Page 93 - Studio International - May June 1975

Another artist who has shown when put into practice, some very
recently, Anne Brodrick, also obvious, if not banal results are
works very slowly and exhibits often produced.
infrequently. Her materials are This seems applicable in
uniform substances, like particular to Renny Croft's films
alabaster and polyfilla, capable Tripod Rotation and Tripod
of mysterious and flexible effects. Adjust, and to Mike Duckworth's
The sources for her sculptures, film Body Arcs. Tripod Rotation
shown collectively at the was a double screen film; on one
Serpentine Gallery in 1974 and screen the camera spiralled up to
lately at the Park Square Gallery, the sky, and on the other screen
are biomorphic, sensual forms the camera spiralled down to the
such as those borrowed from ground, the two meeting in the
snails and mythological beings. middle as they passed each other
Although the delicacy and the in opposite directions. Tripod
intricate detail of the works Adjust, another double screen
discourage handling, each piece film, was the result of two cameras
has an innate energy that creates a filming each other. Each camera
self propelled spiral and outward operator would alter the legs of
glow from the object to the his own tripod and the image on
spectator. the opposite screen would change
The surface of one of her best accordingly, and vice versa. The
pieces, Faun at Music, 1974, point of both these films had to be
rippIes and twists through an assumed, since the two images
unbroken sequence of peaks and were projected out of synchrony
hollows describing the folds of the when I saw them. In Body Arcs
faun's stomach, his fur and the the camera, which was pointing at
attached flora. The effect is more the operator, was attached to a
Rita Donagh for Evening papers, Ulster, 1972-74 painterly than with Rodin but pole, and swung round in varying
shares some of his stretching of directions. In all these films one
the surface to capture space was made totally aware of the
revealed by light. In other processes of film making which
camera still effected a dramatic integrated mechanically sculptures the space seems
change, most immediately on the conceived drawing exercises with entrapped by a strong suction occurred; there was no pretence
aesthetic level by creating high intuitively made marks. For both deriving from either an oblong of creating the type of illusion
contrasts within a single artists the codes (coloured keys, concavity as with Curly Horn or available in dominant cinema.
chromatic range. Whereas the plotted points, erasures, etc.) have the cluster of deep pores on the However, having said that, I feel
that these films are not taken
original graphic statement meanings that cannot necessarily face of the imaginary spirit, nearly far enough, and end up as
delineated distinct but spatially be deciphered without the aid of Merman, 1974.
overlapping systems, in the verbal statements. Without knowing that Anne little cinematic games, rather than
photograph the uniformly-black In the press sheet that Brodrick is employed in a trying to present us with a new
marks were synonymous with the accompanied Rita Donagh's clarity.
cold grey printed surface. Given installation she wrote about the conservation department, one In Hill Walk (Renny Croft),
additionally the provocative grid structure, 'This device would guess that she has been the game is further exemplified by
influenced by the illusionistic
subject matter, the new version enabled me to determine while conventions of medieval and a journey into a given image.
suggested the starkness and avoiding making decisions about, baroque sculpture. In fact she Slides taken at various points on a
brevity of an underground certain interruptions across a seems a little too unworried about hill were projected onto the screen.
political poster. surface.' Such an approach the distracting effect of small Superimposed in the centre of
The source for the subject understandably leads to a areas of stylization such as the each slide was a film of the same
matter was an actual photograph situation where a drawing is put etched curies on the horn piece. In image as the slide. The film was
removed from Clive Limpkin's aside as soon as it contains her earlier work the sexual animated by the use of single
book 'The Battle of Bogside' enough information to inspire but metaphors were too obvious and frame in order to record a journey
which showed fragments flying not rule the related painting. superfluous for my taste and from the original position depicted
from a bombed object By this logic one can explain the likewise the artificial painting on in the slide to a point on, or just
silhouetted against a dark sky. the dryness and conventionality the resin spheres seemed to react beyond, the horizon. Here, one
Across this image, which was of this particular drawing, against the energy of the shape. was presented with a simple
placed on the left-hand 'page' of especially the rudimentary level of Nevertheless there was the feeling static image of a landscape and
the drawing, were scattered black devices like the central dotted that every sculpture she has shown then drawn into it by the film,
dots transferred from the plotted line. In a way to stress the has been undertaken with much almost to the point of identifying
points of an ordnance survey map disappointing aspects of this consideration and to the direct with the journey. Gradually the
locating megalithic cairns in the drawing is to criticize the improvement of the subsequent game of journeying through each
N.W. of Ireland. The work as a decision to put Evening Papers, piece. slide was established, and this is
whole had a centrifugal force Ulster (a work with overtones of really all the film amounted to.
stemming from the sequence of protest) into the display format. Catherine Lampert Cave Film, also by Renny Croft,
diagonals and more specifically In contrast the painting was a series of static shots,
from the few radiating linear Evening Papers, Ulster, 1972-74 dissolving into each other, of the
spokes. These lines intersected the embraced, according to my Avant-garde British mouth of a cave, the mouth
rectangular grid in several places memory, a much broader visual landscape films at the becoming smaller and smaller as
thereby creating isolated spatial language; it made good use of the the camera receded farther and
platforms implied by opacity of different whites, the Tate Gallery farther into the cave. The most
perspective. fascination of air-brushed colour (Programme Three) interesting point about this film
Although this is only the fifth and the hesitancy implied in faint 17-21 March was the sound-track, which never
time Rita Donagh has shown, her lines.-These bits of procedural seemed to work with the images at
work is easily identified by its evidence better directed the So called avant-garde films tend all; the track consisted of the
consistent intensity and purity. viewer's thinking to the sequence to be categorized together in a constant dripping of water in a
Usually her reticent touch and the of events and memories that direct particular genre with its own kind cave while the images changed in
unfinished appearance of her the thinking of the artist. Rita of language, values, and means of perspective and distance. Instead
drawings give the impression that Donagh's best work has a analysis. The Tate Gallery has what happened was that we were
the works are meant to remain disguised richness that is labelled these films as avant-garde made aware that what we were
very private explorations. The reminiscent of Paul Klee's late and therefore they will be hearing was in fact a sound-track
titles, however, suggest external drawings. In several of his necessarily discussed with all that emitted from the speaker at the
events which have affected the animal sketches one drawing is that implies. This categorization front of the hall -one was strongly
artist, either her teaching or literally covered over with a of 'art' films presents its own aware of the sound process.
something from the outside world moderately transparent sheet that problems inasmuch as the theory One of the points which was
received through the mass media both buries and reveals his first behind the films often tends to strikingly evident about these
such as the television film of the thoughts as subtly as though it completely overrun the films films was their dull repetition. The
Kent State massacre. covered the spiritual skeleton themselves. What is meant by this structure, which obviously played
Stylistically she compares to from which the drawing was is that while the theory is a more a major role in these films, was so
Duchamp and others who have conjured. than adequate means of analysis, laboured and the process with

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