Page 81 - Studio International - January February 1975

completed and reflective quality of his work. His does not entirely account for the
installation. comparison of the drawings to attention it invites. However,
Cara Montgomery 'static social hierarchies' betrays this project does seem to make
the same conceptual ambitions more sense than most of the
SUSAN TEBBY but his use of a rigid geometrical other things in so far as it is
EMMA PARK structure seems to deny their neither self-conscious nor self-
GERD ZWING avowed flexibility. referential in the way of things in
At the Lucy Milton Gallery, In spite of my reservations I most contemporary shows.
London, November found his closed, aseptic systems 'Exhibiting' would seem to be a
Susan Tebby, a former strangely impressive. It would be necessary stage in the work's
associate of Kenneth and Mary interesting to see the tubes in evolution thus using the gallery
Martin, works in a constructionist more varied temperatures out-of- not as a rest home for completed
idiom and creates predominantly doors where the interaction of artifice but as an impassive
white reliefs against reflective their components might be faster service area, a neutral ground for
metal backgrounds. I particularly and more exciting. further comparative dissemination
enjoyed her Relief With Yellow Gerald Des Landes of the project's 'findings'. Whilst Kenneth Martin
Chance and order 1972
in which the colours are placed this work in its efforts to
on the reverse of the planes and ART AS THOUGHT PROCESS assimilate multifarious to carry on in the manner to which
the eye moves backwards and At The Art Gallery information from typical he has become very well
forwards over contradictory Huddersfield, November suburban communities does beg accustomed and the paintings of
and overlapping surfaces. The Serpentine Gallery, London, certain questions with regard to Tom Phillips and Mark
same interest in movement and till January 12 the relative function of 'art-work' Lancaster seem utterly pointless.
in the juxtaposition of positive Are the exhibits in this show all and of 'art worker', Willats must Peter Smith
and negative space is apparent in works of art ? And, to further be credited for bringing these
Quadrille of 1973. The flexibility paraphrase Atkinson and matters out into the open - and
of these works is epitomized by Baldwin (Print, Section B, No. 6, for pointing to a possible way out WINSLOW HOMER 1836-1910
of the myriad aimlessness of so
if there are
Vertical Permutations With Blue c. 1966) An exhibition of watercolours,
where the observer is invited to nondeductive rules which the much recent art. This work drawings and some paintings.
change the sequence of the image concept of art is founded upon, presupposes an active audience At the Victoria and Albert
by moving the squares on the what kind of features do they (not to be confused with Museum, London
central column. have? Do they locate a regularity participatory or any other 28 November-19 January
Elsewhere, however, her reliefs in the facts given in a certain pseudo-democratic objective) This first exhibition of Winslow
are less intuitive in their facture situation?' Well, in this situation in a way that makes a lot of other Homer's work in Europe is
and more distant and severe in there are regularities in the given work appear merely ambiguous; disappointingly limited. There are
their effect. The systematized facts, if the exhibits may be this is as apparent in this show as sixty drawings, eighteen water-
nature of her technique never so-called - yet, as they remain indeed it would be elsewhere. colours and twenty-two oil
detracts from the validity of the fairly arbitrary regularities, like for We can, nevertheless, appreciate paintings, all lent by the Cooper-
final image but our satisfaction is instance they all employ some Burgin and Art-Language's Hewitt Museum of Design in
cerebral rather than emotive. The kind of matter, they've all been concern for the location and its New York. With the exception
danger of a piecemeal and merely 'worked', etc., we must surely cultural significance, yet where of two items, the exhibition has
inquisitive response, which is the remain unimpressed by this they are laconic Willats is been selected from works left
familiar pitfall of systemic art, is matter-of-fact consistency. On the circumlocutory by comparison. unsold in the artist's studio at the
not fully avoided in Overlap. The more positive side there seems to Burgin's This Position postulates time of his death in 1910.
strict progression of gradated be an implicit suggestion that considerations of temporality However, this is not a strong
tones and units is fascinating in its there are 'intentional' with regard to the percipient's representation: the oil paintings
development and yet somehow regularities in the work, as position. Baldwin & Atkinson are early ones, from 1869-79;
cold and removed in its entirety. inferred by the title of the single out considerations of there are few late watercolours
1 was left with the uneasy exhibition. It would seem that identity and semantic function and no typical Bermuda ones;
impression of a fugue without a this 'regularity' can be located in for the concepts we normally there is one later wood engraving
crescendo. some kind of mental procedure employ - a conceptual task which Snap the Whip and one etching,
Emma Park shares a similar that took place prior to the as we've seen, since the late Saved. This omits not only his
interest in the logical permutation enactment of the piece and to sixties, has caused widespread major paintings but also leaves
of units but her structures in wood which we are requested to refer apoplexy amongst those virtually unrepresented what is
are simpler and often less back to with precisian homage, - doctrinaire practitioners of usually regarded as the best
ambitious. The diagrammatic and in so doing it becomes yesteryear. So far so good, but phase of his work, the later years.
nature of her structures is most permissible to neglect, in a sense, there are thirteen exhibitors in His first twenty years as a
apparent in Four Diagonals where the objects which serve as all and accounts of each is magazine illustrator are almost
a sequence of independent frames vehicles for the 'ideas' in so far neither warranted nor possible ignored.
increases systematically in size. as their form or format is merely here. In most works the 'thought
Although the observer is arbitrary and functional. process' is not self-evident in the
encouraged to walk round the And so in considering these way already mentioned - for
structure, and to view the frames works the suggestion seems to be example, one has to refer to the
through each other, the actual in the order of making the logical catalogue to discover that
positions of the units tends to distinction between two kinds of Kenneth Martin's Chance and
define and restrict our viewpoint. knowledge, that is knowing how Order tableaux are anything
I much preferred her Single and knowing that, and in so other than decorative/
Diagonal in which a sequence of doing giving pride of place to the constructivist: the personal- Winslow Homer
enclosed spaces is fused into a latter. Now this would be fine if subjective decision making Snap the Whip c. 1872
single ambiguous image. we could understand the procedure had been reduced to a
In contrast to the natural exhibition as a whole in these minimum by dice-throwing Winslow Homer's professional
medium of Emma Park's wooden terms. However, the logical strategies etc. Similar kinds of career spans the period of
structures, Gerd Zwing's distinction of 'knowing that' work are shown by Malcolm America's change from an
'thermodynamic objects' have a does not singularly apply to all Hughes and Bridget Riley; agrarian to an industrial country,
forbidding slightly chilly air. the work - which is hardly although their separate intentions from a predominantly rural to a
Zwing explains how the liquid surprising considering the may be at variance the resultant predominantly urban population.
in the glass moves in accordance disparity between, say, Vic artifacts seem to serve the same Industrial capitalism won the
with gravity, in relation to the Burgin and Bridget Riley. purpose. Other aspects of the Civil War. Its growth went
observer's position and in Taken separately there are show attempt to illustrate the unchecked by a businessman's
keeping with the temperature of certainly things of interest: some peculiarly British variation of Congress and an increasingly
the room. Although many of his 'vintage' Burgin and some (less konzept kunst in terms of Judy Spenserian Supreme Court.
ideas are interesting, the refined than recent) Art-Language, both Clark's scatology and Michael Turning working people into a
alchemy of the tubes is slow in its naturally looking a little rara avis Craig-Martin's percept-pieces. proletariat was seen by many as a
transitions and visually amidst the 'visuals'. Also there is John Hilliard's photographs, dehumanizing process. It
unexciting in its effect. Steve Willats's West London without being very ambitious, was around 1890 that Homer
Nevertheless Zwing's somewhat Social Resource Project seem to illustrate the way we began to depict the hunting and
obscure references to the documented and carefully read images and invoke gathering work of fishermen. As
problems of philosophy and prepared for inspection. This suggestions about techniques of canals and steam railroads drew
science contribute to the work is physically separated from persuasion in other contexts. the outlying countryside into the
contained and almost cryptic the other exhibits - a factor which Richard Smith obviously intends orbits of the growing cities,

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