Page 64 - Studio International - November 1966

Marketing techniques in the

promotion of art

Americans have pushed the technique of packaging to has supplied us with many definitions, most of them
such perfection that even the government is worried. Con- packaged so that the catchy label sticks in the memory.
gress has been debating a bill which could require manu- This year, he hastens to put the stamp of approval on a
facturers to modify their claims and design their packages rather obvious phenomenon— the reaction against Ab-
so that they are more in keeping with what they contain. stract Expressionism—by coining yet another term:
The merchandising mentality is too pervasive, however, systemic painting. •
for any legislative action to make a difference. Sociolo- Systemic painting, according to Alloway's introduction
gists have been warning us for years about the dangers of to the GUGGENHEIM exhibition, is many things, but it is •
excessive reliance on slogans, brand names, and pre- above all 'conceptual' : 'In all these works, the end-state-
established 'choices'. Certain sociologists, notably the late of the painting is known prior to completion.'
C. Wright Mills, attempted to show how deeply merchan- While Alloway's catalogue essay goes into minute detail
dising technique has tinctured American cultural life. and subtly evades the snares emphatic definition holds for
In an article on designers, 'The Man in the Middle', the critic, his title is what counts. Few will plough through -
Mills sketched the method of the 'cultural apparatus' in his historicizing essay, which is mostly an analysis of other
making society 'a great salesroom'. He pointed to the critics' packages, but many will come away with the idea
middle-man (designer, in this case, but we can substitute that there is a new, fully developed movement of 'Sys-
critic, professor and museum director) as a willing victim temic Painting'.
of the system. Tor most of what we call solid fact, sound Alloway's rundown of other labels is instructive. He dis-

interpretation, suitable presentation, we are increasingly cusses Abstract Imagist painting; Field painting; Hard-
dependent upon the observation posts, the interpretation Edge painting; Post-Painterly Abstraction; One-Image
centres, the presentation depots of the cultural appara- Art (Alloway's own invention) ; Primary Structure; and
tus.' These interpretation centres tend, increasingly, to Concrete Expressionism. All of these sobriquets are of
offer to consumers brands and trade-marks, slogans and recent origin, and are evaluated by Alloway in a pains-
packages designed to give a commodity 'a fictitious taking systematic examination. Yet the detached schol-
individuality'. arly language and the formidable battery of footnotes do
The process speeds up as a larger consumer group is arti- not obscure the fact that Alloway is selling something, as
ficially established, and we get by-products such as are all classifiers and labellers. What they are selling is a
obsolescence, particularly what Mills called 'status obso- smart, new way to approach a brief experience—the •
lescence' : 'The very canons of taste and judgement are exhibition. By the time the provinces have had the good
managed by status obsolescence and by contrived fashion. word, Alloway et al. will have issued new coinage.
The formula is: to make people ashamed of last year's His exhibition is definitely conceived as a sampling, a
model; to hook-up self-esteem itself with the purchasing graphic illustration of his thesis. Each of the twenty-eight •
of this year's; to create a panic for status, and hence a artists is represented by only one work. In many instances
panic of self-evaluation, and to connect its relief with the it doesn't much matter since large one-man shows have
consumption of specified commodities.' been seen within months of this show (and in one case—
If the laws of supply and demand hold true in the realm that of Neil Williams—the show is concurrent with the
of culture, it is obvious that the dependence on interpre- Guggenheim exhibition). All this co-ordination and
tation centres is growing. The consumption of cultural timing is worthy of the best promotion agencies.
products is up, but independent experience is down. From a packaging point of view, an exhibition without a
Brand names and slogans proliferate, but deep compre- title has little value. If a museum curator were to present
hension dwindles. While I would like to think that some recent paintings that he thought had merit without
ultimately an artist is immune to the pressures of Mills' the commanding power of a title, he would find himself •
`culture apparatus', I am forced to acknowledge that his in an awkward position. In this case, if several works by
analyses of marketing in a monopolistic capitalist society fewer artists had been presented, the impression of a •
can all too easily be applied to the arts. sweeping new movement would be dissipated. Yet one of
The art public evidently needs its brand names, and the the artists in this exhibition is quoted as desiring 'a deeply
middle-men are quick to supply them. No one has been experienced participation with the work' —a transaction
more obliging than Lawrence Alloway on this score. that one work out of twenty-eight is not likely to inspire.
Alloway, whose critical apparatus is impressive, cannot What is in the systemic package? For the most part, the
resist the allure of the label. During the past ten years he paintings in the exhibition bear classification as 'con-