Page 40 - Studio International - August 1966

is to be its creator. Without him there can be no work, itself, and the lesser the importance of the personality of
only the possibility of a work, and the possibilities and com- the maker.'
plexities of the work only become apparent when you The Group may be inclined to exaggerate the role of
make it yourself. In itself it is utterly simple—hence the the spectator at the expense of the artist. It is the artist
apparent thinness of these objects, and hence also the who determines the field of possibilities of the work, even
added pleasure in discovering complexity hidden in such if it is the spectator who explores them. But the spec-
simplicity. Of their 'Labyrinth' they say: it is 'deliber- tator is more deeply implicated in the work and its
ately directed towards the elimination of the distance impact is greater—he is inside the work, so to speak—by
between the spectator and the work of art. As this distance the very fact of bringing it into being. It is like the
disappears the greater becomes the interest of the work difference between reading a play to oneself and reading
it aloud with others, only it is more than that, because,
in one sense, the work does not exist until the spectator
acts (and will probably never exist again, since, the possi-
bilities being what they are, it is unrepeatable).
At the Indica show the range of spectator participa-
tion varied from merely setting a process in motion by
pressing a switch to rolling cricket-balls down a chute.
The former is hardly spectator participation in the sense
described above. Apart from the action of starting or
stopping the process, the spectator's role is that of an
observer, that is to say, passive. He has no more control
over what happens that the artist who programmed the
machine. Where the spectator was able to participate
actively, the results were not vastly rewarding. The
possibilities were too limited. It was fun to look through
Le Parc's Lunettes pour une vision autre, and the strange
effects were momentarily exciting. It was fun too to play
with Stein's Grand boulier giant-moyen no. 2 bis in which the
path of the coloured balls down the chute with its hazards
(holes and gates) could be varied by the force of propul-
sion. But I found only one work which made me feel
actively creative. That was Le Parc's Ensemble/cinq mouve-
ments/surprises. It was made up of sheets of metal or plastic,
Above
Joel Stein rings, and rattles. Each was controlled by a button and
Grand boulier géant-moyen continued to vibrate as long as the button was depressed.
no. 2 bis 1966 One could, therefore, play it like a musical instrument
Metal, wood, rubber,
aluminium and 'compose' visually and aurally. This opens up enor-
5 x 7 ft mous possibilities, but on the evidence of the Indica show
(I have not been to Venice) they have not been taken
Right
Sobrino beyond the stage of a seminal idea.
Espace indéfini B-U The Group believe that this is a kind of art that any-
Plexiglass one can participate in and appreciate. It is not esoteric.
3 x 2 ft
They headed one of their manifestos: Enough of Mystifica-
tion (Critics please take note.) 'There is', they said, 'no
more production exclusively for:
the cultivated eye
the sensitive eye
the intellectual eye
the aesthetic eye
the dilettante eye
THE HUMAN EYE is our point of departure.'
This may be a little optimistic. There was certainly
some mystification at Indica when I was there. Demysti-
fication will be necessary before spectators with our cul-
tural assumptions can get the point first time. Perhaps
children and 'other untutored persons' might have the
right approach. The 'human eye', like the innocent eye
and the noble savage, is a myth. Besides, when the
spectator has learnt to look at objects with the human
eye, will this not be an eye cultivated in a different
manner ?
What the Group mean is, I think, that they are not