Page 44 - Studio International - April 1968

Your interest in the plastic arts would seem No. At present, you might say my interest is
Anti-humanism to parallel your perspectives in literature, or that of the spectator. But the participation of
in art anti-literature. Would you agree? the spectator in modern art, in the plastic
Yes. But all the same one must not confuse arts, is a creative one. One doesn't look at a
the plastic arts with literature, surely. That is, pop art painting in the way one looks at a
it's not from the literary point of view that I painting by Rembrandt. It's as though the
take an interest in the plastic arts. I have done Rembrandt painting were finished, were
Alain Robbe-Grillet painting myself for a fairly long time; what closed upon itself, and as though there were
in an interview with one might call paintings in the vague sense no place for the spectator. While, on the con­
Paul Schwartz of the word. That is, on the one hand, easel trary, for modern art as for the modern film
paintings when I was very young, oil painting the participation can be called formative. As
on canvas, and on the other hand, formal though the indicated or the directly inscribed
compositions with materials linked either to elements in the work had need of the specta­
Pop Art or to sculpture concrete with raw tor in order to live. The famous phrase of
materials, /'Art Brut. I still say to myself that Marcel Duchamp, that it is the viewers who
perhaps, later, I will suddenly take up what make the painting, this completely changes
they call les tableaux. Do they still call them the rapport between the author and specta­
that? tor, and this is just what contemporary
viewers so often misunderstand. They mis­
It still sometimes happens. But are you understand because they simply confront a
continuing? work, and this is true in all areas of creation.

Contributors to this issue Alain Robbe-Grillet, writer and film director. born D. J. Gordon is Professor of English Literature at
in 1922. His works include the novels Le Voyeur and
Reading University.
Dans le Labyrinthe and among his films are L'Annee
Derniere a Marienbad and L'lmmortelle. Andrew Forge is Head of the Painting Department
at Goldsmith's College. His article constitutes a chap­
Paul Waldo Schwartz is Paris art critic for the New ter from his book on Rauschenberg. to be published
York Times. in 1969 by Harry Abrams, New York. and is repro­
duced here by kind permission of Harry Abrams.
Lawrence Alloway, art historian, art criticand former
curator of the Guggenheim Museum, has recently Jean Clay, the French critic. is a regular contributor
been appointed Chairman of the Fine Arts Division of to Realites. and contributing editor to Studio Inter­
the School of Visual Arts in New York. national.
168