Exhibitions
David Salle (Waddington Galleries, till 25 November) Joseph Goldyne (Thomas Gibson, till 1 December) Patrick Symons (Browse & Darby, till 25 November) Maro Gorky (Long & Ryle, till 30 November)
The very idea
Giles Auty
Two of my past six weeks have been spent travelling in the exclusive company of fellow critics and .art historians. In theory one ought to feel at home among one's own kind, so I am sorry to admit this is not necessarily the case. The major problem for me is that many of my colleagues are concerned to appear fashionable — not sartorially, you will understand, but in terms of art. But if I had to put a finger on my main area of divergence from the common cause it would be over the vexed subject of ideas and the adequacy or otherwise of their visual expression. A lot of my fellow professionals, modern art historians espe- cially, act as though ideas on their own are all we now need for satisfying visual art. The vital question of whether these ideas can be made to work visually seems to elude them. In short, if the fashionable faction believe there is an obscure enough idea buried somewhere in the work of art they are prepared to suspend all visual and aesthetic judgment while lost in contem- plation of this possible wonder. Reason- ably enough, most sensible people work the other way round: if no stimulating idea is apprehensible in the work itself they tend to reject it. For my money, formal inadequacy — the inability of the chosen form to express the idea — has been the most serious shortcoming of post-war mod- ern art.
I write the foregoing in the hope that these remarks may do something to explain some of the artistic phenomena you will encounter in your travels through the arcane country of modern and post- modern art. If you can but persuade yourself that what is presented before you does not really matter at all you are well on the way to `appreciating' currently fashion- able artists such as Julian Schnabel, Sigmar Polke and David Salle. Eight large can- vases by the last occupy two of the galleries of the ever-expanding Waddington empire (5 & 34 Cork Street, W1). Largely because his congeries of apparently unrelated im- ages look arbitrary, pointless and crudely executed, Salle is billed by the initiated as a pivotal post-modernist dandy. Are his huge works art-historical conundrums or merely amorphous agglomerations of painterly pastiche, persiflage and porn- ography? Unfortunately the show's glossy catalogue, complete with overblown text, fails to elucidate this or an even more central mystery: what has Western society done to deserve such art?
While Salle's work was familiar to me already, that of Joseph Goldyne on view now at Thomas Gibson (44 Old Bond Street, W1) was not, largely because my travels have never taken me to the city of flower power and other earth-moving phe- nomena — San Francisco — where Gol- dyne's first reputation was made as an important collector of European art. Knowledge acquired from this pursuit and immense diligence are apparent in the artist's skilful handling of complex media, e.g. `pastel over monoprint: aquatint and monotype'. Goldyne's incandescent flow- ers and elegant still-lifer seem to me fastidious but a touch heartless. These are the qualities of a true artistic dandy. I cannot imagine that the paintings of Patrick Symons at Browse & Darby (19 Cork Street, W1) will appeal to those obsessed with apparently complex ideas, since they seem to be simply about appear- ances. Thus, although an established and highly respected figure in British art, Symons has had but one work acquired for the Tate Gallery's modern collection. However, artists, who may be expected to know a little bit more than art administra- tors about genuine complexities in art, turned up in numbers on the opening night of Symons's show, not least to view his remarkable painting, 'Mary Mfrs Viola Played by Electric Light and Drawn by Gas Light'. Those with experience of painting and drawing value genuine achievement in art above facile and largely unrealised ideas.
Maro Gorky, who is the subject of an interesting exhibition at Long & Ryle (4 John Islip Street, SW1), is the eldest daughter of the Armenian-born American surrealist Arshile Gorky. While her famous father's work and life were often notable for their anguish, Maro's paintings quietly hymn family life and mellow fruit- fulness on a Tuscan farm. Here are works which mirror a contentment bred of civi- lised and cultured life. It is reassuring to know that a few painters, at least, get their priorities right.
'Mary Miffs Viola Played by Electric Light and Drawn by Gas Light', by Patrick Symons
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