Page 27 - Studio International - April 1965

individuals only to the extent that we declare our justify 'pop-art', or any kind of self-expression that dis-
differences, and we declare our differences by objectify- penses with style. Such non-art has been called 'the
ing them in gestures of various kinds. At a primitive art that looks sideways', which seems to be a confession
level such gestures may be merely a tone of voice, a of its evasiveness. We may agree that the label 'pop-
facial expression, an habitual posture or movement. But art" is misleading ; that 'the art in it is far from pop' and
if we wish to stabilise such expressions of individuality that 'the pop is there precisely because it is anti-art".
we create an object that bears their impress. Some What is meant by an art that is anti-art is really an art
works of art are no more than this : expressions of the that is completely lacking in style, and it is this personal
self, but we must always, as T. S. Eliot once told us, factor that certain artists now wish to sacrifice, without,
take care to have a self to express. More often, how- however, sacrificing the art market. Objects must still be
ever, we do not create objects whose sole purpose is to made because there is no traffic in subjective states of
represent a self: instead we represent the self in all we mind.
make, so that whether we are painting a picture or We are told in this same context, which is the intro-
building a house or making a chair, we leave some trace duction to the catalogue of an exhibition organised
of our uniqueness on what we make. That trace of our earlier last year by the Gulbenkian Foundation in Lon-
uniqueness is our style, and though we may be in- don, that there is 'a nostalgic admiration for the
fluenced by the manner in which other individuals have images that are undeniably common objects. Nothing is
expressed or are expressing their uniqueness, we are lower than a pictorial bubble-gum wrapper, yet it
judged to have a good style if we are true to our own possesses, effortlessly and automatically, of its nature,
self, our unique sensibility. the property that is most desired for art. The nostalgia
It is sometimes said that we can express the self merely mingles with another longing, the longing for material
by the selection we make of available images—that the that will be genuinely unacceptable and stick in the
quest for originality is a vain one and in any case a cultivated gullet as real art should. These requirements,
waste of effort. This is one of the excuses used to however sophisticated they may sound, are real needs.