page 21

sunrays and pain

Picasso at the Academy

NZ Academy of Fine Arts

The Graphic Art of German Expressionism

The National Gallery

There are one or two unfortunate aspects to the exhibition and sale of the 66 original etchings by Picasso at the Academy here in Wellington. The etchings were illustrations included in the recent re-publication of the Spanish Tragi-Comedy, 'Le Celestine' written, at least in part, by Fernando De Rojas and first published in 1501. The recent publication was a limited edition of 400 copies, expensively produced and expensive to buy. The illustrations were pulled from plates etched by Picasso. Although the etchings were not done specifically for La Celestine, they were felt to be close enough to the spirit of the work to be fitted to it. Each of the copies of the book was numbered and signed by Picasso, who was also consulted over the selection of the etchings. The etchings themselves though most of them are dated, were neither signed nor numbered. It was intended, after all, that they remain inside the book.

An Auckland concern, Barrington Galleries, bought three copies of the book in New York recently. Despite the statement in the Evening Post a few weeks ago that 'you wouldn't get a copu for less than $10,000', it appears that Barrington's bought its copies for considerably less than this. The three books were cut up, the etchings were removed from them and were framed and put up for sale. One lot stayed in Auckland, another went to Sydney and a third set was bought by the Academy and sold there. There were 66 Illustrations per book; they were sold at prices ranging from $200-$400; most of them have been bought. That means a gross return, from each of the three books of something like $18,000; and a net profit of maybe $10,000 per book, maybe less, which is a great deal of money for someone. I don't mean to implicate the Academy here, since they bought their set already cut and framed and presumably took only a commission from the sale.

The second point is that, although the etchings are undoubtedly genuine, since they are unsigned and undated, their investment value is virtually nil. That's o.k., I suppose—as was said on the radio, maybe people bought them simply because they liked them. The fact remains that the organisers of the deal were not exactly falling over themselves in an attempt to tell people precisely what they were buying. They have destroyed three copies of the book and made a sizeable profit in the process. Noting i a sizeable profit in the process. Nothing illegal has been done, of course, and the business ethics of the deal are immaculate. Nevertheless I find the method of working dubious in its implications and the motivation behind it transparent. The Art World/Big Business tie-up has never really worked in NZ. This little deal, despite the-poor-man-can-now-have-his-Picasso argument, comes like a warning.

And what of the works themselves, are they lost in all the wrangling? There is a famous remark Picasso once made—'Yourself is a sun with a thousand rays in its belly. The rest is nothing'. That remarkable energy is fully present here, receiving, as often as not, erotic expression. Running through the series is one memorable figure, a sort of animated odalesque, thighs spread, everything is so bared it was too much for NZ customs a few years ago. Picasso's mastery of his craft and his medium is complete and leaves him free to animate his gallery of characters—the bawds and rascals and wenches and donkeys and gentlemen and ladies. Delightful in every sense.

Both this show and the exhibition of the Kim Wright collection have been widely publicised. I wonder how many people realised that just across the way, in the National Gallery, there are (or were) real Kandinsky's, real Paul Klee's, real works by Kirchner, Nolde, Schmidt-Rottluf and many more? You can even, as you cannot next door, trace the contours of the various immortal signatures. It is a show toured by the Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations through Australasia and despite the outstanding quality of the works, it seems that no-one has bothered to advertise it.

There is an argument which says that German Expressionism is best represented by its works in prints—woodcuts, etchings and lithographs—there is nothing in this exhibition to persuade you otherwise. Most of the works are simply black and white and most of them are simply superb. The celebration which is at the heart of the Picasso's is hardly present however. There is power and energy enough; but we are more likely to find a knot of anxiety or pain or hunger in the belly, than a thousand sun-rays. The media in use and particularly the wood-block are especially suited for the depiction of a 'spectrally heightened and distorted reality'. The phrase is from Wilhelm Worringer's book of 1910 'Form in Gothic': His subject is Gothic Art of the Middle Ages and the sensibility of Northern Man—yet his thought is contemporary with Die Brucke and with the work of all the artists in the show; some of the ideas fit very neatly indeed.

There seems a world of difference between the abstract harmony of Kandinsky's 'Composition with Chessboard, Orange' and the 'Blonde Frau' of Nolde's woodcut. Yet in Worringer's terms, one path out of the chaos of the perceived and experienced world is the cultivation of geometric abstraction. Worringer isolates two ways of coping with the feeling of 'dualistic distraction'—one through the heightened and distorting power of fantasy, the other through self-alienation, leading to abstract construction. That stated, it must be emphasised that few of the works here go the whole way. There are no works by Munch in the show and the Kandinsky's are the only purely abstract works, even if Klee's work is on the way there.

What is impressive, in almost any work you choose, is the energy of line, the suppressed force of it, everywhere from Marc's 'Tigers' to Kirchner's 'Rider' to Beckman's 'Two Couples Dancing'. The works are charged and not usually in the direction of visual beauty. There is a considerable variety of subject matter and of subject treatment—but townscapes are more common than landscapes, self-portraits than still-lives, people than anything else.

I will not easily forget Schmidt-Rottluf's 'Large Prophetess', bisecting the light and dark behind her and wearing an expression as old as the world; nor Kokoska's lithography portrait of Emmy Hein, which has something of the same resignation, endurance and power, nor Campendonk's 'Seated Harlequin'. The final conglomerate image is of a gallery of faces looking out of the darkness of their setting or situation, with their dark staring eyes; and of the strength of those faces before the forces that threaten them and which are nevertheless part of them.

Martin Edmond