Daniel Thomas : Newspaper writings

CY/00,04) from "TELEGRAPH" Sydney, N.S.W 16 APR 197? Pleases us because it's all about us ALTHOUGH bad art car never be good art it can sometimes be a good thing. For a few people, for a short tin e it can have some power, even if you know it won't work on aH people for all time Re gr at art con. The closer a work of art is in time or place the worse it can oe, yet still have some effect The most appalling amateur painter or pianist can give hinia If pleasure with his own work. Hines it will please his mother too. Similarly, a painting, a play, a Him, made here in Australia can please us, even when we know that nobody else in the world will be Interested. It pleases us, in small ways, because it is about us. Thus Tim Burstall's new film Est isn't a good film, either an e art level or the counmerolal level, t because it tells us something about ourselves, it's an evening of modest pleasure. In a way, for a Sydney audience, IL seems a bit of a foreign country own there in Melbourne and this proof of the film's value. Its ervation is accurate enough to one noticing Melbourne-Sydney Unctions. For example, the Melbourne young businessman type, who has always had longish hair, and who wears tweed jackets, is unknown in Syd- ney. Who wears tweed jackets here? 'And how odd that the young in Melbourne often get into dinner Jackets. It even seems odd that all Burst - all's films are concerned with young people, not with adults, but then Melbourne is a youth-cult city, it's Where all the pop groups come from. It even seems odd that Burstall always puts a long, big party at the centre of his films; I think the big party doesn't happen In Sydney, as much as the frequent small din- ner party. One can go on and on. My point sthat observation of our own ociety in our own time is valuable and illuminating even when the film has artistic and commercial faults. An artistic fault was to make the final wedding party real. when all the other fantasies had been lmag- Mary, in Stork's head. A commer- cial fault was poor sound (or is it the unfamiliar Melbourne accent?) and lighting, which made the lovely Jackie Weaver less lovely than she really is. But the writing, the unique turns of phrase, the bits of late art - nouveau glass in a Melbourne kit- chen's stove -nook, these bits of accurate observation are the thing. T)ETER UPWARD, at Rudy Kamm, is still an action -painter of sorts but although some of the gestural marks are almost identical with those seen in Sydney 10 years o the work has been hyped up with peculiar color. Bathroom color said someone who knows a wider range of bath- rooms than I. Certainly pop color, pink, yellow, blue, And if they're not the colors of builder's hardware, they might be the color of trip -out movie -films, like the color TV surf and ski films for Coca-Cola, now screening at the Contemporary Art Society's Coca-Cola environment. His gestures are no longer a leap in the dark, they're a leap in the lull glare of colored spotlights. The 00Ior is hard to come to terms with, ringsmay be all right, as difficult often turn out to be. More surely disappointing is the " -wee art )by doniel thomas smaller size of his canvases, and the slower pace of the gestures: some of them ooze rather than leap. An odd exhibition. FRANK EIDITZ, Holdsworth Galleries, shows small assemblage panels, all the same size, whose materials are the neater, cleaner, snore cheerful I.ind of litter - match -book, rolls of colored paper. He calls them :dimensional Paint- ings, Tiny are ,mite astonishingly trivial. They are ornaments rather than art, and their greatest virtue is their low price ($75 each), due to their being virtually mass-produced to "the same conceptual idea." Also at the Holdsworth a larger exhibition of excellent New Guinea art. At the Nth Degree, which is under new management, and is thinking of changing its name to the Woollahra Gallery (even though it is in Paddington), is an exhibi- tion of paintings and drawings whose subjects are agreeably erotic, but this dom not compensate for their negligible interest as art. JOSH BATTAIN, at Walters, has a one-man show of strangely shaped canvases. In addition they might have undulating surfaces, They also have small satellite disc canvases on the wall beside them. Although they look complicated, there DV= to be a simple idea in them, The small discs, within or with- out the main canvas, seem to be shot loose, and sent barrelling round a course of paths, all with rounded corners. Its very like a pinball machine, so the canvases can be taken as charts of energy - flow. At Villiers are "Seven French Painters of Poetic Realism." It is a very Mayfair exhibition, and it is not very poetic. George Rohner uses a dark old - master technique and style for straight still-life, and for achitec- tomi subjects, the latter having a de Chirico mood and hence some poetry. Roland Oudot's "I.e Melancolle," is a Derain style lady seated in an interior (a bit like David Strachan) and he also has some poetry, Oudot is the best artist in the group. They arBe ust trahg roesrwt arldk opvoeentriys of pleasant landscapes and pleasant styles of painting. Yves Brayer, Christian Caillard, Joseph Muslin and Andre Planson are hem, but their intention is to summon up memories of blarquet and Bonnard and Desnoyer and Dc Steel. The Contemporary Art Society has decided that after the Coca- Cola environment dorm the C.A.S. Gallery itself will close. The Society will then devote itself to polemics, NEW EXHIBITIONS COMING UP this week at Inhibo- dress an exhibition called "Tram - Art I: Idea Demonstrations" by Mike Parr and Peter Kennedy. Trans-Art is their word for easily transportable art, which means slides, photographs, video- tapes, films. The exhibition will be transported to Toronto, Canada, for July. Inhibodress hours this thr... will be 6-8,30 on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday; 1.30-4.30 Saturday and Sunday. The Maquarie Galleries will have a one-man show by the Melbourne expressionist Ken WhLsson, At Farmer's, from Wednesday, an important exhibition of Art from Canada's West Coast, lent by the Vancouver Art Gallery. Vancouver has long been a centre of Concep- tualism and Intermedia.