Page 17 - Studio International - September 1967

respectable, reconciled. The alienation `Apparently they didn't hate that enough Another is that England's wealthy Jews,
persists. Only, the conflict has a different either.' There is very little contemporary when not totally Philistine, prefer to form
form. Traditionally the avant-gardist had a art of any consequence that doesn't risk collections which look as if they had been
masochistic relation to the bourgeois: he being hateful or despicable, from the in the family for two hundred years.
was despised and rejected, the object of embarrassing softness of Oldenburg to the Another reason, I suspect, is our passion
sneers and derision, a martyr, and the overblown banality of Morris to the for gardening, for this, it seems to me,
arrows of his outrageous gestures against remorseless tedium of Warhol's films. uses up the same kind of energy as goes
society hurt the bourgeoisie no more than The fact that acceptance of the new comes into art-collecting. It is possibly the more
the arrows of the Lilliputians hurt Gulliver, much faster than it did fifty years ago is honourable obsession of the two, is certainly
no more than the angry infant's punch or immaterial. At the time the thing is at least as creative. But it does leave our
slap hurts its complacent parent. Today it's done the risk of ridicule is still very real. artists working in something of a void.
the avant-gardist who has the whip hand. And though it's become smart to say that They may sell prodigiously to collectors
The bourgeois becomes the permissive ridicule is defunct, this is not entirely the abroad, they may sell the odd work to
parent, the artist the child who sees how case. Even in New York, as well as poor old museums at home but they don't get the
far he can go. swinging London, John Cage's performances satisfaction and stimulus of knowing that
For one thing, most collectors nowadays can still provoke reactions that call to mind in the society they belong to there are
live in flats with limited wall space and low the classic stories of the Banquet Years. It people who care to live with their work.
ceilings. Yet painters and sculptors work on is true that the public is not as Given this situation, and given the fairly
a bigger and bigger scale. They defy the complacent as it was, true that it generous funds which the public sector
collector to buy these impossible objects, welcomes the idea of novelty and shock. provides in one way or another for the
and if he does buy he is bullied by their But the shock when it comes still does shock. visual arts, it seems to me that the best way
overweening presence in his rooms. These The innovations of a Cage or a Warhol, a we can make amends is to spend a higher
objects don't fit in politely among the Johns, a Morris, an Oldenburg, so far proportion of those funds than we do now
furniture; they cannot be ignored, they from being mildly titillating eccentricities, on purchasing the work of living British
dominate the place. In a society as affluent demand a generosity of response that artists. Obviously, there are many
as the United States, the artist knows that still can't be taken for granted: they really worthwhile channels: exhibitions,
the money that the collector pays for his do make demands, sometimes for the sake publications, lectures, art schools (and,
works is no great sacrifice. He finds other of doing so. after all, their purpose is as much to
currencies in which to make the bourgeois The kind of relationship that exists support teachers as to train students). But
suffer for his love. between artist and patron now in America the best way of all to help artists—when
Extreme size is one of these currencies, may not be an ideal one, but it is viable, it art is a going concern, as it is in this country
extreme style is the other. Hence Pop Art. is stimulating. It has some bearing, I believe, today—is to buy their work and put it
Roy Lichtenstein once said: 'It was hard to on that quality in the best contemporary where it's seen. In practice this means, for
get a painting that was despicable enough Americans which tends to be lacking in example, that the Arts Council might
so that no one would hang it—everybody artists elsewhere today—their readiness to be spend more of its budget on its collections
was hanging everything. It was almost single-minded, uncompromising, not to and also that it might stop presenting
acceptable to hang a dripping paint rag, hedge their bets. sabbatical awards to artists and only
everybody was accustomed to this. The one In England there are no private patrons of give them something when it wants to
thing everybody hated was commercial art.' new art: to be precise there are about two. pay them the compliment of asking
And he had to conclude his statement: One obvious reason is that we're poorer. for their work in return.

Jack Hillier is an Orientalist whose field is Japanese Clement Greenberg has contributed to Art News, We regret that an article by Charles S. Spencer on art
art, in particular the printed art book and broadsheet Horizon, Art International and other journals and has in Israel has had to be held over due to lack of space.
form. His most recent book is Hokusai's Drawings, published, among others, books on Miró and Matisse.
published by Phaidon Press, London, last year. He has also exhibited at the Stable Gallery, New
York. His essay on Anthony Caro was first published
Douglas Hall is keeper of the Scottish National Gallery in the catalogue to the Anthony Caro exhibition at
of Modern Art. He studied at the Courtauld Institute. the Rijksmuseum Kroner-Muller earlier this year.