Page 71 - Studio International - April 1968

Far right Yvaral

Right Tornasello

100,000 inhabitants. But there were already thirty galleries in We regularly contribute to all kinds of national and international
Cologne and I myself was convinced that people would be willing to exhibitions. We are the ones who benevolently sustain such public
travel for a combination of first-class exhibitions and our excellent artistic endeavours as cultural centres, biennales, quadriennales and
premises. After all, Düsseldorf is only fifteen miles away. international fairs. It is generally expected that we bear the main
My scheme was to provide an outpost for geometric and kinetic art burden-by making possible the actual creation of the works of art
well to the east of Paris and incidentally to show how inaccurate and financing the artists-of meeting growing cultural demands.
were our preconceptions of German tastes in art. They were labelled Public bodies usually pay transport costs and feel that they have done
as romantics or expressionists. And yet the Bauhaus was German. their duty. We have to pay all other expenses. We are expected to
Hans Mayer sold twenty Max Bills during his Esslingen exhibition provide walls, environments and enormous works, all of which are
and Albers and Vasarely are much sought after by collectors there. unsaleable to private individuals and thus a loss. But it can't go on.
Also there are many Mondrians in Germany, although there isn't At some point official aid will have to widen our efforts. Since Le
a single one in France. Since we opened at Krefeld on June 10, we Parc was awarded the Venice prize in 1966, I have organized twenty
have had nothing but success. The first week we sold three Albers, exhibitions of his works. This requires very great resources.
two Vasarelys, a large Soto, a Herbin, an early Tinguely, a Demarco I have come to the conclusion that in the future, we shall see a
and some Le Parc Multiples. transformation of the picture dealer into a manager who will make
Our first show, 'From Constructivism to Kinetic Art (1917-1967)', suggestions for exhibitions and so on, and will be financed from some
with works ranging from Arp to Kupka, from Moholy-Nagy to Ells- form of collective funds. We cannot be expected to give everyone
worth Kelly, was greeted by the German press as worthy of a museum. something to look at, and still be left to foot the bill.
What in fact we did was both to state our artistic tenets, to nail our This is particularly so considering that modern art is increasingly
colours to the mast, so to speak, and to show constructive abstract subject to rapid fashion changes. Works tend to last for a season and
art from its origins right up to its newest developments, to show the to be launched rather like a new toilet soap. This is harmful to the
link between what the public already knew and the latest experiments. artist who no longer has time to delve deeply but jumps from one
Our next show dealt with the relationship between art and archi- style to another. It also creates distribution problems, given the
tecture, a subject of particular interest to Germans and especially to need to cover quickly and frequently a very wide potential market.
German industrialists. We are currently preparing exhibitions on We now have technological art coming up and replacing minimal
such themes as 'Light and Movement', 'New Tendencies' and so on. art in the United States. It is nothing basically new. For some time
After that we shall have large retrospective exhibitions of Vasarely, now kinetic artists have been interested in technology; some of them
Albers, Bill and Soto, sometimes taking over our Paris exhibitions. such as Schöffer by actually collaborating with engineers, and
You see, I have attempted-in my own sphere-to introduce the others, like Agam, Soto, Vasarely and Le Parc, by deliberately
same spirit of adventure and discovery and the enjoyment of risk expressing complex, almost scientific, ideas (such as dematerialization,
as the artists with whom I work. I sometimes feel that the decline of aleatory surfaces, visual instability, space-time, and probabilities)
certain French galleries who complain of such great difficulties, stems with very simple forms. Nevertheless, technological art is heralded
from the fact that they are out of step with the times. They are as revolutionary with loads of publicity in the shape of the special
atrophying for lack of imagination. We are surrounded by change, effects which I saw ad nauseam in such New York night clubs as the
in the streets, in people's clothes, in their ways. The galleries are `Cheetah' and the 'Electric Circus'. In short, an attempt is being made
fifty years behind the times. They hang one artist's output of the year to create-and for how long ?- an artificial furore, an unreal fervour.
and sit back and wait for the public to come and see. An exhibition Theories with something of a history and in process of development
like 'Light and Movement' at the Paris City Museum with all the are thrown overboard. And yet we are well aware that the value of
latest methods of presentation, seemed revolutionary. an artist does not lie in his submission to technique, but in his way
I always try to create a world, a climate, an individual and sensitive of using it. The artist must dominate. It is he who fertilizes the
island permeated by the spirit of the artist where nothing detracts computer and not vice versa. This is not beneficial competition. In
from the harmony of the man and his environment. I try to release a any case the present situation in the galleries makes such competition
state of mind. The Le Parc and Soto exhibitions are examples. impossible. Which is why change is essential. Henceforward there
However, there is a problem facing the avant-garde galleries. We will be a world of difference between a Vollard or Kahnweiler and
are bearing the expense of the cultural explosion in the western world. a modern gallery. q