Fortnight Publications Ltd.

To Certain Communist FriendsAuthor(s): James SimmonsSource: Fortnight, No. 25 (Oct. 1, 1971), p. 19Published by: Fortnight Publications Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25543730 .

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FORTNIGHT ,9

Arts Pages_

TO CERTAIN COMMUNIST FRIENDS

"In the groves of their academy, at the end of every vista,

you see nothing but the gallows." Social reform by revolution is the morning's great pollution.

In new disguise, trying to infect

my infant liberty, I see a sect of hateful puritans. Hate! Hate! is the only hope they contemplate.

As thick and po-faced as Stone Henge they circle you and seek revenge.

Any rebel who cannot laugh and kiss the head he's cutting off is a bad Qgg. Before he's hatched

he must be kissed and then dispatched.

The inefficient upper classes are kept in power by the masses.

They aren't like old men of the sea

riding Sinbad in crafty glee. Like silly Sinbad they too lack brains, but he lifts them on his back and, concentrating, walks with all

his skill for fear his burden fall. Oh, Sinbad, set them gently down and build together the just town.

Avoid the old Professor's lure of calling scriptures Literature.

Christ didn't take the nails and fetters to get on well with men of letters.

Leave the lectures, every boy who does not hear the jokes and joy. Those who fear examinations nail the coffins of the nations. He who gets the highest mark

joins the powerful in the dark. He who writes down what he knows, God will guide him where he goes. He who loves what he writes down builds the bricks of Marble Town.

Before I take my leave I take this chance of thanking William Blake.

James Simmons fc I ! II I

Art_ L . . - - ? . i

The invitation was irresistible. "Spec tator participation is inherent in the works shown . . . there are knobs to

twiddle, exciting environments to walk

into, inflatable shapes ..." Better than

Hamleys, it sounded. But, alas, alas, I

went to the Arts Council Gallery, ready to participate like mad in the 15 works from the John Player Biennale 2. I did

my best, really I did. iBut alas, alas ... I stood before a

nice enough looking little edifice of perspex bricks, neat and tidy just as a

good .child would build; there were words printed on the bricks, phrases and an invitation to speak into a hand

microphone at the side. I spoke, I whis

pered, I shouted, I growled, I near

screamed?nothing happened. I walked

into an "environment", a little black

outside lavatory, it seemed, a not too

comfortable chair to sit on within and a pretty unattractive lot of pin-ups around with the climax a vision of an even less attractive me as I swivelled

round.

Ah well, I went in search of the win

ning exhibit by Joy Yvonne Kennion.

III. 9

It sounded lovely in the catalogue des

cription ? coloured objects moving in

coloured water, unexpectedly submerg

ing and changing colour. The objects were there, triangles set geometrically inside squares on the top of a black velvet bordered tank; I pushed the

switch, others did the same?but regret

fully it had to be accepted that it just did not travel well. A trio of switches lie up three knobs below what was in itself a very attractive perspex structure

that one could move around, but which

did not gain anything from the little

green knobs.

The greatest pleasure I took in the exhibition was in what might be re

garded as a fairly standard example of kinetic are?discs in which coloured

liquids sprayed and bubbled, changed colour and direction; the possibly more

technically exciting merry-go-round of

oils within perspex containers dripping and cascading, I found unpleasing in colour and at one point too reminiscent

of the hospital "drip". John Patrick

Garrihy's Great Ebb Project, the purity of the lines of coloured pebbles con trasted with the vulgarity of beach

posters and "snaps", is meaningful and

the sensuous pleasure of Gabrielle Stubbs' pansy is undeniable (it would look charming in a chic shop window, but not, please, with, the pink naked

babies she expressed a desire to have inserted between the folds). A very nice,

pure construction by Alan Pratt, who,

unfortunately, was killed in a road

accident before he could complete it.

Upstairs in the Council's Gallery Colin Harrison and William Bogle ex

plore some of their fantasies and

obsessions in ways that at times fascinate and at others confound the viewer.

Harrison has devised his own continu

ing diary in a form that is a cross between a wall newspaper and a gigan tic college. In it are incorporated minute, felicitous drawings of objects that he

may develop into major paintings, old

visiting cards, scraps of knitting, often in the shape of South America or Aus tralia and once, I understand, of Cor

sica, the island that neither he nor

Bogle has visited but which stands for a

symbol and gives the name to their

joint exhibition. There are scraps of

clothing, too, snippets that in truth look rather more agreeable than full-scale

costumes devised for wearing in the

plays or films that the two artists have worked on.

Typescripts of the plays and of a novel, or part of them, lie around; there

are stills from two films, a case of

prints, an amazing jetsam. j\ huge

patchwork quilt designed around Aus tralia, instructions for knitting various

countries and the actual knitting, usually done by Harrison's mother, are among the fascinations. A cloth covered in num bers which may, or may not, be inten

ded to be linked which is William

Bogle's portrait of Schonberg and three

immensely long streamers decorated with a repeated print are among the more

confusing objects. In the Ulster Museum there is another

exhibition for which we are indebted to John Player. This consists of outdoor sculpture by Roger Leigh and indoor, table sculpture by John Milne and

Dennis Mitchell. The sculpture court offers a fairly adequate setting for Roger

Leigh's work, but clearly it is intended to be related to an architectural situa tion or, as in the case of the delicious

mobile blue sails, in some immense sea

garden. He uses mostly stained timber and, working basically with complete or incomplete triangles, achieves a very

strong compact image which makes a

distinct and different impact from each different angle of vision.

The relationships are exactly judged. They belong with the uncluttered archi tecture of today, to be set in open spaces

within a building or an outdoor expanse. Both John iMilne and Dennis Mitchell

work in brass, John Milne represented in this exhibition by a collection of smallish pieces, coffee-table equivalents, it might be said, of the brass "toys" of

Gaudier Brzeska, but nothing Me so elaborate and not lying so comfort

ably, so irresistibly within the hand.

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