Page 36 - Studio International - February 1967

Environmental art

'Kinetic works automatically form part of our environment, since they involve the spectator in direct
physiological action or reaction. . . The spectator is aware of his own motor responses in the dialogue.'

Stephen Bann

Is there any need to talk about Environmental Art? Or, intermediary between the canvas and the world, which
in other words, does this term point to a classification that sometimes appears to belong to us, and sometimes to the
is necessary or at least useful at the present stage of de- implausible shape on the canvas. It is a roving ambassa-
velopment in the arts? My answer is qualified, and the dor in Rauschenberg's 'gap between art and life'. An
qualifications arise because it seems necessary to insist analogy might be made with the paintings of J. R. Soto,
first of all upon two basic distinctions. which also depend on the interaction of an illusionistic
The first necessity is to distinguish between two ways in ground and the 'real' objects which hang in front of it.
which the work of art may be related to our environment. Where Jim Dine's effect depends on our knowledge of
These are roughly conveyed in the traditional antithesis pictorial conventions, Soto simply uses the disposition of
between Classical and Romantic. It might be said that, the human retina. Jim Dine succeeds in immobilizing us,
while the Classical artist presumes an established har- by presenting a combination that makes nonsense of the
mony between the forms in the work of art and those in common-sense implications of pictorial perspective. Soto,
the outside world, the Romantic is aware of a dispropor- on the other hand, makes us aware of our mobility, since
tion. The Classical artist knows what place his artifact it is only by passing in front of the work that we can
will occupy, while the Romantic must continually call appreciate its delicate spatial structure.
the established system into question. The notion of Environmental Art could therefore be
It is this distinction which seems to me to have been neg- applied to at least two different kinds of work, the
lected in some discussions of the relationship of the work `anxious' object which shows us a disproportion between
of art to our environment. For example, a recent review the work of art and our environment, and, to reverse
in The Times Literary Supplement referred to the Journée Rosenberg's terminology, the 'secure' object which serves
dans la rue arranged in Paris by the Groupe Recherche as a natural extension to our exploration of space.
d'Art Visuel as an example of the growing popularity of Obviously it is the second category which presents the
the 'Happening'. On the surface this seems a plausible widest range of possibilities. The Pop artist works through
connexion. But in fact the difference between the aim of existing media of representation, since his work almost
the 'Happening' and that implied in the programme of inevitably depends on a tension between the object and
the G.R.A.V. is hardly less than the difference between how it is conveyed. In practice he is confined to isolated
Romantic and Classical. The G.R.A.V. demonstration works of painting or sculpture. A notable exception to this
consisted of a number of projects placed at strategic rule is the work of Claes Oldenburg, who filled a recent
places throughout Paris. Some of these, such as the exhibition at the ILEANA SONNABEND GALLERY with sculp-
Passage accidenté of unstable wooden blocks, had already ted meat on rows of marble shelves—as it might have
been used in their indoor `Labyrinthes'. The aim of all of appeared in a Parisian butcher's shop. But Oldenburg is
them was to engage the spectator in a dialogue, to allow concerned not so much with environment as with context.
him to develop a reciprocal relationship with the work or In his work the act of representation becomes a kind of
`proposition'. The spectator could test the possibilities of ostranenie (or 'placing out of context'). The plaster-cast
the work, and even if it gave rise to an unexpected situa- meat and the plastic typewriter are inherently prepos-
tion he could adjust to this. With the Happening, on the terous because they are so blatantly remote from their
other hand, there is no dialogue. The effects of chance are original functions. Oldenburg's larger projects transpose
welcomed, and the occasion cannot be repeated. The this ostranenie on to a monumental scale, but in this way it
Happening exists, as Jean-Jacques Lebel graphically put becomes even clearer that Oldenburg is not concerned
it, 'to conjure the spirit of catastrophe'. with real space—he is in fact throwing a spanner into the
This distinction operates in a more general way between machinery of our environment, as he reveals when he asks
the particular fields of Kinetic and Pop art. Both are for 'little obstructional monuments on the sidewalks'.
concerned with sending a special resonance into our en- For the kinetic artist, on the other hand, there is no
vironment. Both lay great emphasis on the role of the problem of context, no obstacle to the free elaboration of
spectator. But the relationships established between spec- forms within space. Kinetic works automatically form
tator and work are of an entirely different order. If Jim part of our environment, since they involve the spectator
Dine includes a real bowler hat and a bowler hat painted in direct physiological action or reaction. Whether it is a
according to the laws of perspective in the same composi- matter of virtual, actual or induced movement, the spec-
tion, he is undoubtedly making a point about the relation- tator is aware of his own motor responses in the dialogue.
ship of art to environment. The 'real' bowler is an Yet there would clearly be no advantage in using the