Daniel Thomas : Newspaper writings

122 Am 196, Uulturall poverty THE Central Street Gallery has borrowed a loan exhibition of contemporary European and American art from Sydney collections. There are only five collections in Sydney containing this kind of art, and they are all represented here: the University of Sydney's Power Gallery (not like- ly to be permanently ex- hibited for some time yet) and four private collectors. I doubt if there are any comparable collec- tions elsewhere in Aus- tralia at all (though a splendid Vasarely tapes- try owned by Mr. Ken- neth Myer, of Mel- bourne, Is currently on loan to the Art Gallery There is a very good reason for this extra- ordinary absence of foreign art in Australia -our import duties. They are intended to produce financial wealth but their result is cul- tural poverty. In other countries the principal of no barriers to the movement of cul- tural material is fully accepted. And I would be interested to know whether learned books, or scientific instruments have to pay the punitive "sales tax" (formerly 121 percent, but I be- lieve recently Increased to 20 percent) demand- ed on works of art im- ported to Australia by private persons. Art museums. of course, have never had to pay any duties, but private collections are no less important a cul- tural resource than pub- lic collections, for much that is in private hands eventually comes to the museums. Will everyone please write to their local Member of Parliament, and to the Treasurer, protesting about this scandal. The work Its this ex - 'libido's would have been relatively cheap: it is too advanced to have become expensive, and many of the loans are small sketches (Gottlieb, Ron Davis, Albers) or multiple Vasarely, Soto). Not until expen- sive works are easily imported will our cul- tural poverty be less- ened. Our main problem is extreme monotony; the limited kinds of art that are available for Australians. We should be bombarded with every possible variety, and it's gratifying to see how totally each lender's contribution to Central Street differs from the others. The Harry Seidler» like the clarity, logic, precision and order of Albers, Vasarely and Soto. Mr. Kalkor likes the surprise and mys- tery of Wesselman's enormous "Great Am- erican Nude." Christo's "Package," and Raus- chenberg's combine of a board and a motor tyre - how disparate can two elements be and still work togeth- er? The Robertson- Swanns like the lyrical grace of Geoff Rigden's stain painting a n d Cam's sculpture. Mr. Coventry likes t h e flamboyant excitement of Michael Tyzack's hotly pulsing de mond: The Oscar Edwardses, who have been collect- ing much longer than the others, are not so easily character) s e d, but It's clear they like Independents (Al- fred Wallis. Gabo, Ron Davis) and resist the pressure of avant- garde fashions. And "TELEGRANI" Sydney, N.S.W. ART with Daniel Thomas Gordon Thomson -who collected the Power Gallery's Hoy - land. Riley and Rich- ard Smith two years ago -here shows a taste for the grand, manner, and for its accompany- ing craftsmanship. It's a great privilege to see these works, and let's hope enough more will come to Australia (or another exhibition In the near future. BONYTHON SYDNEY BALL and Emanuel Raf t (Bonython Gallery) are competing with tile big- time artists in the Cen- tral Street loan exhibi- tion; they are not oper- ating in the safety of an art -ghetto, Raft's monochrome sculptures of painted steel, rusted cor-ten steel, or of colored plas- tic, are casually simple folds, humps, or blocks. Most consist of several units, to be re -arranged as the spectator -owner wishes. (In fact, you usually end up with the same "beat" )arrange- ment that the artist also arrived at.) Raft would agree with Du - champ that 90 percent of what Ls in a work of art is brought to it by the spectator. Ills open- ness, his democratic concern for the specta- tor is evident also In his mass production techni- ques (for cheapness) and in the way many of the pieces associate with tile familiar, un- pretentious forms of furniture a n d house- hold objects. Then also, like furniture, they can take on a surrealist presence. or playfulness. Ball invites no par- ticipation, nor do his paintMgs look back at the spectator, nor are they modest or casual. They are huge in size, elaborately polychrome. and Impressively craft- ed. One admires them immensely, but I don't think I love them. For a start, perhaps stupidly. one resents. noticing the amazing craftsmanship (each color area is either a separate canvas or a separate lacquered panel). Technique. is of no Interest Its art, ex- cept to fellow-practl- doners, and these paint- ings seem to make a display of virtuosity, they cannot help invit- ing attention to their technique. I wonder also whether my la -.)k of response has something to do with a distinction, if there is one, between design and "creative" (compromis- ed work) art. In no case do I feel that he has put two forms or colors together, and started a "creative' or "organic" pfocess of picture -making. I re- main aware always of a rectangle as' a starting point; it gets subdivi- ded, bites get chopped out, or it gets Pulteu into a parallelogram. Then the bubdtvlsiorix get colored. I don't know . why a process of subdivision should seem wrong to me and a process of addition should seem, right. But one should remember that although the American critic Michael Fried once seemed to be laying down a principle of "deductive structure," apparently meaning that structure should derive from the given format, as in Sydney Ball's rectangles, he soon shifted ground and preferred to speak merely of the need for a structure to "acknow- ledge" its boundaries. Perhaps Fried realised that he was giving a recipe for good design, rather than for art. I think I liked "Reach" beat for the reason that its lateral extension (in mono- chrome) was enough to disappear for a specta- tor at the centre; the picture did something, and thus the size and shape had some Justifi- cation. I feel guilty about not liking this exhibition more. WATTERS STEPHEN EAR! .E and Carole Elvin are husband and wife. She has yew delicate hatched pencil draw- ings, dabbed gently with wash. Flowers and Pathways are In them. They are so fragile they seem temporarily waft- ed on to their sheets of paper. He has water- colors and small paint- ings which are much more firmly fixed, but they too are very sensu- ous. The soft -edge mosaics of color patches make war with confining or invading hard - edge stripes, the relative areas of patch and stripe so adjusted that the outcome of the WV' between hard and soft will always remain certain.