Art
Paradox and protest
Giles Auty
Arule of paradox applies in art wherebY conscious striving for effect all to° easily produces the exact reverse of the de- sired result. Thus the artist who tries to con- coct a 'timeless' statement may end up Pr,°: ducing images that date quicker than tu", ra-ra skirt. Conversely, another artis; whose work appears entirely concerneu with specifics — a particular woman in,a particular room at a particular hour, as 'II Vermeer — effortlessly soars beyond lintt. tions of place or time to a niche in
t irroor- ality. In Surrealism, self-consciousness Pr°'
duces Grand Guignol or silly arbitrariness as the Muse of the Subconscious flees from the pursuing artist like a ghost front camera crew. Those whose artistic trade Is odd juxapositions and strange, haunting at- mospheres therefore need to be especial, wary. Happily, Peter Unsworth has Picke. a careful path in his latest exhibition at Pie- cadilly Gallery (16 Cork Street, WI). AY who have seen his earlier work — this is will ninth one-man show at that gallery r remember that he avoids the sinister 0 threatening atmosphere that infests much surrealist or metaphysical painting Id favour of that pleasant sense of suspende time and animation also found in Pail. Nash's work. Here is daydream rather tila; nightmare, an effect reinforced 13Y. predominantly light,
bright palette in
shadows lack depth and the sky is conlf°r1; tingly blue. Over the years, Peter linsw°r.t, has produced some memorable images vat."5 few better than 'Seaside Bowls' from hi whic,. 1976 exhibition. However, the work whi struck me as the most oddly evocative this_ time was also probably the least invented: a watercolour of a single figure sitting 10,1,-, concernedly in a museum's 'Whale Han while large cetaceans hang from wires e overhead. This work had something of ti.r truly haunting quality found in certain Edward Hopper's paintings — but the" Hopper always claimed that the extraOt: dinary sense of loneliness and alienation which some saw in his work was
unintended. eutirelY
Few would argue that as far as intentions go, those of Rasheed Araeen, curre0t4 showing at the Pentonville Gallery (4/ Lambs Conduit Street, WC1), are verY good indeed. Since coming to Britain from Pakistan in 1964, he gradually grew disillu- sioned with the 'Eurocentric' manifesta- tions of Late Modernism (an experience not confined to immigrants) and since 1971 has devoted much of his life's energy to pro- rn. oting the idea of more genuine Interna- tionalism in art. He has set about his ap- Pointed task through writing, performance, lecturing and pictorial work and it is the lat- ter which can be seen in the current exhibi- tion. It has become the accepted view in the worlds both of feminist and political art that Photography and collage should be the !Itain pictorial weapons serving their Ideologies.
This might be, as I have been told, because the traditional materials used
°11 Painting and etching have already been extensively 'sullied' by the Western male. That much the same argument could be applied to scores of everyday materials — of which soap is merely one — does not necessarily detract from the reasoning. But surely anyone involved with a cause in Which they wholeheartedly believe should ?se the most expressive materials available? I have yet to be convinced that modified Photography and collage possess the neces- sary expressive force, although London ()as. ts gallery upon gallery full of 'photo- 13°_11.ttcaP art seeking to contradict me. ritin evidence of the power that can be achieved through traditional media, such as etching, could not be more eloquently pro- Ned than in examples of Max Beckmann 's work now at the Tate Gallery. Beckmann, Of course, is a major figure in 20th-century art and one who was able to react visually even to shells tearing the skies overhead While on service as a medical orderly in Flanders in World War I. ,..slyorks such as Beckmann's — or Goya's uisasters of War' — remain timeless reminders of man's inhumanity to his tellows, their power to move relying not ?NY on the undoubted depth of their teeling but equally on their artistry.
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