Supreme virtuoso shows his style

By T.J. McNAMARA

There is a superb exhibition in Auckland at the moment that any city in the world would be proud to host. The exhibition by Greer Twiss at the New Gallery until June 2 is a selection of the work of a sculptor who has spent almost his entire life in this country and who is famous as a teacher. It contains much that is symbolic, enigmatic and puzzling. Among the splendid, solemn images by Colin McCahon at the Gow Langsford Gallery (until April 5) first use is made of a poem by Peter Hooper that re-occurs in the Twiss show. It is a tablet on the staircase that leads to the second floor. It says:

Poetry ... is in the direction I am pointing

If you are appalled by that

Stick to the guided tour.

The many directions Twiss' work points to are founded in his life and in his long teaching career. He seems always to have been part of the Auckland scene, if only because his highly original sculpture at the corner of Karangahape Rd and Symonds St which was once so controversial has become familiar enough to be neglected.

In the exhibition at the New Gallery the tablet with the poem is on the landing to the second floor and opposite a curtain moulded in lead. The reality and the contradictory artifice of this curtain which is both sculptural and deeply disturbing is the key to this whole fascinating show. Realism is everywhere but sculptural values, weight, presence and space shaping, art as well as nature, are always apparent.

The show is beautifully displayed. It begins downstairs with a work that has teaching blackboards, a light, a clock and a gallows and it is called Te Papa. Also on the ground floor is an intensely moving work. Done in 1986 at the height of concern over nuclear testing and also linked to personal tragedy of fire, death and destruction, it is called No Sun, No Rain, No Radiation. It shows a tent made of lead which may or may not protect from radiation, a burned teddy bear and the remnants of a model plane. The bear and the plane could easily be sentimental and forced. In Twiss' grim, grey medium they move beyond easy sentiment in a true sadness. At the end of the work is an easel propped by a big pole - the artist is trying to make sense of it all.

Upstairs, past the poem, past the curtain, there is a huge work devoted to the heroic nature of the spirit of the Renaissance artist. Brunelleschi's great dome in Florence is moulded in lead and there is a bell tower reaching up beside it. Alongside this is an artist seated at a table, dreaming his visions of topless towers and balloons. He wears an apron which emphasises that artists are also artisans - makers.

In the next gallery there are beautiful little bronzes that Twiss made in the early part of his career: lovely things like Handstand,1962, full of energy and balance, and Acrobat, 1976, a splendid work where the pole of the tightrope walker gives point to the whole work.

These works share the room with works such as Patriots, a group collectively moving forward, full of energy, worshipping a banner but with more than a hint that it may be misapplied energy.

It is in this room, too, that we have the works that show an intense physicality, full of the tactile sensations of touch and the stronger sensations of pulling, tensioning and stress.

The albatross is used as a symbol of the free spirit. An albatross locked in a frame is called Flight Trainer. It both supports and handicaps.

As you pass beyond the formal works of rods and clamps into the room that is the site for I Have Everything to Declare you find both the artist's soul and processes. Sadly, the albatross is rigid beside the riveter, the square, the bottles and the grinder.

This emphasis in the process of art is also part of Show and Tell where there is a realistic rose against a screen posed beside the artist's spectacles with which he sees the world and an axe that suggests his anger. This concentration on process produces, in the last room of the exhibition, a superb installation that quite outdoes any work of the kind seen in Auckland for many years. It is a re-creation of the artist's studio, full of fascinating things: a metal crocodile that might have adorned an alchemist's cellar, cabinets of curiosities alongside an oxyacetylene torch. There is an interplay of what is real and what is art. It is a magical discussion of art and inspiration.