Page 45 - Studio International - January 1965

Paris commentary

Poliakoff insects. a kind of zoology with shapes of botanic Wolman) has signed an armistice to show with the
Composition abstracte, 1 964 ambiguity as with Germaine Richier. the lines inter­ others. but not without insulting them copiously in the
Galerie de France
mingle but in a neat. clean style. without romanticism. catalogue; for the reciprocal excommunication and the
Now it is time to come to the Lettristes. who are internal discord provide the fuel of the movement
impatient For a long time resolute to reduce to their But all are in accord with the basic principle to express
terms. the critics. the dealers. France and the entire poetically and plastically. through the sole recourse to
world. resorting to night telephone calls to reticent the chosen resources of the letter and of the alphabet.
critics. to individual listing of their enemies· names and of the ideogram and of the hieroglyphics. in combining
to public address. the Lettristes have just gained a in coding and decoding ad infinitum. these elements in
position of importance in crossing the threshold of all possible systems of notation and writing.
the Galerie Stadler. In installing themselves there. For they paint also. the Lettristes and sculpt When
with the complicity of Michel Tapie. on the gallery several years ago in Italy and in France. (notably at the
walls. they have had a kind of revenge. Galerie du Fleuve) a new tendency to incorporate the
This position they have not conquered like a charge of signs and graffiti in abstract painting (Novelli. Twombly
cavalry but after a long-winded progression through etc.) there was a great outcry. The Lettristes called
less and less obscure galleries in the same quarter. 'thief and began to exhibit most notably at the Salon
These furious Mandarins of the letter and the sign call 'Comparaisons· to demonstrate their prior claim.
themselves Pomerand. Roberdhay, Sabatier. Spacagna Today they reproach the critics for having ignored
and especially Isidore lsou and Maurice Lemaitre. two them when they were unknown and in difficulties.
of them recognisable by a striking mixture of sweetness A good polemic a:gument but with erroneous
and roaring aggression. The dissident trio of the imputation: if one speaks today of the Lettristes. is it
· Deuxieme internationale lettriste' ( Brau. Dufrene. p3rhaps because they have made progress. ■

33