Page 44 - Studio International - December 1967

of Modern Art not acquiring a painting—until '60, ten ference of aesthetic responsibility. It was held by archi-
years after that. tects, and the title of the conference was `Who is responsible
The introduction also raised the question of the nature for ugliness' and `What is ugly?' My statement was:
of art and the idea of time settling the argument and time `The question if raised by "salesmen" of "beauty" is
telling. Actually, time doesn't do that at all, it's usually a ugly; the ugliest spectacle is that of artists selling them-
critic or an art writer. selves. Art as a commodity is an ugly idea. Art as an
entertainment is an ugly activity. Painting as a pro-
I want to read this short statement because I think it's fession of pleasing and selling is an ugly business. Art
the strongest statement I've made and it's the only state- dealing, art collecting, art manipulating, art jobbing, are
ment that I've made to the public. Otherwise it was ugly. Art as a means of livelihood or as a means of living
always a piece of writing that I had done, with inside it up is ugly. The expression "an artist has to eat" is ugly.
jokes and references that often could only be understood (And I did remark that an artist does not have to eat any
by people within the art world. I think that the cartoonist more than anyone else.) Economic relations in art are
Sol Steinberg said that I was dealing with problems that primitive and ugly. Artists once led less ugly lives than
only interested thirty people in the whole world. other men; today an artist leads the same kind of life as
I introduced my statement with the idea that abstract other men. The artist as businessman is uglier than the
painting was the freest and purest aesthetic statement in businessman as artist. The artist as a patronized idiot or
the twentieth century, freer and purer art than, say, innocent or company man or collector's item or eager
sculpture or architecture, any other art. I was taking an beaver is ugly. Knowing on which side one's bread is
extreme aesthetic position because this was the first con- buttered in art is ugly. Bumpkin Dionysianism or

Oil on canvas 1947
40x 32 i n.