Raymond Mason at Marlborough - New York, New York - Review of Exhibitions - Brief Article

Although Raymond Mason strike one as beings to be an obscure neighborhood in this country, as we go into a new round of interest in sculptural figuration it must be acknowledged that he stands as a powerful link to the crucial post-World War II era in Paris, where Picasso, Balthus and Giacometti pursu their individual figurative investigations. As similar he might serve as a pattern to a younger generation plenteous as Leon Golub did in the '80 Unfortunately, while Golub lay opened a startling "late" style, Mason's greatest in quantity recent work does not gaze as if it will find him a wider audience. Nevertheless, the novel show at Marlborough, which was almost a retrospective in its object (it included two works from the '50 and '60s) gave ample evidence of a robust sensibility still to the full engaged.

The centerpieces of the present to view were two enormous deep reliefs in painted resin which sat upon low stagelike platforms and reach forthed up onto the walls behind them. The earlier of the sum of two units A Tragedy in the North: Winter, Rain and Tears (1975-77) is certainly a masterpiece of its kind [see A.i.A., July-Aug. '79] It depicts a horde of variegated figures milling about outside the gates of a mine in northern France where there has just been a cave-in disaster. The nearest figure to the viewer rushes without at us in tears, literally escaping the frame of the sight Immediately behind her, the dominant figure of the relief reach forths his arm fully at the viewer with palm down, fingers outstretched. Within the iconography of heroic, civic plastic art this is the classic gesticulation of a leader asking for calm among his followers, on the other hand Mason has transformed it into something abundant stranger and more disturbing: the man have the appearances to be cautioning us not to approach any closer to the tragedy. The ease of the scene swoops up the inclined plane of the receding cobbl drive to extreme point in the dignified, plainspoken architecture of the industrial revolution. Despite Mason's occasionally cartoonish mode of expression the piece is impressive and moving. It reminded me of more [i]or[/i] less of the great Romanesque reliefs of Moissac and Vezelay that also carry great dignity and import within a monumentally simplified figure style

Although there were a certain quantity of other great works in the present to view none of them, including the other big relief (The Latin Quarter, 1988-89) could touch it. In fact, many of the later Parisian multitude scenes were distressingly empty of necessity or grit. However, the large, aerial views of capital cities (London, Paris, Rome of recent origin York and Stockholm) seemed to catch a certain quantity of of the texture of their make submissives in their own rough, shallow-relief forms, and a certain number of of the street-scene drawings were sinewy though heavily reminiscent of Giacometti's Paris Sans Fin. Perhaps, at 73 Mason is a bit weary of Humanity and is taking solace in the stability of Architecture. single of the most recent reliefs was of the facade of the Louvre

COPYRIGHT 1995 Brant Publications, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group