Daniel Thomas : Newspaper writings

"TELEGRAPH" 1965 Sydney, N.S.W. 11 JAN SUNI The week in art PRESTIGE ...and "FRINGE ARTISTS in Sydney don't talk much about art. They talk a lot about marginal things like the reviews (not so much what they .:ay, as who they praise). Or like the dealers' galleries (not so much what they believe In, as the prices and other benefits they can supply -especially prestige). They seem more con- cerned with their (neces- sary) parasites than are, say, whales, or sharks, who I'm sure keep their main attention on proper whale - business or shark - business not on their parasites. A year ago I wrote about art reviews: reminded the artists that reviews were not directed at them but at the general public; that the attempt to explain was more important and more difficult than the juci,,tiig. And that I'. any case WHAT'S ON THIS WEEK 3 Art Gallery of N.S.W.: Australian, Euro- pean, Asian and Aboriginal art. t Macquarie: Douglas Ram Samu), printed fabrics. 16 Wunda Road, Mosman: James Hutch- ings, paintings. Underwood: Mixed Show. OPENING WEDNESDAY Newcastle City Art Gallery: Recent Aus- tralian Sculpture. Stern: Hans Schuster, outback paintings. Frances Jones: Barbara Cameron, Vic- toriana paintings. OPENING SATURDAY Art Gallery of N.S.W.: Archibald, Wynne and Sulman Prizes for 1964. Manly Art Gallery: Manly Art Prize. n ''''''''' H.111 '''''' the great majority of a city's art - production simply won't be much good at all and certainly doesn't deserve criticism, but only reviewing; that is describing and reporting. Today I shall review the galleries. Art from abroad There are many more galleries than a couple of years ago, but there are not correspondingly, more artists of the same stan- dard. One solution is to im- port has on t fromthe whoa oad le, which been a good thing. An- other is to become a craft shop, hence the recent out- break of pottery, jewellery and fabrics. But the easiest solution is to dig up artists who would never have been ex- hibited previously. So there's never been so. s. 41111010lllllll t llll which wee the best free publicity for art. Now, although it's a safe rule that real art will only be found in galleries that ask for, and get reviews, the rule only applies to town (as far as Padding- ton, of course). And there is one exception in town, where Collector's Rendez- vous has maintained a per- manent stock of excellent early-English watercolors, but since there are no for- mal exhibitions, reviews were not sought. It is closed, by the way, for a few months to collect new stock. In the suburbs they can seek reviews or avoid them; have good art or bad, The critics haven't the time to get there any- way, and won't cross the Harbor Bridge unless there are exceptional circum- stances. New city branch In fact, Artlovers at Ar- tarmon, which has good, though conservative, stan- dards is opening a city branch next month, per- haps in search of reviews as well as of new cus- tomers. BENEFITS" much bad art shown in the galleries as there Is now. Of course, there's al- ways been a good trade in bad paintings, mass pro- duced, cheap (10 to 100 guineas), and In the avant- garde style of 100 years ago - which means Im- pressionism-has arrived. This trade has been 'arried on at a decent disuince from the art Tile other suburban gal- leries often re-exhibit lower -priced work previ- ously seen in town. This can be quite respectable stuff, and I see no reason why every suburban shop- ping centre shouldn't have its friendly neighborhood picture shop (up to say 50 guineas) with litho- graphssmall, drawings and paintl*..,s. There are two sub-cate- world, in furniture shops gories. or book and printsellers. First, the department - One only objects when. store galleries at David the same sort of picture Jones' and Farmer's which turns up in a building can act as host to Import - called an "Art Gallery' ant art society shows, com- and gets some of the pri- 'petitions, or the occasional vileged treatment that art official or overseas exhibi- gets, but genet ti merchan- tion. disc doesn't. The store's prestige is I don't mean reviews, the main thing, not the gallery's profits. " ''''' "'' '''''''' Second, there is the ex- hibition space for hire to absolutely anyone who wants it, like the large Education Depart ment Gallery, usually empty, but with occasional art society shows, art schools annuals or individuals like Peter Panow, who just happened to have 200 of his paint- ings that he wanted to exhibit. I don't know, but I would guess that the Little Gal- lery, the Dominion and Barry Stern are also avail- able for hire. So much for the fringe galleries (begging the de- partment stores' pardon). What about the smaller 'dealers' galleries that figure so largely In the artists' lives, that rapidly rise and fall in artists' favor, that tempt the big (local) artists with the big buyers and vice versa? I find there's no space left to review the proper dealers' galleries. Their names: Gallery A (on top this month or so, I'd say), Rudy Komon (fighting back with re- modelled premises by architect Neville Gruz- man), Clune, Hungry Horse, Macquarie, Walters, Dominion and Barry Stern (the two last can get pretty fringey). Perhaps I'll review them all together when Art - lovers comes to town next month.