Page 45 - Studio Internatinal - October 1974

Panamarenko U-Control III 1973 Palais de Beaux-Arts,
Brussels

hierarchy in today's artistic circles (hierarchy 'Concept' and 'Zone absolue' at the APIAW in considered as one of the fine arts, Roquet
among the various gallery or museum executives, Liege in 1970, Charlier, interested by concept developed his critical analysis of human
relationship between the artist and those who and land art, concentrated his attention on the communication through the medium of
commission his works), through the application obvious relationship he could establish between photography. His shots of people or directly
of a constant system, showing a deep sense of his profession, working for the Service experienced situations, show relationships and
humour. Technique Provincial in Liege, and the until human emotions on which he systematically
Each time he has the chance, Guy Mees then parallel world of art. Through photographic and objectively comments. His series of
photographs a selection of three individuals documents used in his job, photo-copies of carefully interpreted images are detached from
more or less directly concerned with art, onto departmental memos, reports of all kinds of any reference to existing artistic schemas, and
blocks of concrete always defining the same bureaucratic 'events', analyses of imaginary always go beyond the anecdotal level. For him,
three levels. The characters photographed in possibilities of social groups created by office form is never more than the support of a
this way, in the full immediacy of daily life, are life, he demystifies artistic objects, bringing personal and a-scientific sociology of the
successively presented according to a complete them to a 'flatter and more normal reality'. But emotions.
analysis of all the possibilities of the hierarchical as he does not just wish to 'make an artistic The youngest artist invited to Oxford was
relation. This feeling of irony, of the relativity career' with the Service Technique Provincial Philippe van Snick, who is also the most
of relationships between individuals, or between for about two years he has also been using the 'conceptual', in the sense that his work
the latter and their artistic concepts, this denial sarcastic and direct humour of his cartoons, systematically analyses the possibilities of a
of prestige and preliminary guarantee, can be which he usually sends to the people concerned. logical language, based on the mathematical
seen again in the proposal published in this However, Charlier's analysis of the professional formulation of simple plastic signs. His
issue, where the presentation of his work, in an and artistic environment, with the comparisons research is characterized by a desire to exhaust
avant-garde gallery in Brussels, is on the same it arouses, is only conceived through his own all the possibilities stemming from the
visual and critical level as the ordinary status as an artist, and the caricatural distance preliminary data he puts forward, either by a
architectural environment surrounding it. The he adopts where both are concerned involves series of formulations presented in their pure
series of identical paragraphs taken from a him unceasingly and increasingly in the given state, as in the work published in this issue, or
scientific treaty, which here form his work, system of the avant garde — which he demystifies by a series of formal representations, with many
have no primacy over the architectural deliberately, but does not reject. examples, limited by the support.
components. Maurice Roquet acts like a catalyst for This analysis, both descriptive and critical in
In the work of Jacques Charlier, we find the immediately effective human expression, intent, has dealt with a few artists representative
same taste for irony, the same feeling of the experienced outside any mental speculation, of a certain conception of the avant garde, which
relativity of the artistic world, but from quite a through works concerned with communication considers the internationalization of its
different point of view. Mees's questioning goes problems or the expression of more popular influences and information as inevitable. They
hand in hand with a desire for effacement and cultural forms (that is to say, without any are certainly not the only artists representing the
levelling, while that of Jacques Charlier is linked artistic intellectuality). He broke with painting, various aspects of current research in plastic art
to circumstances and their implications in the because the approach that it offered seemed to in Belgium.
art scene, through his gift for caricature him to be too purely literary and attached to
expressed immediately in the cartoon, or more technical virtuosity. Rejecting this too personal
indirectly through works whose formal expression expression, he sought a possibility for real
results from an extensive critical consideration. dialogue through his 'Mental Theatre', which
His caricature of the artistic world, his satire of through the despatch of 'message-boxes',
avant-garde criticism, has become more and more attempted to make the recipient more easily
biting, following a very clear development aware of certain things, through some simple
towards demystification, at present effected by propositions based on space, the senses, memory
samples and emphasis of precise facts or reports. etc. But he quickly became aware of the
After several phases, which fall within the unilateral nature of these despatches, where the
general current of the tendencies of the sought-after dialogue was only a refined form
international avant garde, 'Paysage artistique' of terrorism, allowing no reply, and after a few
See the Avant Garde Europaische Exhibition,
1
at the Yellow Now Gallery, Liege in 1971, bilateral agreements, where tolerance was Schwanenhalle, Frankfurt am Main, 1963.
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