ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the works of a number of formal painters (e.g. Robyn Denny and Richard Smith) who contributed to exhibitions of abstract paintings—Place (1959), Situation (1960), and IUA (International Union of Architects Congress on the South Bank 1961) in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Their works (paintings, collages, murals) are marked by a formal inventiveness in composition, scale, and display. Painterly forms are explored alongside graphic, photographic, and exhibition installations that evince interests in the sensual form of urban environment. By stressing the aesthetic considerations of image production, the discussion foregrounds the reflexive impulse of avant-garde image makers who set out to establish a correspondence between visual forms and forms of experience that characterise the urban environment. Specifically, the chapter shows how the visual practices of the avant-garde are informed by formalist attentions directed at modes of perceptions (spectatorship, modes of participation), patterns of response and sensibilities associated with urban living.
