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Bold, simple shapes say it all

Bold, simple shapes say it all
Rhonda Dredge

Cool, hard edge abstraction is on show across Melbourne as six galleries respond to the re-enactment of a famous 1968 exhibition at the NGV, known as The Field.

The original show is seen as a pivotal moment in the culture of Melbourne when a parochial form of painting was challenged by a strict aesthetic movement from overseas.

Hard edge abstraction makes demands upon a painter.

The traditional division between figure and ground is abolished and a fluid medium is forced into large flat areas divided geometrically from each other.

The Field was the first exhibition put on at the new NGV in St Kilda Rd. The Roy Grounds building was contentious with its monumental forms and so was the exhibition, which polarised critics then and is still doing so today.

What makes the The Field so contentious? The answer lies, ironically, in its success. Many of the young artists, curators and writers involved in the exhibition went on to become major players in the Australian art scene.

The trouble is that most of those players were men. Future NGV director Patrick McCaughy wrote one of the essays for the original catalogue. “Painting and sculpture develop more quickly than their audience,” was his opening salvo.

Artists were more concerned with proving that they were up with the avant-garde than gender politics and John Stringer, the exhibition officer who curated the show, had been to New York and visited Andy Warhol’s factory, hence his choice of silver walls.

Abstraction was a religion then just as it is today, perhaps blinding some to wider issues. At stake was the promotion of a movement defined against the Antipodean figurative style being championed by the old guard, including art historian Bernard Smith.

Abstractionists were opposed to the imposition of nationalistic narratives on their work, seeing their paintings as providing a visual experience for the viewer unmediated by the presence of the human hand or heart.

“Size, purity of colour and impeccable finish made them unsuited to the bumps and surges of daily life,” said Janet Dawson, whose Rollascope 2 was painted on bold curved shapes of composition board. A painting could be ruined by a drip of soup on its perfect surface.

Some paintings such as future Age art critic Robert Rooney’s kind-hearted kitchen garden were based on a grid while others relied on the build-up of layers of paint. The new acrylic paints were fast drying and lent themselves to clean lines.

There is strong circumstantial evidence that female painters were overlooked by curators. Just three were included in a cast of 40 and a protest is being staged 50 years later at True Estate Gallery in Brunswick, led by blogger Natty Solo and the Women’s Art Register with some natty (pardon the pun) posters, one titled We Woz Robbed.

Margaret Worth shared a studio with Sydney Ball, one of the original 40, yet wasn’t included. Two of her classic 1960s hard edge works are on show at Charles Nodrum gallery, along with paintings by Margaret Dredge, also working vigorously in the style at the time of the original show.

The art world was perhaps more retrained in its protest in the 1960s and those excluded channeled their frustrations into their next work. Post-painterly abstraction was demanding in its adherence to strict rules and before long splatters of paint and pourings heralded in a new style.

There is a sense of freedom in playing with genre and, judging by the crowds arriving at gallery openings around town, viewers and buyers still love hard edge. It is brash, colourful, optimistic and looks great on the wall.

Not all of the works from the original show survive. Normana Wright cut up her painting into small pieces and burnt it but she recreated it for the re-enactment and there it is again in its lovely curves of grey extending up the wall like two over-sized buckets.

In post-painterly abstraction, bold, simple shapes say it all.

The Field Revisited, NGV, until 26 August. Responses can be seen at True Estate, Langford Gallery, Stephen McClaughlin, Five Walls and Nicholas Thompson Gallery.

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