Page 21 - Studio International - June 1967

very comfortable? The fact that the point is on top of that. And, somehow; on top of all more concerned with environments which
arguable both ways means that there is some- that they finally begin to move and make respond and live in a much more physical
thing here which can be looked into; that is, sense. sense. What I have in mind is the kind of free-
that we can't leave any single sense to operate Now I'm pushing this deal quite hard. I form, do-it-yourself environment which is
on its own. think it is by no means impossible that con- increasingly required, because we are a demo-
I think this is why we talk so much about templative art works will continue to exist, cracy, after all. The great monumental art-
environments nowadays. We are increasingly but that we shall increasingly recognize that object belongs to the top of a pyramidally
conscious of our multiple-input situation, and contemplative art works are, in fact, a kind conceived culture because only the total
a multiple input situation which is real does of licensed fetishism. concentration of all social efforts can support,
imply an environment of some complexity. It may often be that the contemplation of say, St Peter's in Rome, just as only this can
It's possible to make a big spiel about con- an art work involves loading more of our own support, say, the American moon programme.
crete poetry and say that it is both visual and anxieties and hopes and kinky little baroque To that extent monumental art needs a pyra-
verbal—of course it isn't, it only becomes bothers on the picture, rather than getting midal and hierarchic society. In a property-
verbal when it gets inside the mind. The inputs more and more of what the artist intended out owning democratic society, the private art
as such are only visual. I am sure this is one of it. The .whole situation of its isolation, its work obviously belongs, and has belonged
of the reasons why concrete poetry is so fre- separation from the real world and from its ever since bourgeois democracy got started.
quently disappointing or even derisory; that environment, is equally characteristic of; say, But in the more open kind of democratic
it isn't working at the multiple level that it's the private pin-up inside the lid of a soldier's society which a lot of people are fighting for,
alleged to be working at and falls below our ditty box in the Korean War, which has in one way and another, in books like Paul
environmental expectations. many ways the same function as a private Goodman's Growing up absurd with its long
Purely verbal, purely analytic demonstra- work of art in a private house, seen solely passage on the orgy as an art form, we shall be
tions of multiple input are not what this is within the confines of its frame. faced, apparently, with a culture in which
about. What this is about is the genuine mul- most manifestations of art will partake of the
tiple working of more than one of the senses. Art in a mobile culture nature of Happenings, the creation of situa-
The smell of an art gallery, he unmis- tions (almost in the sense promoted by the
takable smell of oil paint, or the equally So I think such things probably will persist. Internationale Situationniste) calling for inten-
unmistakable smells of the new synthetic Quiet moments are something that a lot of sive participation and intense response—call-
paints which are available nowadays, I'm people still need, and so this kind of private ing for the ability to be 'reached', as they
sure, make a considerable contribution to our art will continue to exist. But I think its say.
appreciation of painting. privacy will be increasingly emphasized, that These are situations of strong personal inter-
So does the unmistakable smell of sherry, inexplicable objects will play a larger part in action and belong to this kind of mobile—in all
let's face it. This is, I am convinced, one of the private environments and objects as such will (including metaphorical) senses of the word—
reasons why an exhibition doesn't look half play a smaller part in total environments. culture to which a great part of the world
so good on the day after the opening cere- Because the trouble with objects as such is is now straining. It expresses itself in things
mony. But this is a multiple and more com- that they don't live, except in the meta- like all the Aldermaston marches or Mods
plex situation because there are now other phorical sense. And we seem more and descending on a seaside town and breaking it
people involved in the environment. This too
is important.
It is historically true, as far as I know, that
the Happening in its original New York sense
is simply an outgrowth of what a marvellous A Manuscript of the 'Black and White-elemental, initiatory Backdrop:
party the opening of an exhibition often is. Subconscious abandon yourself to dreams and you will slowly
discover the mysterious paths which lead to the living
People realized that what is humanly valuable
essence of the Fantastic.
in 95 per cent of art exhibitions is not the art
In their loving caress of the Unknown, antennae-
works and how one responds to them but the hands feel the 'shape' moulded by the imagination,
knees-up on the opening night. So why not sky head above the tree tops, whose heart is the root-
just scrub the exhibition and have all these nourishing earth from which sap wells up towards
gorgeous, stupendous people doing these the conquest of perfection.
wild, freakish things and leave it at that? Resurgence; flashes of visionary light filter imper-
And then maybe, one of these days, we can ceptibly behind the Conscience.
find a way to get the arts back in again. Cataclysms in which archetypal symbols play out
This seems to be what's happening nowadays their totemic battles, give meaning to fascination.
Forms link in that plane of infinitesimal time below
with Round House raves and similar events.
which nothing can exist without disappearing for
You start with the Round House full of cool,
ever; time of shapes where space itself is per-
raving people leaning on their umbrellas and
sonified.
then you add to it, say, Mark Boyle squeezing Contorted shapes reflect the ferocious struggle of
bugs to death under a projector, and the the Species, projected onto new levels where Re-
good old State of California film on how to newal is a constant process; in the struggle of evolu-
become a junkie. Of course it's all telling you Alexandre lolas, the Paris gallery, recently tion life itself is at stake.
what a rotten thing it is to be a junkie, but exhibited drawings by Victor Brauner, the Incessant pilgrimage of the unconscious-engraved
everything you need to know is in that one Rumanian-born artist who contributed to for evermore on the aspirations of the creative mind.
movie. And then you have people pouring both the Ecole de Paris and the Surrealist Triumphant imagination will lay the foundations for
acid on olive oil and coloured inks in over- an ethic of freedom. On these new foundations we
shall build a language to bear our missionary mes-
head projectors, and you have, as Peter Cook movement. The exhibition was, in effect, a sage.
said, mildly erotic Japanese movies. But you minor retrospective, and included work by Wretched inhibitions will be vanquished by the
add the visual art works over and above a Brauner from 1925 onwards. The statement omnipotence of creative autarchy. Prohibitions,
layer of people, and then a layer of saturation `A Manuscript of the Subconscious', printed restrictions-all have been abolished; a grandiose
with sounds, and then the art works coming here, was written by Brauner in Jan uary1964. reality in which nothing is impossible shines ahead.'