Page 18 - Studio International - June 1967

Some notes on the Brighton Conference

Comment by Jasia Reichardt

A weekend conference in the visual arts compete with either the architecture or the will arrive at a broader set of references,
was organized towards the end of April, as flower beds and for a time the fate of art interests and commitments, and will tend
a part of the Brighton Festival. The subject looked very bleak indeed, culminating in to diffuse his energies and abilities over a
was The Future of the Visual Arts, or more Joseph Rykwert's comment on the 'crises wider area. As a prediction, Millichip's
specifically the next twenty-five years. The of attention' when he pointed out that art comment is rational enough. With the
conference was divided into three sessions, has become a peripheral experience, to be increased uses of technological media the
chaired by Sir Roland Penrose and Edward touched, looked at marginally, and ignored. necessity for team work will undoubtedly
Lucie-Smith, with two or three initial The discussion revolved around the arise; collaboration with others will in
speakers followed by contributions from the spectator's expectation that he will be turn force the artist to look farther afield.
floor. The sessions were on: Environments subject to a revelatory experience without Millichip's idea is a broad generalization,
total and personal, The artist of the future, any effort on his part, and the general and indeed it could hardly be more specific,
and The religion of the new. .unwillingmess to bring experience and unless one were to predict the general
During the first session art appeared very receptiveness to bear on what could be a appearance of the works that will be
much as an orphaned cousin. After fruitful dialogue between the spectator and produced. In his opening speech Reyner
announcing the sad news that Love, Beauty the art object. Banham stated categorically that what can
and Passion (the three-towered concrete Since the theme of the conference dealt be predicted is not art since one of the
poem by Ken Cox which was floating off with the future of the visual arts one might criteria of art is to surprise us and to extend
the pier) had sunk, Reyner Banham have expected strange, outrageous our experience into hitherto unforeseen
opened the discussion with some of the most predictions. Joe Tilson looked up the fate territories. In one sense Banham is
controversial statements made during the of art in I Ching: the Book of Changes, which obviously right. If one were to describe a
conference. Speaking as a professional ironically enough produced the following work in great detail and that work or object
consumer of the art process, he dismissed comment: 'It furthers one to have some- were produced some ten years hence, it
the visual experience as an entity on its where to go'. Conjectures about the future does not, and cannot, follow that the object
own and foresaw the art object of the future of the arts belong to the realm of a very will turn out to be a work of art. George
as playing a smaller part in larger environ- special imagination, and therefore it is not MacBeth, on the other hand, argued the
ments, going on to say that contemplative surprising that no definite predictions were opposite by describing his own idea for
art works will become licensed fetichism. made, with the exception of a proposal making a work of art in the future. The
Sir Hugh Casson felt, however, that one must from Paul Millichip which happened to work MacBeth referred to is what he has
not underrate innate human covetousness be the final comment of the entire con- called a 'Z analysis' of Paradise Lost, or,
and that the possession of works of art as a ference. Millichip foresaw a trend towards the entire repertoire of Zs from Milton's
testimony of cultural inclinations will lead the more extensive development of the artist work extracted and printed in a separate
to the rejection of the environmental art as a maker of environments and as a member volume. We thus know what he is going to
experience for which there is nothing to of a team engaged in a specific pursuit. make, we also know that he is making it
show afterwards. It was generally agreed The artist of the future, he said, will be with the intention of creating an art object;
that the exhibits in Brighton could not more capable of working with others and what we don't know is whether the work will

Contributors to this issue

Jasia Reichardt, assistant director of the Institute of exhibitions, including the Gulbenkian exhibition at Kevin Gough-Yates writes on films for Sight and
Contemporary Arts, Edward Lucie-Smith, poet and the Tate Gallery in 1964 and the Dubuffet retrospec- Sound, and lectures at the British Film Institute.
critic and Dore Ashton, American writer and critic tive last year.
are regular contributors to Studio International. Marcello Salvadori was born In Florence in 1928. He
John Piper was born in 1903. He was a member of the had his first one-man show using new materials In
Mark Glazebrook read history at Cambridge, and 7 & 5 Society In 1932-5. He played a considerable part 1955. He founded the Centre For Advanced Study of
studied at Oscar Kokoschka's Summer School at in the Romantic revival of the late thirties, both as Science In Art in 1961, together with Erica Marx.
Salzburg and at the Slade. He now teaches art history painter and draughtsman. Since the War he has been
at Maidstone College of Art. notable for work in which his fine eye for scenery and Fidel A. Daniell is a teacher, writer and painter in
architecture is combined with great technical ability. Los Angeles. He has covered the Southern California
Alan Bowness is senior lecturer In the history of Recently his interest in English stained-glass has led art scene for Artforum for four years and has con-
19th and 20th century art at the Courtauld Institute, to his direct involvement in this medium. tributed to Art News and Arts/Canada Newsletter.
University of London. He has helped arrange many
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