Page 20 - Studio International - November 1968

TheTate Gallery Picasso, Matisse, Braque, are beyond the Tate. An usurped in recent years by Mr and Mrs Paul Mellon
in \iirginia—as it is to see the Tate play the role of a
important blue period Picasso would cost £200,000,
and as Mr Reid points out, a 1912 Braque now fetches museum of modern art in supporting and encouraging
Report1967-8 over £100,000. In the last five years. with £250,000 contemporary art. Both need money and both need
at their disposal, the Tate has only managed to buy space. To try and do both within the confines of one
six paintings of this class, including two Mondrians, building is at present difficult; in the future, if the
Picasso's The Three Dancers, a Delaunay, and a collections are to grow, it will be impossible. Addi-
Braque which used to belong to Sir Roland Penrose. tions to the Tate will just put off the evil day.
Few people would quarrel or wish to minimise these Here is one solution. The Tate's British and modern
acquisitions. The Picasso is about the only really collection should be separated and both given ade-
important painting by him in the country, and the quate purchasing grants. Ideally the modern collec-
In the 1967-8 Tate Gallery report, the Director, Mr Mondrians were a must. However, think of some of tion should be housed in a new modern building
Norman Reid, is mainly concerned with the need for the missed opportunities that have occured in the last but if this is too costly then it should be kept in the
a substantial increase in the Tate's purchasing grant. five years; for example there have been several first present building. Tne British collection should then
The Trustees, he says, have asked for a grant of class Fauve Derains on the market in London, one be moved to some existing Crown property. One
£500,000. At present they receive £60,000 a year, eagerly snapped up by a small provincial museum in remote possibility might be the old Astor home in
and since 1964 they have also had a special grant of West Germany. Carlton House Terrace, at present used for filming and
£50,000 a year to buy foreign works of the period The history of the Tate's modern collection has for makeshift offices. (There are other old London
1900-50. unfortunately been one long missed opportunity—the houses in the West End hardly used by the Govern-
Demands for more money are a routine feature of most glaring example being the failure to buy ment which could be suitable and which could
all national museum's reports, but the Tate's does Matisse's Red Studio for just over £500 after the provide a setting similar to the Frick Museum in
seem more deserving 'than most. With so many War—and it is hard to see how this can ever be put New York.)
hungry mouths to feed, even £500,000 seems hardly right. Apart from the high cost it would entail, there Separated, the British Collection could enlarge its
adequate. The Tate has three roles to play and three just aren't the major key twentieth century works range to include sporting and marine pictures which
collections to look after—the British collection, the around. One has only to go to the Museum of may not be artistically of the highest quality but
section devoted to works of the first half of the 20th Modern Art, New York, to see where some of them which reflect the interests and tastes of past gen-
century, and contemporary painting and sculpture. are. erations. Victorian painting could then be treated as
Of these three, the Tate is only equipped at present If the Tate were to receive £500,000 a year. how something more than a whimsical and nostalgic joke.
to look after the contemporary section, and make would they spend it and which department would The modern collection would be able to do more
occasional forays into buying old British masters. A get the lion's share ? The report does not say. Therein about reflecting contemporary phenomena and be-
work by a young British artist will cost them just lies its weakness. come as active and stimulating as some modern
under £1,000, a young American artist, about £3,000. Nobody in the Tate seems to know which section is museums abroad, the Stedelijk for example.
There are still a number of high-quality paintings by in most need of repair. How could they? All are A pipe dream? Possibly, but increasing purchase
British artists of the eighteenth and nineteenth cen- important. It is just as vital to see that the British grants and adding new rooms to the Tate are surely
turies which can be obtained for less than £10,000. Collection grows and reflects the artistic life of only piecemeal arrangements.
Works by the great masters of the twentieth century, Britain in the past—a function which has been Ian Dunlop

'Public Eye' at to place an object there which people in the normal motives have ever applied ; this cannot be said of the
Documenta (an antiquated form of exhibition like
course of events must encounter. We do not choose
a lawn, seal it off and erect sculpture on it as if it the rest, despite its contents). The brief introductory
Hamburg's were an open air gallery. The sites we have chosen survey at the entrance to the Kunsthaus exhibition
in Hamburg bring about direct confrontation between is intended to place what follows within a context.
Kunsthuas the everyday pedestrian flow and the objects we Compared with some other aspects of modern art,
kinetic, constructivist and environmental art share a
place on them. Admittedly the exhibits will not be
changed or moved around during the exhibition (a pronounced social concern, yet Public Eye is not a
matter of finance). but we have arranged a series of unanimous statement. Inevitably the degree of social
disc ussions to take place during the exhibition about commitment of the participating artists varies as
the need for new initiatives to secure our collective greatly as the extent to which their work conforms to
An attempt to establish a more direct wellbeing. This has allowed us to invite knowledge- the strict scope of the exhibition.
relationship between artist and able speakers in any subject. We are grateful for all the help and support we have
public. In every art exhibition artists should be very parti- been given etc. etc. I suggest that rather than con-
cular about how their works are arranged, otherwise sidering art objects appearing in the art market as
'Public Eye' is an attempt to examine the exhibition as why exhibit? Better still, artists should not auto- safe investments—individuals should make private
a means of communication. It seeks to establish a matically consider themselves br be considered in the funds available for work which is ultimately directed
more direct relationship between the artist and the Renaissance sense of a person apart from the con- at the betterment of humanity's survival. More public
public, to bring to Hamburg some aspects of current cerns of society—an attitude perpetuated by an money should also be made available for this pur-
involvement in kinetic, constructivist and environ- elitist alliance of artists, dealers, collectors, critics, pose. The old investment pattern may prove a very
mental art. private and public galleries. Object-making too often false economy.
Traditionally exhibitions are a static means of com- results in gallery exhibitions which are a means of Peter Kuttner
munication (world and trade fairs excepted). Works marketing rather than communication—a socially
are put into a special situation (the gallery) and left corrupt tendency.
for a length of time to be looked at or ignored as the Public Eye has brought together the work of sixty
case may be. The outcome of this form of communi- artists from all over Europe who are engaged in the
cation is exclusively determined by the display, the three categories of the exhibition. The way in which
selection of works and their setting. Public Eye is works are selected for exhibition, the way in which
using the Kunsthaus as a starting point (indeed we artists are invited to participate is fraught with
should not need to rely on the emptiness of galleries anomalies. The artists invited to take part in Public
for showing works of art), from there it has extended Eye were known to the organizers, many as friends,
into the immediate area of the Kunsthaus and then many as experimenters and many through recom-
into selected public places in the city. Finally we mendations of friends. Everyone received a letter of
have put works into shop windows, to bring them invitation explaining the aims of the exhibition. This
into a more mundane setting. Our thinking is thus—if letter, we considered, determined whether an artist
we find a large area of pavement, we use some of it felt he could honestly participate. No commercial