Page 33 - Studio Interantional - May 1967

desire for progress and of how far his innate mental
Sirius 1965, 68k x 68k in.
Orion Or 1963, Tapestry, 1031 x 978 in.
processes impel him upon a sort of horizontal flight
through space and matter.
This is where he gets his interest in architecture in
which he is eager to spread his ideas, for having learned
from Le Corbusier and the Bauhaus, he is burning to have
his say. He would like to introduce his alphabet into
HLM—type buildings, convinced that with the aid of
his coloured squares, 'immense housing estates will at
last emerge from their greyness into a style more suited
to our times. Why manufacture drab, mediocre or ugly
building materials ? Why not try to make beautiful paving
stones, cement, synthetic products ?4
`We live in an age beset with the twin problems of a world-
wide population explosion and growing technical com-
petence which will enable us gradually to meet the needs
of the masses at least so far as housing is concerned. The
artist should take part in this dialogue. His job is to
humanize technique and to beautify the commonplace.
How can all those daubers, bent over their metaphysical
drudgery and examining their own piffling little prob-
lems, manage to paint while millions of people are herded
into frightful barracks deprived of the sensory and plastic
pleasures which they so urgently need. While at the art
auctions masterpieces change vaults as fabulous sums
change hands, consciences learn to live with the cubic
deserts of the HLM. And yet the plastic arts are as neces-
sary to man as oxygen, as familiar to him as music or
rhythm. But today his taste is deliberately perverted. The
man in the street doesn't understand it any more.
`Fortunately he remains emotionally unspoiled and re-
acts spontaneously to the true and the just. We must
reintegrate what unites us into our common heritage.
`As not everyone has the opportunity to study contem-
porary art in depth, in place of 'understanding' I would
favour 'seeing'. Art must be made widely available—
among the crowds, the masses, the multitudes ! This is the
new dimension. Here is space unlimited ! Art is the plastic
aspect of the community'.
Despite Vasarely's eagerness to co-operate in archi-
tectural ventures, he has not, apart from too rare occa-
sions in Caracas and Paris, found town-planners willing
to work with him. He feels this bitterly. 'It infuriates
me that there's always room for rubbish but not for live
ideas. To me painting is no more than a means. My aim
is to introduce plastic awareness into everyday life. What
I offer is social welfare par excellence. But it takes subterfuge
and a great deal of tenacity to get it accepted. Merely
4 Fernand Leger was similarly preoccupied in 1949:
`I hit upon the idea of a multi-colour city while on leave during
the 1914-18 war. I met Trotsky in Montparnasse and he was very
keen on the idea. He talked about the possibility of a
multi-coloured Moscow...
`The coldness of the ground floor of a building for example could
be alleviated by colour. Even its apparent size can be altered.
The dank and dreary suburbs could be transformed into light
cheerful areas. During the 1937 exhibition I proposed using the
300,000 unemployed in Paris to create a "surprise happening"
for the visitors. A really white Paris and after dark, floodlights
drenching the city with vivid sweeping colours. Why not? My
project was not accepted.' (Functions de la peinture.)
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