Daniel Thomas : Newspaper writings

Animals 'dance' in showground ballet I N PERFORMING ARTS the best is the Grand Parade. Great circles of slow - moving animals forming and reforming on the parade ground. They are a splendid super -ballet. here are exhibitions of painting and sculpture at the Royal Easter Show, but they are not the best at the Showgrou nds. Once when cultural exchange be- tween Japan and Australia was being discussed, and Japan was flaked what they'd like best from Australia, they answered the Royal 'aster Show's Grand Parade. Is it unique to Australia, or is it simply unique to Western countries? Could the Japanese find similar exotic thrills at agricultural shows }n Argentina or England or Canada? Or is there a recognition by the Japanese of something in common with their own performing arts? If the mesmerically beautiful Btmraku puppets, seen in Sydney last week, are manipulated by an accompany- ing team of men, sometimes hooded, sometimes not, but always frankly visible alongside their pup- pet then the bulls in the Grand Parade at the Sydney Show are performing their stately dance to openly visible direction from men accompanying them. Legend has It that sometimes the roles are reversed. The keepers of the animals line with them at the showgrounds, to provide them with familiar company in an unfamiliar pen. But the keepers can carouse together, arrive drunk at the grand parade, and after some slight in- itial confusion, the experienced bulls, who have been through it all before, have taken over from their masters in leading the less -seasoned beasts. You could hardly tell who was leading whom. Well, that's show business. Or if it's not, it's at least an often repeated legend. In visual arts the best and most beautiful sight at the Showground is the supercolossal mosaics made from fruit, vegetables, grain and wool in what are called The Dia- Wet Exhibits. New South Wales is divided into four agricultural dis- tricts and a bit of Queensland makes a fifth. Sheer size compels admiration - tight 50ft. acked panoramawoollen carried fleeces, black t-p and white. So rich, sumptuous, velvety, who would ever want to look again at a little 4in. bark mosaic picture in the Arts and Crafts pavilion next door. Both are folk art, and folk arts are to be cherished, but they need bigness and generosity. / L fir C., - Folk arts have a built-in danger of becoming crabbes, shrunken and over -private. They are best when communal and participating. Thus it was an immense Joy to waida work in progress on a 50ft. drift of pumpkins, flowing up a slop - amp. A drift of pumpkins indeed, even though they were of monstrous size. each as big as a boy. A chain of men lightly passed each carefully chosen item up to its designated spot, a few deftly hammered chocks to hold the pumpkins in place, and then, pleased. chests out, they admired their handiwork till the next pump- kin came. The boss had very serious deci- sions to make, and he didn't make them lightly. It took a long time to choose the right pumpkin to send up the chain. It took even longer to position each pumpkin, to usj,_atr a and size relationship's with i iots neighbors. The boss had to cover a lot of ground before each was appro-ed, a hundred yards back into the I all, then a hundred yards right, a hun- dred yards left. So much attention for each one of several hundred pumpkins! Yet every minute of patience, love, care and consideration was worth it. for , the pumpkin mosaics are radiantly, and subtly beautiful. Next door, the paintings and sculptures are, on the whole, pre- tentious, slick, vulgar and depress- ing. They look deprived of patient care and attention. Except for a few oddly ugly - beautiful paintings in, of all sec- tions, "Painting rural subject, traditionso style." This section was judged by Janet Dawson, a very in- .telligent painter, and everything she singled out for a prize or a com- mendation was good. They were good because they cared about their subject matter. The winner obviously loved the geology of creek -bed rocks, the botany of a thousand grey gum - leaves and had gazed at them in- tensely. Another obviously had seen the way clouds position themselves in horizontal bands above the hori- zon and was amazed by it. Another had seen the splendor of light trapped in wattle blossom; another the cold lignt of snowlields caught on knobs of rock, A naive painter. Samuel Bowen Hill. had seen receding planes of bridges on a tranquil estuary and had painted each plane on its own separate sheet of glass, then framed them all together. (Peter Timms, please note Mr. Hill for your survey exhi- bition of Australian naives.) Nearly all these few paintings that demonstrated Intense involvement with their subject matter were a bit awkward, that is "ugly," by com- parison with the hundreds of slick paintings nearby. But these strong, awkward ones are the good ones. The easy ones are bad, probably because their painters have become more interested in their painting techniques than in their subjects; perhaps even more interes- ted in producing salable commodi- ties than in anything else. Good art has to be exploratory, It has to show an intellect groping. When there is only a mindless hand emitting, practised, habit - formed marks with a paint brush, the results are barren, and highly displeasing. The beautiful sculpture of Robertson -Swann reveal a continual groping explorati awkwardness they have a kind of that comes from the unexpected. But on the whole we should mis- trust the beautiful. if something is new, and unfamiliar, and ugly, then you can be pretty sure it's good. If it's pretty, it might well be bad, though on the rare occasions when 'good prettiness occurs no one could wish for more. ROLAND WAKELIN'S memorial exhibition at the Macquarie Galleries is not to be missed. . . . David Ahern has collected a number of scores for avant-garde music, and has made a fascinating exhibition of them at. Inhibodress. rrim JOHNSON has Issued a -I- second book of photographs of underpants. This time the price is $2. and they're all candid jobs. caught on windy street corners in Sydney. Available from the artist, 54 Aber - made Street, Newt Jam. Last year's book, called "Fittings," was probably the most important work of art made in Sydney in 1971. "TELEGRAPH" Sydney, N.S.W. 2 Ai h 4. 4