UC ‘Funkies' Overstated Mundanities
Written By: Bill C. Haigwood
“It's a groove to stick your finger down your throat and see what comes up.” Harold Paris, whose work is just one aspect of UC’s Funk Art exhibit, puts it where it is definitely at. Funk (fun? junk? according to Webster: “to shrink back in horror”) features gobs sheets and strips of every conceivable material and rubbish slapped together in the most out - of - context configurations imaginable (or convenient).
According to Peter Selz, University Art Museum director, the foundations of Funk are based in the nihilistic meanderings of the Dadaists and the more recent college techniques of Robert Raushenberg and Jasper Johns.
Paris seems to indicate the foundations of Funk to be less lofty, and as a “style,” while subject matter is exhaustively plentiful, the approach is, at best, amusing, at worst, insipid, and generally boring.
As components of some gigantic psychedelic nightmare, the works on view in the UC show are collectively effective in their provocation. But removed from this context (and one has merely to trip on over to the Richmond Art Center where an entire room of William Morehouse funkies grow like mushrooms) the conspicuous absence of “idea” reduces each work to the overstated mundanity it is.
There are some interesting offerings (not nearly breakthroughs, but interesting) from Paris, Berkeley sculptor Peter Voulkos, James Melchert and Bob Anderson, but these people are artists in their own right.
A more austere, controlled and exciting show of sculpture and hangings can been seen at the Orphan Gallery, 5809 College Ave. There the magnacite and wood structures of Franz Sandow slice up the air in shapes and relationships reminiscent of Henry Moore’s smooth marble and wood atmosphere-caressing exercises.
Sandow uses magnacite for its malleable workability and inevitable sturdiness, attaining balance of shapes in continuousseries of subtle connecting points. In this way he builds imposing and, to say the least, dynamic, sculptures which are strong, abstracted—and as clean as clockwork.
Sandow’s wife, Zahara Schatz (Sandow), is showing framed plane-studies along side the work of her husband, which reveal an approach particularly unique and explicit. By using sheets of screen, various colored plastics and fiberglass, she has constructed a frontal attack of visually colliding planes which form tier-like projections and versatile problems.
The stated end of Sandow is “understand and search for the cosmic truth in aesthetics.” He admits that the search is endless, and in his search both he and his wife find no end of variation in their own techniques.
Berkeley Daily Gazette
UC ‘Funkies' Overstated Mundanities
Written By: Bill C. Haigwood
“It's a groove to stick your finger down your throat and see what comes up.” Harold Paris, whose work is just one aspect of UC’s Funk Art exhibit, puts it where it is definitely at. Funk (fun? junk? according to Webster: “to shrink back in horror”) features gobs sheets and strips of every conceivable material and rubbish slapped together in the most out - of - context configurations imaginable (or convenient).
According to Peter Selz, University Art Museum director, the foundations of Funk are based in the nihilistic meanderings of the Dadaists and the more recent college techniques of Robert Raushenberg and Jasper Johns.
Paris seems to indicate the foundations of Funk to be less lofty, and as a “style,” while subject matter is exhaustively plentiful, the approach is, at best, amusing, at worst, insipid, and generally boring.
As components of some gigantic psychedelic nightmare, the works on view in the UC show are collectively effective in their provocation. But removed from this context (and one has merely to trip on over to the Richmond Art Center where an entire room of William Morehouse funkies grow like mushrooms) the conspicuous absence of “idea” reduces each work to the overstated mundanity it is.
There are some interesting offerings (not nearly breakthroughs, but interesting) from Paris, Berkeley sculptor Peter Voulkos, James Melchert and Bob Anderson, but these people are artists in their own right.
A more austere, controlled and exciting show of sculpture and hangings can been seen at the Orphan Gallery, 5809 College Ave. There the magnacite and wood structures of Franz Sandow slice up the air in shapes and relationships reminiscent of Henry Moore’s smooth marble and wood atmosphere-caressing exercises.
Sandow uses magnacite for its malleable workability and inevitable sturdiness, attaining balance of shapes in continuousseries of subtle connecting points. In this way he builds imposing and, to say the least, dynamic, sculptures which are strong, abstracted—and as clean as clockwork.
Sandow’s wife, Zahara Schatz (Sandow), is showing framed plane-studies along side the work of her husband, which reveal an approach particularly unique and explicit. By using sheets of screen, various colored plastics and fiberglass, she has constructed a frontal attack of visually colliding planes which form tier-like projections and versatile problems.
The stated end of Sandow is “understand and search for the cosmic truth in aesthetics.” He admits that the search is endless, and in his search both he and his wife find no end of variation in their own techniques.
Berkeley Daily Gazette