ART
Kids and porno
EVAN ANTHONY
I'm a compulsively gregarious reviewer: I tend to want to talk to artists. Which brings me face to face, dismayingly often, with a creativity gap. The creativity gap is like the credibility gap—suffered by artists instead of politicians. Very simply put, it is the difference between the artist's theories about his work and the actual work itself. Imagine the dilemma: you are standing around in a gallery when someone comes up and starts a conversation. Before you know where you're at, it transpires that one of you is the artist and the other is the critic. (Actually, you've known this all along, but to avoid self-consciousn4s, it must look like a surprise.) The eaknest conversation that has preceded the revelation of who is who cannot be forgotten, and so the game of Russian roulette continues, and the honesty, under the influence of the gallery's vin ordinaire. becomes a mite ruthless.
The other afternoon I wandered into the Angela Flowers Gallery, Lisle Street (always good for a laugh), and there minding the store was an attractive little thing who turned out to be Jeanne Masoero, artist in residence — that is, her work was on show. Not a drop to drink in
sight; just two earnest art lovers, eyeball to eyeball. Cad that I am, I heard myself say — after her initial explanation — that the large white canvases with ' stains' of colour, looked like art school exercises. Patiently, the young lady continued to explain the significance of her approach, assuring me that the ink-blot shapes were not mere accidents: they were controlled — she had actually destroyed several works where the ' stains ' did not blot according to her wishes. Despite this proof of selectivity, I was left questioning whether or not her particular experiments and discoveries were enough to involve me or other uninitiated viewers. Loved you, Jeanne, but an ink blot is an ink blot is an ink blot.
I had a similar encounter at the Serpentine Gallery where I met Gareth Jones — one of Cezanne's children. (The brochure tells us, " Cezanne is the father of modern painting" and the six artists on show are " a few of his children.") Jones has superimposed a gimmick on his black paper cutouts pressed between enormous sheets of perspex, hanging from chains from the ceiling of the west gallery: he has developed his own 'alphabet,' and took the trouble to explain that each shape in his pleasant snowflake patterns represents a sound. The work was not only a pretty design, but it could be read to say ' pin ' or ' bin.' Somehow, though, that didn't make It seem all that more worthwhile, and I could not help feeling that the innocent visitor would not feel moved to rush back and forth between the projected cue sheets (which explained the shapes), and the hanging perspex to decipher the symbols. Jones was tolerant of my lack of enthusiasm for his alphabet, and I can only regret that I feel 1 have failed him.
The other kids on show are worth a look, and I send my compliments to the chef — in this instance, the Arts Council — for cooking up the idea of showing works by new, youngish artists in a most attractive gallery.
Equally wholesome is the high-class porno on view at the Editions Graphiques Gallery, Clifford Street, where the midnineteenth-century Belgian artist, Felicien Rops, shows us what the ' underground ' must have been in his day. Soft-ground etchings and equatints celebrate the glories of women, making all of their parts pubic (excuse me, public). It is an amusing and somewhat erotic view of the ladies, and while they are subjected to a certain amount of abuse, they survive with their virtues (if not their virtue) intact. It is refreshing to see, in this day of explicit and witless writhing, that carnality can be fun, and not, necessarily, a matter for the analyst's couch.
And, if the title, Four Masters of Erotic Photography, doesn't put you off, look in at the Photographer's Gallery, Great Newport Street, where four masters of erotic photography also have a go at the ladies: a bit arty-crafty,' perhaps, but so delicious that you won't even want a plain wrapper to hide the prints you buy.
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