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[[first column cut off at left side]] that one fragment was specially constructed to take in a conduit, while the corners were dealt with in a similarly respectful fashion. Paradoxically, however, the piece as a whole was characterized by the impression that Wentworth had imposed his will on the space in a thoroughly uncompromising manner. But because of the nature of the project, the full impact of the contradiction implied by the units, which seemed to be both mass-produced and the result of natural accident, was not immediately evident. This type of ambiguity is one of the most interesting aspects of Wentworth's work but at Art Net it was necessarily relegated to a role of secondary importance. Furthermore a sequence of repeated elements is obviously not able to maintain a quality of compressed tension in quite the same way as an individual work. While tension is not always a requisite component of successful sculptural activity, it is a factor which Wentworth has shown himself capable of manipulating with a high degree of sophistication. The show at Felicity Samuel was so close-packed with Duchampian equivocation that the result was exceptionally stimulating, both on a visual and conceptual level. Fenella Crichton JAMES ROSENQUIST At the Mayor Gallery, London, 3 December-18 January. It is over a decade since Rosenquist painted the works on show at the Mayor Gallery, a decade which has served to throw 'Pop-Art' and 'America' into clear perspective. Pop-Art took high-flown verbosity out of culture, took the veneer off and made it 'formica-topped'. It was right to say, and Oldenburg did, 'I am for the art of underwear and taxi-cabs. I am for the art of ice-cream cones dropped on concrete. I am for the majestic art of dog-turds rising like cathedrals.' Anything was allowed except obscuration. Life was reflected back to us as what we saw, and its meaning was in its everyday effect on us. The stories behind Rosenquist's images at the Mayor Gallery aren't important and if anything should speak for itself, it's this kind of painting. Sight Seeing is spectacular stuff with great gobs of red to fill-in the letters at the top, sensational battered hot pink for the letters in the panel at the bottom, and all with the flash of metal from a silver 'ground'. Be Beautiful still has its effect with those exceptional colour conversations that happen in two-a-penny supermarket ads: dank plastic red with a mauve that has such a quality of nothingness that it becomes uniquely something. The acute carelessness of the no-choice aspect in the placing of marks on the canvas is still fascinating. There seems to be no positive refusal to rectangle: rather, a straight acceptance of the convenience of its four-corners. [[image]] James Rosenquist Mayfair 1962, 48 x 72 in. There is, however, another aspect which has emerged more clearly since the sixties. We are beginning to realize how very exceptional is the American phenomenon. At the time we accepted that the colours of Pop-art were derived directly from advertising which was itself the harmless off-shoot of the consumerdom of the twentieth century. Now it is easier to see the extent to which America and Pop-Art (the true son of America) is actually a product of that advertising and has begun to buy its own image. Never before could one have [[image]] James Rosenquist Smoke 1962, 48 x 60 in. conceived of using the colours that the pop-artists used; never before did self-confidence go such a long way. Rosenquist's F1 11 painting was all there, lucid and thoughtful. It did, though, relate totally to America. Within the values of America, in the American landscape, within the projected aura (and what an aura!) of America, Rosenquist's work was totally on the mark. And somehow the neon flashes were so spellbinding, so much larger than life itself that we used to see nothing but America. We thought we felt like America but it has emerged recently that no-one feels like America. Things that happen 'over there' just couldn't happen elsewhere. Thus it was that the qualities in Rosenquist's painting seemed more widely true than they actually were, which is not to say that Rosenquist regularly hits false notes, or that one expects him to play God. Penny Hawkins GERALD LAING At the Arthur Tooth Gallery, London, November. Gerald Laing's exhibition was quite refreshing. There is a category of sculpture one is meant to think about, or read in conceptual complicity on the wall, and there is a category one may recognize as three dimensional, traditional and rational. Laing's work belongs to the latter of the of twelve relatively small pieces in diverse materials; forms or figures in steel, painted wood, oak, fiberglass and aluminium. They were in a small upper gallery so that the impression of intimacy with the work was reinforced. The head studies of Laing's wife Galina seemed particularly fine. The formal reference is clearly cubic (not cubistic) with concave and convex volumes delineating the proportions of the shape. In Galina II, for example, the combination of exact angles and deep curves confirms the suggestion of attenuation connecting the head and neck of the figure to the shoulder. Surface detail is absent so that only the general contours of the form are stressed. Laing's balance of empty and full space is effective; the Galina bronzes disclose a personality in a classical material though a classic sense of restraint. Two works were in fibreglass - another Galina figure and Standing Buddha. The former is painted in a very flat, pale green, the Buddha figure in a metallic red. Colour on plastic, particularly hard colour, did not seem to enhance the forms. The bronzes seemed to express greater simplicity and character than the fibreglass studies. There were also several works in oak, smooth and pale toned, with anthropomorphic connotations. They have more curvilinear, less incisive shapes than other works and are emphatically volumetric. Finally there was an excellent [[Image]] Gerald Laing Galina 2 1974 Bronze, 11 x 10 3/4 x 8 1/2 in. reclining figure I was pleased to suddenly see on what looked like part of the central heating apparatus - just suggesting it might have stopped there on its way to a more elaborate pedestal. Though slight in scale the figure had sinuous and elongated proportions. This work is a plaster mould for a casting in bronze. Laing's show did not read as a major 'statement'; his reputation as a sculptor relies on work of much larger scale, but I hadn't the impression these were miniatures for pieces of grander proportion in the future. Scale, subject and space consistency, well matched suggested a Studio 189 : review 10 Ja '75
