Page 80 - Studio International - March April 1975

buildings, high up, that would withdrawal necessary to the
otherwise go unnoticed, and experience of becoming an object
paints from these altering the for the artist's clinical gaze'.
composition at will. He New realists present two images
concentrates on neon signs of the of America — the 'photorealists'
thirties and forties from the concentrate on her glossy facade,
fronts of back-street cafés and whereas others like Katz and
bars — the brand labels of places — Pearlstein look behind it to the
but insists that he feels no emptiness and dehumanization of
nostalgia for them. Yet he flies individual Americans. According
back to the States to replenish his to Chaim Koppelman 'There is no
portfolio of 'subjects', such thing as a good work of art
disregarding the lights of London that presents a false picture of
where he now lives. reality'. If he is correct — then God
Like many of the photo- help America!
realists, he is especially interested Realism pops up at difficult
in the reflections on glossy times and might be regarded as a
surfaces that the camera captures, saviour — it keeps things ticking
but the eye tends to edit out.. over until something better turns
Glossiness is foreign to the up. John Bowlt argues, for
painting surface, but typical of the instance, that Social Realism
photograph especially in resurrected painting in Russia
advertising, and has become a after Malevich's White on White
symbol of newness and affluence. of 1918 'with which painting
But the gloss of Cottingham's committed suicide'. In the West
signs and billboards often hides Pop could be said to have rescued
decaying buildings and dingy painting from the cul-de-sac of the
interiors and reminds us that the abstract expressionist 'journey
Robert Cottingham. new realism has selective vision into the interior'. Recently we
Acrylic Paintings on Paper 1974 and focuses on the smart facade have witnessed an assassination
19x 19 in
that America likes to present — the attempt on painting, not a suicide,
with blobs of white pigment as Katz's style is similar to image she would like us to but we have yet to see whether the
highlights. 'It took me a year or Hockney's but lacks his humour believe in. new bout of realism will provide
two years to figure out how to and the tension between abstract Like Katz, Philip Pearlstein the necessary period of
paint well — to get the expression and figurative readings. His marks also works from the model. His convalescence to tide us over to a
in the eyes', he says. Heads are are neither personal enough to paintings come as a real shock — new rebirth of painting.
too large, hands and feet too read as gestures nor invisible who else would want or dare to Sarah Kent
small, and limbs wooden. Clothing enough to disappear, instead they paint life paintings in 1975?
is angular, stiff and empty — there remain obstinately noticeable in 'Painting the figure has become
seem to be no bodies inside — so their crudity. Is this contrived the most challenging subject the
that heads and limbs do not sloppiness wilful amateurism — artist can undertake' — and also
emerge from collars and sleeves, does he brilliantly conceal his the most unlikely! But it is not a John Blake
but are stuck on at the periphery skill ? His comments are as dumb renewed burst of humanism that At the Robert Self Gallery,
like paper cut-outs poorly as his images are opaque, and one arouses Pearlstein's interest. 'The London. December.
collaged. His faces are particular is left wondering whether his meaning of the figure ... has no
enough to be recognizable — his paintings are an ultra interest for me' he says. His Tim Head
wife Ada often appears — yet sophisticated double-take on Pop models are found objects,
neutralized into standard or as bad as they look at face value. artificially posed — standing, At the Rowan Gallery, London.
Americans. Ada, for instance, is At forty, Robert Cottingham is sitting, lying, utterly motionless January
depersonalized into 'an attractive one of the youngest of the photo- and emotionless — in false studio -
brunette with soft brown eyes' - realists who use the photographic settings and under harsh studio John A. Walker
only her public personality, a image to distance themselves from lighting. His people, often cropped At The Gallery, London.
mask of bland good humour, is a reality neutralized by below the head, are naked meat January.
portrayed. '1 have a weakness for transpcsition into a two- divested of character or sensuality
painting beautiful people' Katz dimensional image. This enables and painted 'cold' with no Ian Wilson
explains. them to maintain a cool sympathy and 'with the least
His settings are as neutralized disengagement from their subject possible intrusion of style'. Discussion at the ICA, London.
as his people. Both indoor and matter, which they claim is of no Pearlstein achieves his February.
outdoor scenes are bathed in a intrinsic interest and comes only disengagement by treating his
clear, uniform light, but it is the 'as a by-product of surface'. 'It is people as part-objects, he ignores William Wegman
arc light of the film studio not the a cold way of looking at things the whole to focus on the details. At the Mayor Gallery, London.
sun, that shines; so it will never be without any comment or He builds his image by a gradual February.
dimmed by clouds or rain. There commitment'. Cottingham used to addition of parts, working with
are no moments of real time here — work as an art director in slow precision over the surface: In December, John Blake
just an ever-present, bland 'never'. advertising, and through starting at the hands he works exhibited at the Robert Self
The interiors are too perfunctory collaboration with photographers 'finger by finger, wrinkle by gallery. In the lower gallery he
to be a description of actual place. became familiar with the wrinkle' moving onto the next showed his series of photographs
They are 'nowhere really'; so that manipulation of reality through form only when the former is of bridges, each of which are
his people are suspended in images. Now he takes his own completed. This procedure, like printed out of focus so that, in one
artificiality as if waiting for reality photographs using the camera to inverse vivisection, 'kills' his series, the arches of different
to be switched on! focus in on fragments of
subjects as surely as the real suspension bridges are rendered
thing — they are lifeless and as blurred, black parabolas, still
soulless. Yet the paintings have a recognizable quite clearly as
forceful three dimensional bridges, but less easily
presence and his bodies are large recognizable as particular bridges.
and powerful in their ugly pink The blurring of the photograph is
fleshiness. They arouse an uneasy used to reduce distinguishing
sensation of forced intimacy with detail, by eliminating variables of
total strangers. They are different suspension bridges, thus
physically present yet emotionally recording only the suspension
distant from each other and the bridge form. This point is further
viewer, withdrawn into their own emphasized by the mounting of
reveries or heavy with boredom subtitled descriptions of the name,
and lethargy. location, date and architect of each
Like the interiors of Katz's individual bridge in all but the last
paintings, Pearlstein keeps his of the series of photographs, the
Alex Katz 'studio conditions constant to last one remaining untitled and
Thursday Night II 1974
Oil on canvas drown out thought'. 'It helps to therefore unidentifiable. It is one
72x 144 mm induce the anaesthetized psychic of the bridges photographed in
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