Page 84 - Studio International - September October 1975

Mark Edwards' sort of Presence precludes analysis, at purchased three works, /44
Magnesium Plates, Last Ladder
UK documentary; it belongs to the least in this context of art. and Equivalent 8 for the permanent
Photography imposes no such
travelogue genre but gives it a
Reviews depth and a darker side. Mark requirements; it is enough, even collection. The only other source
praiseworthy, that it should
of information has been magazine
Edwards notices things around
the major categories of pictorial interest, with everything that reproductions. It was therefore
subject-matter. The text against entails of analysis and memory. understandable but unfortunate
Young British which we read his photographs The photograph is anywhere but that reactions to the poetry were
dominated by a regret that the
in the present of the exhibition
Photographers is readily available, in any tourist space; it is sufficient that we see it exhibitions had not included any
brochure or travel book. Paddy
Photographers' Gallery, Summerfield, by contrast, sees rather than that we exist for it. A sculpture.
1 July-21 July more enigmatically; his pictures photograph can be seen as Andre has shown the poetry in
Bedford House Gallery, Belfast are fragments of dramas, a satisfactorily in a crowded galleries and as part of larger
20 August-12 September draped Sicilian (?) child against a commuter train as in a gallery, exhibitions, but this was the first
column, people in a punt, a whereas this would be unthinkable time he had used a museum space
The exhibition Young British fighter aircraft photographed of a Rothko or a Brancusi. entirely for the poems. The works
Photographers which is currently from a television screen. What do Photographic reality exists for us, chosen included a majority of
touring the country has aroused they mean, to what sort of the onlookers, but there is no subjects from American social and
controversy and stimulated some context do they belong, in what reciprocity, and this cultural history and his own roots
interest in photography. The text can they be lodged? They asymmetricality is crucial to the in New England. English
controversy, particularly that exist as mysteries, as stopped photographic as an interim stage chauvinism looks to America for
contained in the attacks of the action; their justification is their between representation and everything that is big, loud and
critic-photographer Euan Duff elusiveness. They are not instantly nature. new, but we feel less at home with
writing in the Guardian (July 12, intelligible as is the dark side of This is not to claim that an America that is moral,
1975), has more to do with the the Taj Mahal, nor are they trivial, photographic exhibitions are educated and traditional. Andre
claims made on behalf of the although their subject-matter is unnecessary, rather that they are tells us, in the informative taped
exhibitors than with the work unimportant in any social sense. entirely different in quality to guide to the London show which
itself, and a great deal to do with Photographs of this sort are a way other sorts of exhibition. They has been published as a casette by
the current sponsorship of of rejecting the contextual genres draw on the prestige of Audio Arts,* that he-comes from
contemporary photography by which are an integral part of many exhibition to confer value and are Quincy, Massachusetts, he home
the Arts Council. But to anyone of the documentary pictures in a way of calling attention. of the Adams family. He won a
innocent of the politics of the the exhibition. They acknowledge Exhibitionism may be one of the scholarship to Phillips Academy,
British photo-world this another sort of experience which intentions at work here, but there Andover, the Eton of the Eastern
exhibition of work by 14 young is open and untranslatable. is another intention hinted at in Seaboard (Frank Stella was
photographers is both interesting The socialized pictorial forms much of the subject-matter of amongst his contemporaries), and
and revealing in itS own right. of Mark Edwards' photographs modern photography. This is was brought up in the tradition of
In what senses, though, is it and of the other documentarists often reformist, tending towards Jefferson, Thoreau, Emerson and
interesting ?If we have any refer to well-established exposé and dealing with social Whitman in a culture mortgaged
notions of the world, hypotheses structures of understanding; in issues. The exhibition is an on 300 years of Europe's
on its structure and function, this sense they are comfortable, untainted way of projecting such religious and political utopias.
virtually anything is liable to even though the subject-matter concerns; where journalism and An intellectual society which
prove 'interesting', from the may be harsh. In avoiding these publishing of all sorts increasingly respects a long-standing
debris in the street to the tree normative images Paddy implies an indifferent audience, connection wih 'English Traits'.
branch moving against the sky. Summerfield creates something • the exhibition calls on a more Emerson, in his essay of that title,
One of the ways in which we pick altogether more disturbing. His attentive and potentially more wrote in 1856: 'An American has
things out for attention is through photographs cannot be committed audience. The more reason than another to draw
the observations of others who understood in the sense of being distance between photographer him to England. In all that is done
notice and comment, invite us to interpreted, they can only be and onlooker is reduced. There is or begun by the Americans
see and interpret as they do. Our registered and thus re-create a a return to an older intimacy of towards right thinking and
attention can be either sharpened sort of directness, unmediated. the concerned, almost to a kind practice, we are met by a
or checked by the sort of company The differences between these of non-professional civilization already settled and
we keep, and this dialectic of two photographers are immense. communication, anything but overpowering. The culture of the
companionship is close to one of The empty greyish landscapes of the blandness of the commercial. day, the thoughts and aims of
the principal functions of Richard Wood are different again, Ian Jeffrey men, are English thoughts and
photography. The photographer as are the exotic-erotic fantasies aims . The American is only
notices and records for his in Simon Marsden's photographs. the continuation of the English
audience, the missing Informative, surprising, Carl Andre Poems genius into new conditions, more
companions; later, when we come entertaining, diverse; the or less propitious.' Modern
to see the pictures, we are either exhibition is all of these things. 1958-1974 England must be a rude
confirmed in certain views, But is this enough? That Museum of Modern Art, Oxford awakening, but perhaps not
surprised by the photographer's depends on our view of 8 June - 20 July because Andre appeared to be
percipience into admiration or photography, on our presenting us with his cultural
even into puzzlement. With the understanding of art, on our Lisson Gallery pedigree.
8 June 31 July
photographer we travel interpretation of 'exhibition'. Art The ground floor of the
vicariously, and there is a lot of has increasingly been seen to be Andre is widely considered to be museum in Oxford contained the
that sort of travel here: to Nepal marked by a kind of autonomy the most important American work Passport from September
with Mark Edwards, to and this is admitted in the sculptor of his generation. He is 1960. A colour xerox of each page
Mississippi with Valerie Wilmer, isolation and austerity of respected as an artist, as a poet, as of the book was pasted in a
to Moscow with Brian Griffin. exhibition spaces. The extraneous a political activist and as a horizontal line around the walls.
Pictures of this sort can be is ruled out in favour of a total tactician. His work and his name Colour xerox is a new process
interesting insofar as they are presentness of object and are still relatively unknown in which resembles a laboriously
informative and after visiting this onlooker; interpretation is Britain outside the small circle of produced colour etching. The
exhibition you may know about rejected to make way for an people who have some knowledge surface is slightly embossed and
how, for instance, an Indian street acknowledgement of existence of the European and American the subtleties of colour belong to
looks or the home of a black singer pure and simple. In a way the art worlds. Very little of his the medium, not to the image.
in the United States. To some things which best justify their and sculpture has been seen here: he Andre describes the work as a
degree the documentary our presence in the austerity of an had an exhibition with the Lisson scrapbook of photographs,
photographs shown here are exhibition space, the paintings of Gallery in 1972 of the Sorts documents, books and images he
corrective pictures within Rothko or the sculpture of series of heavy bent wire pieces. had around at the time. 'For some
pictorial genres: Mark Edwards' Brancusi, for instance, Two works, Cedar Piece 1960-64 unconscious reason I gathered
view of the Taj Mahal includes in decisively reject those extraneous, and 144 Pieces of Aluminium together these excerpts which
the foreground a group of external, informative things in 1968, were included in the Art of reflect my state of mind at the
vultures, a scavenger dog and a which photography is so rich. The the Real exhibition at the Tate time and things which I was
corpse. This is a game with works of a Brancusi or a Rothko Gallery in 1969 and in the same interested in then . because I
stereotypes, a way of are about presence, theirs and year another floor piece was had reached the point when I left
acknowledging their deficiencies, ours; there is no middle ground, included in When Attitudes wood carving behind and had
their selectivity. the work either succeeds or fails, Become Form at the ICA. The started using separate elements
There is every justification for and if it is 'interesting' it fails. Tate Gallery has recently and it was a time when I was going