Page 82 - Studio International - May June 1975

seem to state a case for his vision under the canvases. In his last showing, at terms. The purity of these
preordained tragedy in their contaminating layers of sheer the new Galerie L. Francois, compositions is, in any case, an
isolation, however magnificently sentimentality. His failure to Danil was also engaged in impressive gain. He has yet to learn
evocative their brilliantly recorded exploit such a magnificant chance investigating the structural how to translate the quiddity of
setting. is very sad indeed because his was contribution of absence but his his models into experience if the
Christian Boltanski and a unique talent to create a is a more constructivist stance significance of his imagery is to
Jacques Monory shared the disciplined field for the accurate than Adzak's and he confines his outgrow objectivity — but his
beautiful series of halls in the record of individual passion. He experimentation to the traditional accomplishment is so unique that
Centre National d'Art could instance the gardener's field of the canvas. Superficially he appears to be on the threshold
Contemporain; a palatial love for the soil in one flower and at any rate, some of his of an important breakthrough.
ambience meant to bestow the a man's whole commitment in the compositions owe their formal Wolf Vostell had a vast
prestige of official recognition — image of a woman — but he definitions to the influence of showing in the Musée d'Art
and Boltanski's highly gestural cannot cope with the terrible Mondrian and Barnett Newman. Moderne de la Ville de Paris
contribution to the occasion was absurdity of the terrorist's Strong verticals and squares lend and his environmentally conceived
a venture which should have agonies. Monory's involvement their compartments to carry the constructs filled the enormous
been undertaken long ago by the in episodes of genuine beauty active part of his statement but spaces around them explosively.
national museum of every struck a note of authenticity the passive region of it is no less The gloom and the cavernous
country with a degree of self- through delineating it with a significant and he imprints these immensities around them were
respect and respect for the past. degree of perversity which with different stations of ideally suited to bring out the
In the circumstances it is rather individuated each moment of it — removal. By pulling out threads portent of Vostell's pieces. Their
amusing how many refusals he but now only the perversity of it he creates fields of liberated merit is obvious. He has dared
has collected before the CNAC remains and it is clumsy as well textures and through cuts-and- tackle themes of the German
has encouraged him to realize as repellent. folds he conjurse up real regions of conscience. The cruelty and the
his project: to purchase and Roy Adzak, who showed his lack. Thus, and rather strangely, pestilence of our age nourish the
exhibit the personal property of a new and conceptualizing reliefs he invests a very intellectual game springs of his imagination and he
deceased individual, bought of the negative form in the new with the genuine magic of recreates their fantastic power in
entire in the auction rooms. It is Galerie Germain, may well be the popular tapestries and he a language that does not bother
surprising how evocative a doyen of the English artists demonstrates very complex with translation. The motorcar
complete collection of personal resident in Paris. As well as thought processes through the remains the instrument of murder
articles can be, exhibited as it is in being one of the most original simplest employment of gesturally which impales innocent beasts.
the contextual framework minds in France, he is also one of conceived techniques. The Barbed wire stands for
provided by furniture, domestic the most consistent explorers of a notions of control work in his concentration camps and early
utensils and decorative single and singular idea. In his designs by counterexposing examples of the teleprinter
paraphernalia. Worn case, this is the shape of the construction against destruction blare forth the messages of
toothbrushes commingle with the impression in the mould — which and he reunites their separate capitalism to underline the
faded covers of forgotten books, is, in fact, the physical contribution under the sign of photographic evidence supplied
all labelled as though their equivalent of the (optic) shadow valid and traditionally intended by a very sick society. It is not to
harmonies. There is a remarkably
documentary value was above cast by presence. The mould is individual understanding of be doubted that Vostell's
dispute, to recreate the full the shadow of absence and materials and craft in the free eclecticism has force; nor is it to
orchestration of a style — and the something concrete at the same fall of his unstretched works and be denied that there is a need to
memory of a life infuses a mere time — and it has its own optic the personal note of its conveys confront the problems he has
mode of living with the vitality properties — which confuse exhilaration. These designs seem raised — and it should be stressed
of a genre in these serially presence with absence in to prove that the possibilities of that his documentation is
displayed fragments from an illusions. In his recent work simple geometric abstraction are performed with an artist's eye for
anonymous moment during the Adzak explores the philosophical far from ended. visually significant details but
thirties and forties. The impact of removal by instancing it there is a rather suspect mysticism
nostalgia evoked by Boltanski's through perishing substances Peter Klasen's career is in Vostell's dedication to the
experiment is genuine but it which leave their original volumes equally long and distinguished. spirits of evil. It is best recognized
remains to be questioned behind, bequeathing a testimonial He was one of the first masters of in his own comments — whether
whether its claims are best of transience. Juxtaposition and super-realist pop and his verbal or graphic. He has the true
performed under the artist's actuation help to create a beautifully precise figuration draughtsman's gifts and they
creative supervision; it is, after all, wonderfully ambivalent series of seems at the time to have been appear in a considerable number
just possible that archivists and images in these sequences which designed to rival Rosenquist's. of his boxed collage compositions
archaeologists are better record the shrinkage rates of A photographic perfectionism but their considerable beauty
qualified to perform the same disfigurement in the perishing was the hallmark of his is subservient to a sick pursuit of
service — although, for the time plant and/or creature. The airbrushed compositions and they obscenity. It is, in fact, difficult
being, they have shown a mummified root lies in its own orchestrated the incompatible to respect a revolutionary who
reprehensible lack of interest in gravechamber while its grassy evidence of technology with fails to acknowledge that rebellion
this sort of commemoration and crown maintains the lacelike symbolic cuts of the human is incomplete without a single
it is certainly to Boltanski's refinement of fronds and leaf; the female's forms in collagelike note of joy.
credit that his is a worthy dead fish flies through spaces it puzzles. In his new work, on view Jochen Gerz (Galerie Bama)
pioneering venture in the defines through tensions in K. Flinker's gallery, the showed text-accompanied
historic art of reconstruction. generated by its desiccation, and concern for the kaleidoscopic photographs which record both
The consecration of Jacques foliage surrenders its colouring to effects of collage plus fetishism fortuitous and self-induced
Monory's blue super-realism, the plaster that commemorates were abandoned. Only the occurrences. His prose veers
these fragile volumes. The towards the irrational to evoke
on the other hand, brought perfectionism remains and it
disappointment to connoisseurs processes of subtraction follow reaches out for the virtuoso's dadaesque poetry and he extends
of his earlier lyrical phase. In the slow rhythms of nature but bravura performances around a the image's reach towards
this series of compositions the artist creates their framework centrally placed icon — which explicit commentary. There is a
Monory tries to project the — which perpetuates; and the comes now invariably from the note of sadness in his work which
politically committed observer's counterpointed imagery which catalogue of manufactured goods. clashes with his political
comments and his selection of relates permanence to transition Klasen invests details with the commitment and this disharmony
characteristically potent records the inevitable with tragic numinuos halo of his obsessions. is not altogether unintended. It is,
instances fails to provide the precision. Adzak has always He gives them an optic insistence in fact, the mark of individuality
individuality which infused magic striven for a remarkable precision by stressing symmetries of a in his experimentation with the
into his former work. His but in this series of compositions fearful kind. The cold stance of verbal interpretation of visual
brushstrokes do not warm to the his perfectionism is allied to a his alienation effects is truly statements.
task of translating ready-made vision with a very deep and lasting impressive but one cannot help Giogio Griffa's unstretched
mass imageries, taken from impact. wondering whether he has not lightweight canvases (Galerie
newspapers and journals and The work of Daniel performed too great a sacrifice Templon) carried the history of
they do not fuse into a Panogopoulos (`Danil') was before the ideal of rarefied purity. thin parallels to an unfinished
significant symbolism. There is a introduced by Janine Restany's The communicative reach of his conclusion. His unemphatically
harsh anger in him, as in so Galerie well over a decade earlier work was more immediate; coloured lines record gentle
many of us, against cruelty and ago. Throughout that decade it nevertheless, it seems obvious harmonies as they fall towards
injustice but his azures obscure traced notions of obsessive purity that the narrative elements of incompletion somewhere in the
his argument under an in various forms; the inner collage-composition could strike upper reaches of the composition
unintentional sea of indifference — structure of boxes, luminous and an artist as unacceptable on and their insistent horizontality
and its aquamarine hues diffuse mobile indicatives as well as Klasen's quasi-classically inclined contributes an additional moment
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