Page 16 - Studio International - November 1967

COMMENT best of both worlds: Oldenburg is the most sort can really only be classified as having
impressive instance, making things as well
come off or not having come off, i.e.
as making things happen. But the general achieved something more than individuals
import is that the stable, storable work of put into it or not. This gives events a special
art has had it. sort of deadness, like sleeping only with
Maybe it has— art just keeps dying all the strangers; presumably it also yields a special
time and there have been historical acts of attraction, like the prospect of a desirable
mercy-killing and reductio ad absurdum to aid stranger. In contrast to the painter slogging
the natural cycle. Painting with paint was it out over a long period in the privacy of
killed by Picasso in 1912; the easel painting his studio, able to develop his work in the
as a valid object was killed off, again and presence— and the present— of work he has
again, by Mondrian. It is possible that the done already, the event maker works socially
more museums become dominant art and publicly, achieving socially his
Norbert Lynton patrons and art stores, and the more immediate reward, in a situation where the
painters and sculptors produce works which present only comes to life (possibly a more
only a museum could possibly want, the intense life) in the event itself, flanked by an
more the Fine Arts seem to be lowering ungraspable past and an undirected future.
We are witnessing a shift from objects to themselves into a common grave. The event maker eludes the pomp of art.
events. Hardly have we got used to works So one can see all sorts of attractive reasons I sympathize. Modern art has long had a
of art being objects rather than for putting on a happening of some sort, substantial clowning factor in it, but en
representations of objects, when there rather than producing a collection of art masse it does make a gloomy heap of
descends on us a veritable torrent of objects and struggling to get them shown heroism, Mosaic utterances, commercial
happenings, ephemeral environments stable and bought. The purely human attraction promotion and falsification, historical
or kinetic, son et lumière without benefit of must be considerable. Events of this kind aligning and patterning. He eludes the
history or romance, pyrotechnical displays are a communal activity where studio work phoney art public—or, at least, part of it.
and auto-destruction. is solitary. They spring from notions and He manages to elude most things in
The international art establishment of ideas that can be relatively untrammelled, fastening his attention on the event.
course plays its necessary and predictable and from a partly spontaneous interaction What he does not elude, alas, is the
role by taking no notice. The 1966 Venice between people, a complementary creativity show-biz image. This has its attractions, of
jury did make a brave subversive gesture that is potentially of deep emotional value. course, and painters and sculptors are not
against art objects by insisting on awarding They are a localized activity, non-portable, immune to them. There are a few historical
the main painting prize to Julio le Parc for non-exhibitable. But they can be advertised precedents for it. Taking a broad view, I
his friendly but sadly brittle array of optical and, afterwards, reported on, thus existing am convinced that this is where he and art
games, but all big prizes and exhibitions briefly in a halo of notoriety. But, though split up. He becomes an entertainer. But
and generally status-according occasions are the more star-studded and thus better whom, ultimately, does he entertain ?
still designed for paintings and sculptures publicized among them set off, from the Himself. In this he is different from the
and the things that come in the relatively West Coast to Cracow and Kyoto via Soho, professional entertainer, willing to use the
narrow gap in between. a scattering of imitations, each event is material of others for the entertainment of
The makers of gratuitous events don't merely itself, over and done with in its real others. He becomes a personality. Even
mind that, I am sure: the essence of the essence the moment the action has stopped. more than the occasional hero among the
thing is to be off-off-Broadway. The sharper This means they are not really discussable. object makers, he is likely to be seen (and
the division between them and the Depending by definition on chance factors to see himself) as a cult figure. And that
exhibition organizers, cataloguers, coffee- (mood, fertility of basic idea, fertility and means that, for lack of any visible work to
table book publishers, etc., the better. One complementarity of invention, accident, function as a corrective to his public image,
or two of them actually manage to get the audience stimulation, etc.), events of this he becomes his own art object. He should,

Contributors to this issue

Jasia Reichardt, assistant director of the Institute of John FitzMaurice Mills, a picture restorer for 20 years, Max Kozloff is art critic for The Nation in New York
Contemporary Arts, and Dore Ashton, American lectures for the Institutes of Education, Exeter and and a staff contributor to Artforum. In addition, he
writer and critic, are regular contributors to Studio Oxford Universities, and was press officer for the has published in several periodicals, such as Art
International. recent London Conference of the International News, and Arts. His book on Jasper Johns (Harry N.
Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Abrams, New York) will appear in the Spring of 1968.
Norbert Lynton, head of the school of art history at Works. His article in this issue was originally given as a
Chelsea College of Art, is art critic of The Guardian lecture at the Guggenheim Museum in Spring 1966.
and contributes to Art International, Cimaise, Quadrum Eva Tucker's novel Contact was published in 1966 by
and other journals. Calder & Boyars. She has just completed another Robert Lockwood is a critic and writer who recently
novel, Drowning, to be published in 1968. visited Greece.