Pete Townshend was at one point a student of Robin Page. Robin is a huge, manic, raging, Rabelaisian figure who puts himself forward in a persona he now calls "Bluebeard." He did a piece many years before The Who in which he dragged a guitar around a block until it disintegrated. Robin showed up at the Fluxus exhibition at the Biennal of Venice, the only one he had come to in ages. He exhibited his Bluebeard paintings. These were magnificent spoofs of movie posters and political posters in which Bluebeard ranted against the foibles and prejudices of the art world. The facial expressions of the painted Bluebeards were marvelous. They were filled anger, rage, wrath, greed, indignation. The painted Bluebeard offered a visual Jeremiad on the art world though facial expressions in a catalogue of harsh emotion. One could read every one of Shakespeare's sometimes-harsh heroes or nasty villains in those faces -- Prospero, Lear, Mac Beth, Shylock, with a little John Falstaff thrown in and a dash of Pistol and Nym. As strange and towering as the paintings were, Robin himself drove a lot of the other artists crazy. Robin has also dyed his own beard blue, and he acts out in word and deed many of the emotions in his paintings. Whats seems a majestic rant on stage or canvas is far less appealing ranted in your face for five or six days in close personal contact. Some didn't like the representational aspect of his art. Others found it grating that he seemed to identify many among the rest of us with the art world, and he vented his spleen in roaring streams and torrents of invective. At first, people were delighted that he had come to Venice. Those who had never met him before were especially interested to met him. Some of us really enjoyed the work. I have a fondness for movie posters and political campaign posters, and the paintings really bowled me over. But, then, I've always thought that anything can fit the Fluxus context, and once in a while, anything can even stretch to include representational painting. Ben Vautier -- who met Robin first at the Festival of Misfits in London in 1962 -- also seemed delighted he had come. Ben is known for wide ranging intellectual curiosity and tolerance. He criticizes everything, including himself. He views life as a grand panorama. He loves many of those whom he criticizes even as he sees their flaws. Other people began to conflate Robin's destructive persona with his art. Before long, the endless rant, echoed by a small coterie of young artists he had brought with him. This was a cadre of seemingly post-punk, pre-Millennial, semi-Nomad types, pierced and tattooed, wearing fright wigs and Kingfisher cuts. No one knew what they did as artists. As presences in Venice, they served as Chorus to Robin's Ranting Hero, echoing the rant and rage without embodying his accomplishments or virtues as an artist. After a while, the commotion and anger began to wear people out. They just didn't want to be around him. When I last spoke to him, he felt he had been snubbed and blackballed by the other Fluxus artists without understanding why people found it stressful to be around him. So it goes. Even so, I gather he was a talented teacher. I note that those students of his whom I seen or known personally adopted many of his splenetic qualities. These qualities include a tendency to produce extraodinary and often interesting destructive works. They also include a tendency toward harsh personal behavior, cynicism that is not always warranted, and vitriolic language. Ken Friedman --
