Art
On target
John mcEwen Michael Sandie is showing drawings at Peiiei'tY Samuel's (till 11 June) and, mostly related, etchings at Bernard Jacobson (till lune). Sandie has not been living in Eng-rand for some time and surprisingly this :eriresents only his second one-man showing In London since 1963. f The drawings are in most instances plans ,(31. sculptural projects—though this in no waY detracts from their independent meritLne ofwhich, provisionally entitled 'Mickey usTnse Machine Gun Projects' sub-title: n''''nnument to America', is already uncle:restruction. Sandie is currently teaching in Cana st Germany, but before that he was in date da and the Mickey Mouse Project from his indignation at the evidence rcevealed during the trial of Lieutenant a.11eY. The obviousness of the title is a consfelous irony intended to question the doubtsui nrigins of all moral indignation, not least andle's own, and the rhetoric it usually rnPlies. 'Mickey mouse' is, in any case, a chsirn.issIve term in America and its use in the Sand?ca.. u also be seen to reflect to some degree zteach. indignation on finding himself thing in a mickey mouse of an art school ."e tinie. An interest in tomb sculpture and ,,eeroPhilia generally is also implied. The 13CUI pt u rc itself will be cast in bronze, each oafri modelled lovingly by hand—a necessity rse since the piece will be larger than traditi In the best Fine (with a capital f) Art It is therefore a long way from 4111,4 another simplistic demonstration of k "-A. merican feeling or salon Marxism, svnat Its success will depend on whether titindle , can counteract the banality of the US tnrough his sculptural explorations of lerY unbanal significance. artist is, in other words, a European of i and Proud of it. He enjoys the swagger °Manticism, but he honours its seepwo,,"In, and is in awe of tradition. Germany k bld therefore seem an ideal place for him reflect ects and most of the other work on view "his
preoccupations as an English artist working there in a town that was destroyed overnight in the War and erected later with an almost equal indifference to the inhabitants. In 'Drawing for Lord Haw Haw Relief' sub-title: 'Germany Calling', the subject is a direct memory of the War, a reconstruction of the room in which Sandie listened to the infamous broadcasts as a child. But in most of the work the War, as with the Calley trial, is only a starting point. 'Drawing for Submarine Monument with Torpedo (U-boat with discs/waterlilies)', recognises the sculpturally monumental qualities of submarines and waterlilies as their metaphor, flowers of peace and balance: submarines which to a greater extent than any other weapon maintain the status quo. In 'Encapsulated Submarine' their Freudian significance is wittily encased. And underlying even that, submarines whose conning towers recall the Tower of Refuge at Douglas on the Isle of Man, where Sandie was brought up, whose grey battle colours recall the Irish Sea and whose discs, the fungi on trees with their pleasing clearcut shadows.
If one characteristic distinguishes Sandle's work it is this pleasure in the making of it. He enjoys painting. 'U-boat bunker' knowingly salutes Cotman even if it questions Albert Speer and the functions and geneses of modern architecture in general. Sandie is a sensualist. He likes roughing-up surfaces with scribbled chalk or indicating areas of interest with blasts of his spray-gun. When a happy accident occurs, as in 'Academic Winding Sheet' where the paper shrank from its glued backing and looked like a winding sheet itself, he emphasises it. Even 'A Diversion into Photo Realismus' loses its irony as he happily meets the challenge of doing trompe l'oeil in pencil. And his etchings reveal a similar freedom.
This appreciation of materials combined with a radical inclination to make large issues the subject of art is what makes Sandle's work so bracing. It is an antidote to the safe obscurity of so much mainstream abstraction, superfluous figuration and pretentious avant-gardism and, particularly in England, that lack of enthusiasm which Puritanism has deemed a virtuous mark of sobriety. Sandle's work is soberer than it appears at first glance but it is not selfrighteous. Long may he prosper and here is hoping that he comes home soon.
Previous page
