at the Whitechapel reminded fascination in that appeal to the senses
Beuys? Prophets or Posers? ... It's a which would be a less obvious one of shopping for cream cakes at that the figures possess.
problem of ... Clothing.' association presented in any other way. Marks and Spencers — one's In another of the pieces on show a
Michael Hartney In later reliefs of this same period discriminatory faculties seeming not female head and shoulders is portrayed
the sculptural aspect increasingly only redundant but also rather eight times, but with different
dominates the rectangular format, and offensive. expressions on the face and with
Eva Hesse at the Mayor Gallery, London, transfer to horizontal lay outs (in 1968) The five works on show at the varying head positions. They
October. finally completes the move from Felicity Samuel Gallery, although using necessarily appear more constant and
The recent exhibition of the work of painting (or relief) to sculpture. As the same basic subject matter have unvarying than straight sculptures
Eva Hesse at the Mayor Gallery one would expect, a great deal of the taken it beyond 'sweetness and light' where a human being has actually
contains many pieces from the years emotive associations of the works are and into sculpture. Graham made posed in various positions. Each of the
1965 to her death in 1970, during lost in this transition. The emphasis these bronze pieces in the period busts is taken from the same wax
which time she did her most on material form actually is exclusive 1971-1974. Four of the five are figure which Graham alters in some
characteristic sculpture. As a of expressive content. It seems to be platforms measuring approximately noticeable (but to a traditionalist)
description 'sculpture' is, however, less of a forced compatibility of 2 x 3 feet (the third dimension being superficial degree. Their unblinking
rarely apt as most of Hesse's works opposites and more of a balance described by bronze uprights at each stillness is therefore reinforced by the
(from the very earliest) reside reflected differently in her personal corner), bearing either two female unreal smoothness, otherworldliness of
somewhere between sculpture and history as an artist at a time when the nudes or female heads. The fifth is a the surfaces. And yet this very
painting. This duality is reflective of a emphasis upon raw materials was four-sided column (81 x 6 x 6 in.), smoothness, the hairless perfection is
much more important dualism within minimal and post-minimal art was from the facets of which glimpses of endearing, and the scale of the head
her activity: the clear need to imbue gaining its greatest momentum. parts of a female nude emerge. A invites one to cup it in the palm of
her works with an expressive and The works of 1968 and 1969 are figure is made, I believe, by first one's hand. All the figures relate in
emotive content as well as a contrary recognizable only as sculpture and it is fashioning it in wax. From this a scale to the size of the human hand

(Right) Eva Hesse Untitled
1968 Mixed Media, 15x 1101n.
(Centre) Robert Graham Single Head
1973 Bronze, 18x 12x 12in.
(Far right) Robert Graham detail from
Column 1972 Bronze, 81¼ x 6¼ x 6¼
(Opposite page top) Basil Beattie
Acrylic on canvas 1974, 10x 4 ft.
(Left) Teddy Millington Drake
Fort at Jodhpur 1973, watercolour,
70x 50cm.
(Right) Brendan Neiland Mayfair 1973
Acrylic on canvas.