270
PARTISAN REVIEW
massive blocks have been emptied out. The enveloping stone becomes a
wall-cum-skin-cum-mantle, in an emphasis on exteriorness that is height–
ened by Isherwood's quasi-painterly exploration of variations in inflection
and texture. These surface changes result in variations of edges, hence of
drawing, and of color. Sometimes, the interiors of the blocks are flooded
with light, so that a suggestion of an infinitely desirable, intangible, illu–
minated, but hidden space invites us to move mentally through the
narrow passage into the (usually unseen) hollow center of the sculpture.
Scale shifts; the minimally inflected blocks initially seem to allude to ar–
chitecture, but some also seem to refer to the body, particularly the
female body. A sculpture with a suggestive curved aperture beneath a
rough- hewn vertical slot seemed at once temple and torso, with a nod at
Brancusi's
Kiss.
The contradiction between the obvious weight and bulk
of the stone, which still retains vivid evidence of the original, unworked
block, and our hard-won knowledge of the internal void makes Isher–
wood's best works extremely provocative. He is a young artist to watch
with interest.
The most overrated show of the season was probably Ellen Gal–
lagher's at Mary Boone. The paintings paid homage to Agnes Martin with
their elegant, pale expanses and blocks of meticulous, repetitive drawing.
When you looked closely, the obsessive marks resolved themselves as a
vaguely tribal patterning interrupted by a sort of bead motif, rather than
the gridding you would find in a Martin, but the general effect was styl–
ish, cool, and essentially derivative. Yet, we were told, those minuscule
ovoids and geometric dashes were actually references to African–
American experience, shamanism, racial oppression, and all the rest of it,
and according to at least one reviewer, this gave Gallagher's otherwise
unremarkable, albeit handsome, tasteful pictures cosmic importance.
Could anyone who actually saw the show really believe this?
Meyer Schapiro
An Early Friend and Contributor
1904-1996