print October 1983

Imi Knoebel

Imi Knoebel comes from Joseph Beuys’ Düsseldorf school, which was significant in shaping the radical mood of the art of the late ’60s; an atmosphere of rebellion and of utopian aspiration is still present in his work. Knoebel’s sculptures are always concerned with painting and his paintings with sculpture, a point strikingly made in two installations here—Hartfaser Raum (Hard-fiber space), 1968, and Genter Raum (Ghent space), 1980. Hartfaser Raum is a kind of warehouse of artistic ideas; it gradually came into being as a collection of forms and of potential supports for color and form. The

print October 1983

Dan Graham

Dan Graham’s “pavilions” in this retrospective are event spaces consciously directed toward public participation. While Pavilion/Sculpture for Argonne (interior version), 1978–81, for example, might initially be interpreted as a minimalist work, on closer inspection it turns out not to be a closed, self-asserting piece, but an instrument of projection and introspection. The cubelike frame, divided into two triangular chambers and structured with a refined arrangement of glass and mirrors, very soon involves viewers in the work’s constantly fluctuating appearance, in fact integrates them into

print Summer 1983

Malcolm Morley

Malcolm Morley first encountered the work of Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Mark Rothko at a show of American art at London’s Tate Gallery in 1956. The artistic atmosphere in England at the time was more inclined toward the emerging Pop art than to Abstract Expressionism; resisting the local zeitgeist, however, Morley opted for the latter path, taking it as a personal challenge. After briefly inspecting the New York scene in 1957, he moved there in 1958. For once, the issue is not that famous “American in Paris,” but the “Englishman in New York,” an entirely different situation.

All the

print April 1983

Pat Steir

At the center of this small, concentrated exhibition of the work of Pat Steir are three oil paintings in several parts. These are sequences in which the individual painting, though independent, can fully disclose itself only in the context of the other panels. Only the interaction among the paintings in the sequence makes it clear that Steir’s concern is with the components of perception, as revealed by the sections of a painting that is intended to be read in its totality.

In I-R-IS, 1982, a work consisting of a horizontal row of three square paintings (each measuring 60 by 60 inches), Steir’s

print January 1983

Markus Raetz

The careful selection and mounting of this exhibition, which includes work from the last ten years, provides a fascinating survey of the diversity of artistic means used by Markus Raetz. If Marshall McLuhan’s notorious thesis, the medium is the message, has ever hit the mark, then it does here. In Raetz’s work means and end form a constantly pulsating, dialectical unity whose source lies in the artist’s daily life.

Il conto per favore (The bill, please) is the title of a 1980 work. A column of five different, carefully applied brushstrokes above a line, which initially seem coincidental, when

print Summer 1982

Terry Fox

Terry Fox’s “Linkage” intallation occupies three of this museum’s spaces, two of which are accessible. The third can only be peeped into through a window high in the wall of one of the rooms. Viewers must climb a set of stairs and stick their heads through a small square hole; they see three gray boards leading from the floor to a shelf along the left wall. These act as visual markers, directing the eye toward the objects on the end of each board—the familiar image of three monkeys holding their hands over, respectively, their eyes, ears, and mouth (“see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil”);

Max Wechsler