Art
Brief lives
John McEwen
Commenting on a recent flag-waving exhibition of British contemporary art in Paris an eminent French critic wrote that some of the participants were having their acne a little bit late in life. Much the same can be said of the exhibition, 'Lives' (Hayward Gallery till 1 April), selected by Derek Boshier for the Arts Council. The show gets off to an impossible start by stating that it is representative of artists 'whose work is based on other peoples' lives', and proceeds to illustrate the 'meaningfulness' of this intention all too graphically.
First we are encouraged to think of life as social convention by a sampling of Posy Simmonds's ironic strip-cartoons from the Guardian. But next in line are some savage caricatures of famous people by Gerald Scarfe which, though the best work in the exhibition, have nothing in common with what they succeed but a sense of the ridiculous. Any expectations that the show is an examination of humour, however, are instantly forestalled by an opposing screen on which a couple of those mild psychodramas by Card l Weight hang alongside entirely conventional portraits by Norman Hepple and David Hockney, the subjects of both revealing nothing of their social circumstance at all. Round the next corner this confusion is compounded by an outbreak of acne in the form of a feminist diatribe on the subject of rape. And so it goes on, documentations of punk and the third world balanced by documentations of Royal Ascot for 'Jennifer's Diary' and the presumably complementary gloss of some well-known advertising photographs by Duffy, etc.
As can probably be understood even from this briefest of lists, Boshier's original generalisation inevitably makes him a prey to clichés. This is a pity because 'Lives' as a concept was clearly intended to be an unpompous attempt to put on a show of more general interest than has been the norm. Ironically its muddle-headedness and painfully simple-minded suppositions are as mystifying as the more arty mystifications it tries to correct. The one thing 'Lives' tells us absolutely nothing about is life, either our own or that of other people. An associated exhibition centred on some books by Derek Boshier in the manner of the artists whose work adorns the walls can be overlooked at Felicity Samuel (till 20 April). In the continued absence of The Times, 'Illustrators Art' at 16a D'Arblay Street have had the bright idea of mounting an exhibition of caricatures and cartoons by 'Marc', Mark Boxer (till 7 April). Most of the work on view derives from the paper and can be appreciated at greater leisure in The Times we Live in: The cartoons of Marc (Cape, £2.50), but here are the originals, and it is in reality that their impact as drawings can best be judged or appreciated. They reveal above all what strides Boxer has taken as a caricaturist over the past few years. Mediocrities, if that is a permissible usage, are his forte: Weldon, Day, the peculiar cast of Angela Rippon's gaze. He continues to concentrate on faces but bodies out his work much more confidently than in earlier Listener days. Even when he misses, as with Lord Goodman and Lady Antonia, there is assurance. Perhaps he will soon hazard full-lengths in the grand manner of Spy and Max. Their laurels are his for the taking.
The Spring season has brought on a cavalcade of shows, but undoubtedly pride of place in terms of quality and historical interest must go to the fine examples Of French 19th-century painting — Monet, Cezanne et al — that make up the Davies collection (Wildenstein till 30 March) and the rare retrospective of photographs by the Victorian master Roger Fenton (Agnews, till 30 March). Apart from its interest an° beauty, and even the perfection of its setting in the dilapidated grandeur of Agnews s upstairs gallery, the Fenton retrospective has a worthy ulterior motive in demanding an entrance fee. Fenton was the first Secretary of the Royal Photographic Society, and the Society has organised the present show, all of it loaned from its own WI' lection, in aid of its appeal for a National Photographic Centre at Bath. A better advertisement for the cause cannot he imagined. Fenton is most widely known for his documentations of the Crimean War' but it is his photographs of England before the trees were felled that remain the most moving. It is profitable to go from Otis exhibition to 'Masterpieces of English arta French Photography' round the corner at Robert Self (till 31 March). One or twd examples of Fenton's work are here shown alongside his contemporaries, most interestingly of that of his friend and nearest equivalent, the French photographer Gus' tave Le Gray. The American Kenneth Noland has long been considered one of the best modern abstract painters so a first-hand experiene,e of his latest work is always an event 1.11 London. His new series of shaped, acrylic paintings (Waddington till 31 March) are as subtly coloured and smartly contrived as ever, but still look like the recipes they were once described as by Harold Rosenbeq' English artists have seldom realised that, 01 art, form is all that matters, but Americans of Noland 's ilk and generation have gone t° the other extreme of intellectualising tins truth into a perversion of its meaning. TheY consider the content more important than the container, in the same way as all those People who just as mistakenly look for a story in everything. John Hubbard tries to have it both ways, Painting close-up impressions of stone and overgrowth in such a way and on such a scale that they can also be read as abstract Pictures. There is nothing vegetable about the colour, however, and the bronzes and Synthetic greens in particular forge unfortunate links with the sort of tiles and ceramics beloved of pottery-inclined intellectuals. His charcoal drawings however are realised before the subject and are not fancifully reconstructed to the same extent as the oils. In other words they do not fudge the issue and are much the better for it. Has Hubbard ever thought of doing monochrome paintings? On the other hand numbers 22 and 24 shOW happy signs that there is a Paul Nash Side to him that might also be given an airing. Whichever way he should stick to naturalism and let the abstraction look after itself. The exhibition, along with some delicate but more conventionally representational drawings and dry points by Gunnar Norman, continues at Fischer Fine Arts till 20 April.
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