Art
Monochromes
John McEwen
Alan Green has two fine shows on at the moment. His latest work — two large, multi-canvas paintings; two sets of four, much smaller painted panels; six drawings and four lithographs — (Annely Juda till 4 November); and nineteen paintings from 1975-77 (Roundhouse till 4 November). Green's superficially rather blank looking abstractions lend themselves to installations, and both galleries have never looked better. Even the irregular lines and half-office space of the upstairs gallery at AnnelyJuda is transformed by the neat syncopations of the hanging, and the majestic curve of the Roundhouse punctuated, from a distance, by Green's monochrome rectangles, is currently one of the sights of the town. It is what the New York Guggenheim ought to look like but does not. Jim Latter, a young painter, has more or less single-handedly brought this spectacular gallery into being, and his achievement deserves an equally spectacular attendance. When you next attend the theatre at the Roundhouse, or preferably before, give yourself time to nip up and have a look. It is open most evenings (as well as most days from mid-day) especially to provide this opportunity. You will not be disappointed.
None of this should detract from the intrinsic merits of Green's work — that it looks good seen overall should merely be taken as a bonus, though also, to sonic degree, as the inevitable outcome of his method. Green enjoys the physical nature of painting, and in some ways a demonstration of that nature devoid of any representational interference is the subject matter. The process is the method, materials and techniques both being equallY important. His paintings tend, therefore, to be variations on technical and methodical themes, often consciously done in sets and series, and this obviously means that some of his work has to be seen in conjunction, though, except in cases where differently handled canvases are actually joined together to form a single work, the indi vidual components of these series are meant to stand on their own merits. In fact they cannot be fully appreciated without a degree of concentration that goes some way along the road to meet the artist's own attention to detail and nuance. It is characteristic, for instance, that he prefers to use pure, not synthetic, pigments, and that he mixes in the various media himself. This considerably extends the range of his effects. These considerations have now been extended to include —as a trip from the Roundhouse to Annely Jude will make clear — a matching interest in surface variations, something that has evolved from his drawing. Some of his latest paintings he calls 'panels' to emphasise their mixed media nature.
Green is at his best when he does not restrict his undoubted emotionalism too much. At the Roundhouse certain deadends are registered and by-passed. He is at his worst when too dependent on procedure aS opposed to intuition, on masking-tape and the imprisonment of Rollspaint-linered lines. Drawing loosens his handling and goads him to more daring technical experiments, most recently with wax and egg tempera. His four-canvas painting in the deepest cadmium red of all, the identical shade of each canvas subtly altered by an oil and wax, tempera and two differently balanced acrylic preparations, the handling inevitably altered by the medium employed, is possibly his most impressive painting to date. And there are enough good things about his other, too flaglike, red-white-and-blue painting, and the drawings, panels and lithographs upstairs, to make this also his best show so far. A fitting climax to a year that has been something of a mirabilis for him, including disassociated first one-man shows M Paris and New York, and recently the grand prix of a major European print biennial. Prints, of course, are particularly Well-suited to his method, so it must be hoped that rumours that he may soon be doing some more etchings are well founded. The enterprising exhibition programme initiated at the Midland Group Gallery in Nottingham by Lynda Morris, continues With its current four-in-one exhibition of Magritte photographic and cinematographic marginalia, forty-eight photographs of his portraits by Gerhard Richter, oils and watercolours by Stephen McKenna and Maria Gilissen's first show of photographs. Maria Gilissen is the widow of the fine Belgian artist, and one-time acolyte of Magritte, Marcel Broodthaers, and something of his amused and quizzical spirit continues in her photographs. Stephen McKenna's Oils are much stronger than his watercolours, and best when closest to Bocklin. And the double-bluffs of Richter, photographs of portraits that have been painted in the style of photographs, show how long overdue a decent exhibition of his real Paintings is. The Magritte marginalia is a bit disappointing and scanty. The exhibition continues till 21 October.
Previous page
