This year`s offering by the International Center of Contemporary Art in Montreal goes a long way toward correcting the impression left by most large- scale group exhibitions.
Those that achieve the greatest coherence are organized around a medium rather than a theme, which was precisely the case in 1986, when the center brought together 44 artists, all of whom worked with light.
Now, however, the organizers have mounted three interlocking shows that take as their point of departure the theme of ”Stations”-which initially sounded less promising but in fact proves a remarkably clear exploration.
Claude Gosselin, executive director of the center, approached the theme both literally and mythically, insofar as his exhibition presents 19 installations that require actual sojourns or stops, while the other shows develop ideas based on the 14 Stations of the Cross. Overall, then, this is not an exploration of a spiritual theme as much as an interweaving of many different approaches, each given ample room in the 40,000-square-foot space of what has become the center`s traditional site, a shopping mall known as Place du Parc.
As before, the assembly is international, with 35 artists from eight countries. Canada and the United States are represented by the greatest number, 13 and 10, respectively. West Germany follows with five, France and Holland both with two, Austria, Italy and Switzerland with one each.
The number of works by the artists varies, though Italy`s Francesco Clemente presents the most, as one of the three exhibitions is devoted entirely to the first North American showing of his series of paintings ”The Fourteen Stations.”
This cycle took off from the Stations of the Cross, though despite its title, only 12 canvases were completed. When shown at the Whitechapel Gallery in London, which put the work on tour during 1983, there apparently were two additional canvases-a crucifixion of the artist and a portrait of Sin-but these are not exhibited here and are not represented as part of the cycle by the lenders, collectors Doris and Charles Saatchi.
Clemente`s ”Stations” provide an ideal beginning for the center`s exhibitions, as they set before us a human drama that only remotely follows Christ`s approach to the cross and entombment. Critic Michael Auping has suggested that the paintings are equally a reaction to Clemente`s move in the winter of 1981-82 to Lower Manhattan, an environment, which from all the pictorial evidence, was filled with dread.
In any case, for the first time Clemente then began to paint in oil, working predominantly at night. This plus his method of moving from one canvas to another, developing all of them simultaneously, perhaps accounts for the darkness of his palette, a characteristic unique to that period.
The imagery involves a combination of Christian symbols and autobiography, with the latter being non-specific except for occasional reflections of the Italian landscape. Clemente`s New York experience thus was internalized and presented artistically in a universal language akin to dreams or expressions of the collective unconscious.
No narrative may be followed from canvas to canvas; images of temptation and suffering are self-contained. For reasons not apparent, some of the pictures also were painted to allow for viewing upside-down, and in a single instance, Number VII, the canvas appears one way in the catalogue of the Saatchi collection and the other way at the present exhibition.
Clemente always has called himself a ”minor artist,” an assessment more accurate than modest, if based solely on his contributions here. Yet the fevered climate of these paintings registers with considerable force, owing in part to what follows, as Gosselin`s complement of installations is, in the main, coolly detached.
This was exactly his intent, to provide a group of works that demanded a degree of contemplation in excess of that normally accorded paintings in a museum or gallery setting. At each stop one is encouraged to interact with pieces more strongly formal and a bit removed from issues of the everyday.
James Turrell`s ”Danae,” a standout of the 1986 show, again gives an excellent introduction, even if the artist did not himself re-install the piece and its effects are, in consequence, not as finely tuned. Yet the keenness of perception the work represents splendidly prepares the viewer for such different (if equally contemplative) essays, as Sol LeWitt`s soft chapel- like room of wall drawings and Guido Molinari`s suite of six stripe paintings, all hard-edged and blazingly red.
The latter`s starkness finds a complement in the installation of black and white oil drums surrounded by evocations of the French tricolor, each wryly employing bathroom tiles by the champion of that medium, Jean-Pierre Raynaud. Like it or not, the work is more challenging than another crisp essay, by Gerhard Merz, which proves strong only if one has not seen his similiar piece at the current Documenta exhibition in West Germany.
Two other Germans, Hermann Pitz and Raimund Kummer, fare somewhat better. Pitz, who made an especially ephemeral work for Documenta, here provides photographic closeups of digital clocks, with titles mysteriously linking them to unseen people. Kummer, a sculptor with an eye for theater, offers a polished bronze floor piece holding a blood-red photograph fused to glass, perfectly placed under a rectangle of light that has a reverberant blue border.
Wall sculpture is Serge Lemoyne`s forte, having lashed together wrapped packages to form three huge triangles in homage to Christo and groups of early modern artists; a pity the pieces and homages look virtually interchangeable. No overt dedications give point to Ron Huebner`s assembly of objects, some of which are potent in themselves-a chair made of chalk, a bed of heart-shaped heating coils-but fail to show cumulative strength from having been brought together.
Michel Goulet`s installation of 24 eccentric chair castings arranged before an altarlike drafting table is also good theater but lacks the edge of, say, Peter Krausz`s humane protest (based on the writings of a Soviet dissident) or Rebecca Horn`s serene black pool spasmodically rippled by a pendulum that acts as an agent of menace.
Among the remaining artists-Jocelyne Alloucherie, Robert Adrian X, Daniel Buren, Jenny Holzer, Susan Schelle, Francoise Sullivan and Ian Wallace-the works of Adrian, Buren and Holzer are most effective, even if the latter two are (by other of the artists` works) relatively modest.
The surprise is guest-curator Roger Bellemare`s exhibition that returns to the 14 Stations of the Cross, illustrating them with pieces by contemporary artists who did not create them for that purpose. This effort required an added measure of discrimination to remain faithful to the spirit of the works and yet employ each of the ”Stations” to uncover embedded-and, very likely, undreamed of-associations.
Only one of the 14 artists, Marcel Lemyre, is less than persuasively matched to his particular ”Station,” but pieces by Arnulf Rainer, Bruce Naumann, Louise Bourgeois and Duane Michals prove unforgettable when seen under the respective headings of ”The Second Fall,” ”Nakedness,”
”Crucifixion” and ”Entombment.”
Some works-sculpture by Josef Felix Muller, paintings by Eric Fischl, Betty Goodwin and Leon Golub-appear more obviously illustrative. Others-by Marina and Ulay Abramovic, John Baldessari, Georg Baselitz, John Heward and Nancy Spero-also lower the emotional temperature. But as a whole the show succeeds against tremendous odds and in itself gives cause for a visit.
”Stations” continues at the International Center of Contemporary Art of Montreal, 3575 avenuedu Parc, through Nov. 1.
