Page 50 - Studio International - September 1968

New York commentary

'The Art of the Real' at the
Museum of Modern Art

By calling his exhibition at the MUSEUM OF but it has filled the heads of aspiring artists who are observation of the mirror image of light streaming
MODERN ART 'The Art of the Real', E. C. Goossen quick to argue publicly the merits of, let us say, under the arch of a bridge.' To this he adds the
insisted that we deal with the very philosophical Formalism and Platonic theory as opposed to . . . telling remark, 'Although it is not necessary to
questions that the artists in the exhibition pur- well, to everything else, and particularly, every- know Kelly's sources to experience his art as art,
portedly threw out long ago. A queer situation, but thing else in the most immediate past. knowing them helps to understand why his work
understandable. What the show was about was the Certainly for the new generation of artists, almost has such structural integrity.'
way many artists have lately dealt with the in- all exposed to the formalities of university educa- In the old days, they used to say that Mondrian
herited modern principle that a painting or tion, the announcement of reality calls up its was more impressive than his epigones because he
sculpture is a material, self-justifying fact, no more, traditional mate, appearance. When this doublet was searching for 'reality' behind appearance.
no less. Since in almost every case, the artists have occurs in mind, illusion cannot be far behind. Yet, Critics used to praise this abstract artist or that
dealt with the problem in both verbal and 'factual' the work in the exhibition (which ranged from because they knew his intentions, which were
terms, it stands to reason that there are two dis- Georgia O'Keefe's immaculate 1929 version of a philosophical, or revolutionary, or polemic, but
courses going on at all times, and Professor Goossen window to 1968 abstractions occupying entire always moving from the object outward into the
is correct in calling attention to the sotto voce walls in museum scale) was gathered together with realm of abstract discourse. Far were they from the
philosophical disputations. the understanding that nearly all the artists disdain common sense and literalness Goossen discerns in
Though Goossen chose the dates 1948-68 to above all the notion of illusion, and attempt, con- many of his artists.
narrow and make wieldy his argument, he could sciously, to banish it. On the other hand, it is just as hazardous to speak
easily have skipped back to the late nineteenth But what is illusion ? in terms of intentions as it is to divorce the artist
century when prescient critics—there were a few— Most of the artists here take it to be the opposite of from his intentions. The so-called intentional
began to broadcast the interesting theory that a reality. Illusionistic effects such as diminishing per- fallacy is a fallacy (or else art could survive without
painting was a beautiful object discrete from all spective or colour recession, or intrinsic modula- verbalization, and it has never done so). Intentions
else. He could have cited early twentieth-century tions are regarded as bastard intimations of reality. count heavily in an evaluation after the fact. But
artists who taught their critics to see paintings and They are the handmaidens of appearance, and not not solely. Goossen switches perilously in his essay
not pictures. Surely it was Picasso, for instance, who of reality. Therefore, reality becomes a very narrow to the intentional argument when he deals with
let Eluard in on the secret that enabled Eluard to ledge between menacing seas of appearance and those he considers precursors to the current attitude.
state flatly that since Cezanne, painters expressed illusion; so narrow, in fact, that not a few of the I applaud him for dealing with attitude rather than
the truth of art, not the truth of reality. From here, participants don't quite fit on it, and have at least artificially forcing all these artists into a period
it is not far to go to the 'art of the real' in which, one foot uncertainly dangling elsewhere. style. But I question his dependence on the stated
as Goossen summarizes it, perceptual experience is Although I admire the tact and eminent sense of intentions of such artists as Still, Newman and
no longer a means to an end, but the end in itself. proportion Goossen displays in his thesis and the Rothko.
Today's 'real', Goossen tells us, makes no direct works that illustrate it, I find that when I examine He takes their word for it that there was nothing
appeal to the emotions, but offers itself in the form the two arguments— those proposed within the art mystical or metaphysical in their intentions and
of 'the simple, irreducible, irrefutable object.' objects and those within the criticism of those that, as Still wrote in 1952, they were 'committed
This lean and currently prevalent view has found objects— a disparity presents itself: the purest to an unqualified act, not illustrating outworn
many advocates. Yet, curiously, the more this artists of the real, those that cleave to the ledge like myths or contemporary alibis' (whatever that
notion is borne down on us, the more compulsively Prometheus to his pillar, are not very often the most means). He isolates suitable quotations, such as
do we fill out the aesthetic with philosophical affecting. Goossen himself seems to suspect this Rothko's 1949 announcement that he wanted to
speculation. (Think only of the recourse to Witt- when he goes to the trouble of underlining the eliminate all obstacles between the painter and the
genstein so noticeable in contemporary criticism. fact that Ellsworth Kelly, one of the strongest in idea, and between the idea and the observer,
Or that new kind of intellectual scavenging, the the show, always derives his inspiration from the among which he included memory, history or
critique made up of learned quotations, sometimes direct observation of things seen. He tells us that geometry. And he rests his case on their stated in-
construed by the very artists whose art is 'real' and one of the most singular objects in the show, Kelly's tentions. But neither Still nor Rothko can be read
not realistic.) Not only has speculation of the White relief, possibly the first shaped painting, 'did in the work as the uncompromising, tight-lipped
traditional kind filled the columns of art journals, not issue from a drawing-board but from the Puritans they sound like when they take to the pen.