Daniel Thomas : Newspaper writings

And maybe the r.b- sence of pubic hai.. in traditional art wit' soon begin to seem coacene. It's only about SO yearsi since t ubic hair became common in painting. In previous centuries it has been allowed mire to male Lien female fig-i ures, re to sculpture than tc paintin r. In the Micidl,. Ages, rind in Northern Etn.pe till the 16th century, it was common, Ruskin, the great Vic- torian write', is an aw- ful warning. He'd seen a lot of art before he married, was so aston- ished by what he sup- posed to be the deform- ity of female pubic hair that. he was driven to impotence and divorce. Henceforth he could only care for very young girls. Apart from the hair, what about "Hair" as theatre? Hugely enjoy- able, exuberant. You won't understand the words unless you've practised on the records. Visually it's the same sort of collage as the same directors "Terror Australis" last year, though more elaborate. Sumo Poi C, 0.01 ss N E. Ni 1 5 HAIR PIECE EVERYBODY has written a piece on "Hair." Why not more. The nudity. People working in art museums often get asked about nudity, for paintings and sculptures have al- ways been the respect- able way of staring at a nude for those who feel the need. The point is that most people don't feel the need. They just see It as an artistic form and symbol, used by an ar- tlat a variety of rea- sons-sometimes, quite properly, for eroticism, more often for total in- nocence, sometimes sim- ply for a contrast of color or texture. Anything at all, it can even be an old shoe, will be obscenely excit- ing for someone, some- where. For those few who get excited by a painted or sculptured nude the museums offer, I suppose a necessary service, but art doesn't go out of its way either to supply or withhold their minority needs. Art exists for another minority, or rather a majority, the one that needs art. Theatre is the same As painting and sculp- ture to the extent that it is artificial, separate from life, looked at, framed It should surely have the same liberties as painting and sculpture. Admittedly "H a 1 r" breaks out of its frame a bit, and so does much modern painting and sculpture. But the nude scene is kept firmly on stage (we needn't face the problem of nudes running up the aisles until We've been pre- sented with it) and like all nudity that I've seen in serious theatre it was a highly effective sym- bol of total innocence. ART with Daniel Thomas But it doesn't impinge as "Terror Australis" did. It's not about us. It's comfortably remote, a tourist trip to pictur- esque New York, and to the hippiedom of the very recent past. It's a nice night's en- drtanmet -but it oes 't have the fresh, cleansing morality of "America Hurrah," ban- ned last year. We're still not grown up if we can only take nudity wrapped in song, dance and jest. MARINETTI On Tuesday night, at the Wintergarden, are all the films of Alba) Thorns, including his new "Marinetti." He is a local underground artist, and maybe it will seem more relevant than New York's. CHRISTI) Christo's visit to Syd- ney, announced this week, to "wrap" a beach in October isn't quite the first time a world - On the other hand, famous foreign artist the not-quite -nudity of has ever worked in Aus- vaudeville and bur- trails, for the sculptor lesque, with tinselled Richard Stankiewics paste-ons and shaved arrived here quietly two pubes usually does seem weeks ago. obscene. Gauguin and Meryon might each have spent a day or so here in the past century. In the past two years we've had Patrick Heron, a nice painter. but hardly an avant- gardish, and the pate - physician Enrico Bat, a brief and obscure lec- turer who spent a lot of his time here sleeping. But Chrtsto is more advanced, and much more famous than Stan- kiewlez, Heron or Baj. His visit is a most imaginative experiment in reverse travelling scholarships. For two or three years the Alcorso - Sekers forum has sent one young sculptor overseas annually, This year one famous artist comes here so that all our young artists can meet him. Since his work needs a team of helpers, those increasingly numerous local artists who have moved out of pure painting and sculpture into mixed -media and environments will all be able to gain sotre fruit- ful contact wLh him. I'll be writing about the nature of Christo's art another time. KLITSCH Peter Rinsch, a young Viennese artist, shows etchings. lithorraohs. drawings and water- colors at Rudy Ko- mon's. Small, meticul- ous fantasies!' medieval and Indian, they are as much 18th century Mannerist as 1900 Art Nouveau, and thus grow from the two principal moments of efflores- cence in Austrian art. Excellent of their kind and fantastic prices, Mb to MOO. MACQUARIE Bea Maddock lives In Launceston, Tasmania, makes etchings, wood- cuts, screenprints. Black and white techniques, notably woodcut, were specially favored by the German expression- ists, and Miss Maddock, too, is a genuine ex- pressionist. All are fig- ures, brooding about old age, sex, the drama of crossing a road or sit- ting in a room, Who are we, what are we here for, are the questions seemingly asked by these faces so oppress- ed by their pictorial en- vironment. I especially liked the aged masks of the "Ancestors." Geoffrey Brown, an Adelaide etcher, shows paintings and water- colors, the latter a "Life series" of 10 in a variety a arched win- dow borders. Most are partially recognisable figure subjects with the grey look of newspaper photographs, over which are placed loosely hori- zontal bands of color. It is hand -painted, but looks like collage, it keeps to grey and one or two easily separated tints, and so could easily be returned by repro- duction, to the printed matter which is Its source. It would look at home In a graphic de- sign magazine. James Meldrum, a Melbourne pa in te r, showed 16 good-sized paintings of mechan- isms and their box con- tainers. They played with the picture plane (now it's respected, now it's violated), with the machine itself (this bit clearly Won't work), and with the sexuality of machinery. Dada pic- tures in like Ducharnp arid and very effective, too. They are all the better for reducing color to a few metallic tints placed over these elaborate drawings, Which have a suitably provisional look, more like plans and blueprints than repre- sentations of something already manufactured.