Exhibitions
Jorg Immendorff (Nigel Greenwood till 12 April) Rudolf Schlichter (Piccadilly till 12 April)
Fatal flaw
Giles Auty
The machinery which determines artis- tic reputations is complex and fickle in its workings. Writers on art who could and should provide a stabilising influence get carried away with short-lived enthusiasms or, worse still, regularly contradict them- selves.
Since the time of the Impressionists, critics have been haunted by fears of making hasty and ill-founded judgments. To avoid the professional disgrace such views might bring, many have now re- sorted to making no judgments other than the weakly favourable. There is also an even more apparently neutral school of writing whose devotees shower us with details which are of no conceivable interest or relevance. This is the particular pro- vince of the Modernist academic and reaches its most rarefied form in publica- tions such as the Tate Gallery catalogue of acquisitions. My favourite example of this genre remains one from the Tate's 1972-74 catalogue. It concerns a work they bought comprising 76 small sticks, 'each approx- imately 11 ins long and 5/16 ins in diameter and arranged in a circle 22 ft in diameter.' The catalogue then goes on: 'The sticks are the same kind as those Long used in his first public exhibition at the Galerie Kon- rad Fischer in Diisseldorf in 1968. They come from Leigh Woods, Bristol (where the artist lives). The invitation card for the exhibition shows a photograph of these woods with Clifton Suspension Bridge in the background. In the foreground is a figure with a bicycle on the towpath beside the River Avon.'
While the art-world reputation of Richard Long, the artist in question, who was in his twenties at the time, was slowly being consolidated by similar examples of meaningless writing, extraordinary talents were simultaneously ignored. One such `How long have you had this fear of heights?' talent was that of Erich Wolfsfeld who died in 1956 and whose work I saw first in 1975. Wolfsfeld is one of the finest etchers of this century, yet his work remains more or less unknown.
I was reminded of Wolfsfeld's skills --- and of the fickle nature of artistic fate — by seeing a group of the artist's studies in a mixed exhibition arranged by Caroline Stroude at the Alpine Gallery. Unfortu- nately the exhibition lasted for one week only and ended on 22 March. But there is promise of a major exhibition of this artist's work in the autumn.
Wolfsfeld was born in Prussia in 1885 and became Professor of Painting and Etching at the Berlin Academy in 1920. As a Jew, under the rise of Nazi power, Wolfsfeld was eventually forced out of Germany and came to Britain to live in 1939. His experience of Germany under Hitler could hardly have been more direct. By contrast Jorg Immendorff, currently showing at Nigel Greenwood Gallery (4 New Burlington Street, W1), was not born until the last war ended and thus missed all first-hand experience of the Nazi epoch. Swastikas, graffiti, vats of boiling oil; Hitler crucified or otherwise, eagles and other evocative emblems all nevertheless play a central role in Immendorff's turbu- lent and apocalyptic imagery. This is painted in nightmare colours and with even more nightmarish lack of technique. Yet Immendorff, for reasons better known to others, is one of a band of international, Post-Modernist superstars, surrounded by collectors avid to snap up the least trifle from his symbol-laden brush. Immendorff was a pupil of the late Josef Beuys and like his guru sought to make significant moral, and political statements by a variety 01 so-called artistic stratagems — which did not formerly include painting. To some, the extreme crudity of Imme0" doffs work is part of its supposed force. A scene painter on a bad day might produce broadly similar effects and on much the same scale. Canvases 10 ft square seek to overwhelm the viewer with their hotch- potch symbolism, to which a monkey (the artist) has recently added overdue varietY. That the monkey played a similar role in a late series of etchings by Picasso may have escaped those entranced by the artist 'S apparent originality. In one painting, en- titled 'The Temptation of St Anthony', the artist struggles against a venal urge t° produce and sell what he describes as bourgeois oil paintings. Immendorff has even written the explanatory word. s `bourgeois oil paints' across his image, 0.1 English, presumably on behalf of his ex- isting bourgeois patrons in London who might not be expected to read German. From his association with Beuys, Im- mendorff places himself as yet another_ artist seeking to change the world. Into what, of course, is another matter. In a year in which German art has east long shadow over London, it is a relief to report that many of the works of Rudolf Schlitchter at Piccadilly Gallery (16 Cork Street, W1) are charming and humorous. However, even they are not without the statutory tang of Germanic mania since repression in childhood apparently aroused in Schlitchter an interest in sadism as well as fetishism involving the ladies' high buttoned boots fashioned at that period. Indeed his relationship with his future wife, Speedy, appeared to hinge on her initial willingness to wear these boots, which were, by then, no longer in fashion. Not surprisingly this extraordinary instance of feminine self-sacrifice prompted a last- ing liaison. No drawing in the exhibition is charged with more feeling than Schlichter's `Woman with a Necklace' of 1930/31, a touching portrait of his wife. In general, Schlichter's drawings of people lack the satire but not the skill employed by his friend and fellow artist Grosz.
Schlichter's mastery of line, like that of Wolfsfeld, pays tribute to former standards of academic training. The reason why the work of Schlichter and Wolfsfeld will surely outlast fashion and gain ultimate recognition lies in the artistic skills both artists could bring to bear on their visions. 8Y the same token, Immendorff's sound and fury, whatever his commitment, re- mains finally unconvincing. As his paint- ings and notebooks make plain, he is basically unable to draw.