Page 77 - Studio International - September October 1975

listened into) freely announced: that it is time to throw those
'If they don't give us permission, formalists over the side of the
we will organize another open-air socialist vessel.
exhibition.' So everything seemed clear. The
The non-conformists planned matter was decided. The 25 May
to mount an open-air exhibition exhibition was forbidden. 'The
of paintings in Leningrad on 25 play is over,' so they say. But the
May. But the authorities were spectacle continued. Shortly after
again embarking on moves of the opening of the Leningrad
repression, although it is true that exhibition it was suddenly
this time they managed without announced officially that it had
bulldozers. To intimidate others, been decided to mount it again in
Oscar Rabin, as the leader of the September. What does one make
Avant-garde movement, was of this gesture? Some interpret it
excluded from the Moscow City as a sign of the struggle between
Committee of Graphic Arts and the liberals and the conservatives,
placed in the position of a sponger while others suggest that it is the
or a parasite, since he could not work of those who wish to delay
work anywhere or belong to any matters, to find a convenient way
creative organization. The militia out of an unattractive situation.
had the right, through the courts, And in any case what will
to forcibly coerce people to work tomorrow bring? At present, no-
where they chose: in the factory, one can be 100% certain about the
plant or collective farm .. answer to this question, not even
Rabin's son, Alexander, a the Minister of Culture.
22-year-old artist, was sent an However, after a year of
anonymous letter with a warning manoeuvres and tricks by the
that he would be killed if he tried High Command, with bulldozers
to go to Leningrad with any aimed at art, one thing is clear.
paintings. To carry conviction he The tactics of the authorities may
was told the same thing several change and for the sake of being
times on the telephone. It was able to demonstrate socialism to Edgar Fernhout
explained to the leading the West it is possible that they In the Spring 1973 strives towards geometric
Leningrad non-conformists, may permit one or two exhibitions Oil on canvas, 85x 85 cm regularity, while slight changes
Eugene Rukhin and Yuri by non-conformists. However, in his own country. within the pattern, variations in
Jarkukh, that the open-air any change in the cultural policy Fernhout's early work in the size, colour, direction and interval
exhibition would be considered a of the USSR cannot be expected thirties was clearly influenced by upset this equilibrium. J ust as
breach of the peace and quickly. If the avant-garde are the Neue Sachlichkeit (New nature's vitality is always checked
participants would have to accept called the champions of hostile Objectivity). It consists of by a principle of measure,
ideology, then how can one talk
the consequences. It was, however, paintings of usually modest similarly a vital unrest in
well-known to the Soviet people seriously to people about their subjects, such as autumn leaves Fernhout's paintings is confronted
that these harmless sounding exhibitions and their art? in front of an open window, or an with the spirit of geometry. The
formulae for crimes - such as As to the actual exhibition in empty room with a white curtain. analogy of his art with nature lies
breach of the peace - meant an September, I assume that it will be These paintings intrigue by their in this very confrontation.
appearance before the court and, allowed to take place, if only in almost painful intensity of As in all good art, the richness
after that, possibly a prison camp honour of the bulldozers' observation and breathtakingly of Fernhout's paintings is
or exile. anniversary. But will many artists quiet atmosphere - the more present on the surface but it is
Even the press did not delay dare to take part in it, after the striking, maybe, when compared revealed only to a patient and
their entry into the fray. In the way in which they have been with the often somewhat shrill observant eye. Because the process
Moscow Evening News, the organ treated? Will they be threatened tones of the Neue Sachlichkeit. of abstraction seems so self-
of the Moscow Party Committee, with expulsion from artistic And Fernhout retained this evident in retrospect, we tend to
there appeared on 17 May a organizations, deprived of their silence and intensity throughout forget that the painter himself, on
threatening article by the art studios, banished from Moscow his development towards pure the way, did not know where he
critic, 1. Gorin, entitled 'There is and Leningrad or even killed? abstraction. The development would end up: in a cul-de-sac or
no third course.' It was directly Alexander Gleser itself sprang from his absorption somewhere among the stars.
and openly announced that all the with processes in nature. He Fernhout's road ran parallel to
talk was not about art but meticulously observed each form Mondrian's; his paintings are
politics about the struggle of growth and decay, each neither an advance nor a retreat,
between two ideologies - movement and each change in but an answer, as clearly
communist and bourgeois. Holland colour, rhythm and tension in the formulated as the question evoked
Non-conformists were simply course of the seasons. As these by Mondrian. Mondrian's art
considered as charlatans. Many of processes are hardly amenable to was based on measure; Fernhout's
those calling themselves avant- The key to universal harmony conventional representation, on the contrary, on the principle
garde wished to disassociate has always been sought in the laws abstraction was forced upon him. of growth.
themselves from ideology - wrote of mathematics. But the Platonic In Fernhout's post-war Measure and growth - two
the author - and choose a third harmony of which a painter like paintings we can trace this process principles bound up with a
course. But such a course does not Mondrian dreamt could never be of abstraction. Each step was fundamental aspect of post-war
exist. fullyrealized because each concept premeditated and every modern art; the schism between
According to Gorin, all non- of the human mind, when bound brushstroke corrected even before organic and geometric
conformist art is a homily to to matter, loses some of its purity. it was applied. In the end he hit abstraction.
bourgeois ideology and for this Nevertheless, Mondrian upon an authentic form of A Dutch painter who, via
reason the exhibitions are not formulated his doctrine with such abstraction which permitted him careful observation of natural
only unnecessary but also vigour that it is impossible to to transpose his unique phenomena evolved towards
harmful. Then, a week before the ignore him, whether one honours perception of natural phenomena geometric abstraction is Ben
proposed Leningrad exhibition, or rejects him, accepts his creed and achieve a general validity. In Akkerman (born 1920). His
all the liberal slogans proclaiming or puts him down for a fool. the last few years of his life his magnificent exhibition a few
'It is sometimes necessary to After 1945 numerous painters paintings show nothing but a months ago, at Art and Project
allow people to exhibit the set themselves the task of vibrating pattern of colour quanta in Amsterdam, entitles him to
canvases of the avant-garde' were restoring flesh and blood to the on a rich and fertile ground. They more sympathetic publicity than
hurriedly thrown away and incomparably beautiful skeleton look so deceptively simple, these a mere notice in an Exhibition
cudgels taken up with the well- which Mondrian left at his death. canvases, but their purity of Diary. Initially, the source of
tried native slogan 'Give As this article is concerned with execution and concentrated Akkerman's inspiration, as in
everything and do not allow Dutch art I would like to vision is outstanding. The colour Fernhout's case, was nature, but
anything.' With these words the commemorate in this respect quanta have been ordered with unlike Fernhout, who was
powers-that-be established Edgar Fernhout, a painter who utmost care; yet they have no fascinated by growth and
themselves in their favourite who died last year, aged 62, and fixed position because immobility movement, Akkerman's
Bolshevik position. 'Whoever is who should internationally be is inconsistent with nature itself. preoccupation was with the formal
not with us is against us' means given the credit which is withheld The delicately balanced pattern aspects of the landscape: the

153