Art
Placement
John McEwen
Four Simultaneous Exhibitions at the Tate (till 25 July) is an odd assortment, from the provincial apocalyptics of Samuel Colman's early nineteenth-century paintings to the experiments of John Latham.
Latham's is the most important show, a well-earned retrospective. Various though he is stylistically, Latham has been constant in his exploration of the theme of time: its transitoriness, and more recently its philosophical implications. The canvases incorporating bumf books which first brought him fame in the 'fifties can now be seen fairly in relation to the art of their period and they stand up very well. In fact they reveal that Latham at his best is the match of Moles or any of the other'matter' artists, a figure of undoubted art-historical importance. They are surprisingly beautiful works and the emotive associations of using books in this way gives them considerable power as well. Since then, however, his invention has flagged, his concerns become confused and ideological.
Abandoning the so-called restrictions of fine art he has devoted himself to inducing society—largely through securing permission • for a few artists to roam at will in various industrial organisations—to recognise the beneficial long-term, or 'timebased', qualities on which the unlimited, inter-disciplined, creative and therefore artistic mind concentrates. This scheme of Latham's, co-ordinated as the 'Artist Placement Group' (APG), depends ironically on the public's acceptance of a very fine-art view of the artist, as a superman, and too often it has indulged in the parish pump activity of abusing the Arts Council for its lack of support, but where it is most dismayingly at variance with its apparent aims is in the paucity of its practical results. The spiritual decline of the West, the separation of art from science, to search for solutions to such problems is a worthy task but indicating the aesthetic merits of slag heaps and the metaphorical significance of a hypothetical 'Marine Cultivation Project', as Latham does at the Tate, seems inadequate.
On his own Latham is a grand and quixotic figure. Fine art suited him, group activities do not—at least their social concerns seem to limit him. Even at his most elegant there is a vein of irony in his work, that peculiarly English sort which implies that nothing matters. How ironic therefore that since he has minded more he has mattered less.
Michael Moon is a younger artist than Latham, too young for something as portentous as a Tate show however small. He has not developed into a mature artist yet, it is as simple as that. There are his smooth, impersonal and abstract 'sixties stripe paintings and his recent,coarse, personal and figurative ones (assemblages and all) but no transitional work because of lack of space. The early pieces already appear very limited and academic and the later ones much less so, but both keep an eye on the fashions— wherein lies his immaturity. However, there is a greater degree of personality in the more autobiographical recent pieces, particularly when he puts his self-consciousness of art trends and history to good ironic effect as in the bagfuls of chairs and tables; and his sense of colour and materials throughout are richer and less restrained, more confident. It is good when an artist burns his bridges, and although Moon has some way to go he certainly demonstrates here that he has the determination to make it.
William Townsend, along with William Coldstream, was the cornerstone of the Slade for many years. He died suddenly in 1973. Younger artists will remember his unique conscientiousness in attending even their most out-of-the-way exhibitions, and his openness to new ideas in general. Like most dedicated teachers he never succeeded in developing his own artistic talents to a point where he could dispense with his influences, but his many journals may well prove of lasting importance. A selection from these has been published to coincide with the show and, despite being expurgated (till 1993) and to do with only the early years, it contains quite enough to assure the project of completion. The writing is fluent, the descriptions by turns evocative and incisive and some of the incidents memorable —none more so than Monnington's gruesome struggle to detach Tonks's death mask.
Of least importance are the four paintings by Samuel Colman, apparently gathered from as far as Brooklyn. In the absence of any policy the Tate has long promoted second-rate English art, presumably to prove that some academic still haunts the basement. Colman being both an obscure man and an inept painter has proved irresistible fare. He has pinched some highlighting tricks from Danby, right enough, but most resemble that much inferior—really bad— artist John Martin (another Tate favourite of course). That is, except for one redeeming quality: he is quite funny. Would that one could say as much for the Tate.
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