Page 52 - Studio International - April 1969

'The last such phase, Minimal Art, has swept the bergers such as Krauss review all the shows; sidered sufficiently important historically to
museums and the magazines and the art buffs, but Darby Bannard paints a picture, He'lion re- be discussed alone. But most of the so-called
it doesn't sell commensurately because it's too hard lived; and articles come steadily out of the movements are only one person or maybe two
to install. And with Novelty Art sales decide things ;
Pop, Op, Assemblage, Erotic, Neo-Figurative, and Fogg. I once complained to Leider that the remotely related. That's obvious by the work,
the rest don't persist in the face of economic adver- magazine was dominated by Michael Fried by the initial development, by the fact that
sity—just as second-generation Abstract Expression- and the third string and he said that he didn't in two or three years the followers follow else-
ism didn't....' think it was biased, that he published Robert where. I hated the Primary Structure show at
Smithson too. That's balanced mediocrity. the Jewish Museum in 1965, both itself and its
It's surprising and despicable. Artforum is probably the best art magazine title—primary sounds Platonic. The show
Greenberg was right of course in supporting still but it's depressing that it's gotten so bad started out a year earlier with Flavin, Morris,
Pollock and the others but mainly his writing and so close to the others. I don't know much myself, maybe Andre and Bell and maybe a
then was only approval and disapproval. He about Studio International. Artforum's failure to couple of others. Forty odd artists, I think,
didn't write much about Pollock and didn't evaluate artists and to think about their work were in the show and a lot of them, most of
add anything to the thinking about his work. is characteristic of the whole situation of cur- Park Place, had become geometric during
He did little for David Smith. He did less for rent art. Art gets quite a bit of attention but that year. Barbara Rose's ABC article was
everyone else, including Noland, Louis, and the quality of that is depressing. just publicity. Theme shows and movements
Caro. (I consider Olitski's work chronically Greenberg and Fried are of course wrong are still produced. Discussion, such as Green-
unresolved and beyond thought.) I didn't about mainstream history or development. It's berg's in the Truitt article, is still by groups.
think about Greenberg much in the early too simple and, as Barbara Reise said, it's A few months ago Artforum ran another mani-
sixties and he didn't write much. I suppose nineteenth-century philosophy. Most ideas of festo by Bob Morris entitled 'Anti-Form'. It
Fried and Philip Leider, the editor of Art- history are simplistic, archaic and destructive. was illustrated with photographs of work by
forum, kept him going. When Artforum moved One of Artforum's numerous vague mediocre several very diverse new artists, suggesting by
to New York it revived the roster of New York articles was by Jack Wesley Burnham, maybe the layout that they were a group and that
hacks. kin to the preacher but none to the painter. they were following Morris' work in felt,
I gave up on Michael Fried when I heard him Burnham wrote a book, Beyond Modern begun a year and a half ago. Leider recently
say during a symposium that he couldn't see Sculpture. Never mind the present. It's a wrote an article in the New York Times
how anyone who liked Noland and Olitski or pastiche of art survey information and mis- entitled, I think, 'In the Shadow of Bob
Stella could also like Oldenburg and Rauschen- information. His idea of history, such as it is, Morris'. This was about a show by several of
berg or Lichtenstein, whichever. He was very is deterministic. Everyone has his hindsighted these artists— Saret, Hesse, Serra, Sonnier,
passionate about it. (Apparently Fried likes place and history rolls on. One cliche: Nauman and others— organized by Morris.
Stella but Greenberg doesn't.) I've never The show was all right but the suggestion of
liked Kozloff's ornate platitudes but during 'It is the peculiarly blind quality of historical similarity is bad and the impression that
change that we only grasp the nature of a political
this symposium he actually gave a theory for or cultural era after it has reached and passed its they're fathered by Morris is terrible.
always writing about things three or four apogee of influence.' Nauman's floppy pieces actually precede
years too late. Fried's opinions narrowed a Morris' by a couple of years. He and Hesse
few years ago. I remember enthusiasm for For whom ? For the people who won't think were in a group show at Fischbach around
Chamberlain's work; I've heard this dis- now about particular things like scale ? A two years ago. Its not likely that anyone as
appeared because of Greenberg's disapproval. good example of baloney and of silly futurism good as Serra developed his work from some-
Fried's article 'Art and Objecthood' in the is this : one else's in a year and a half. The suggestion
1967 summer issue of Artforum was stupid. He is like Greenberg's that Morris and I picked up
cross-referenced Bob Morris, Tony Smith and `The shifting psychology of sculpture invention on Truitt's work. It's impossible chronologic-
myself and argued against the mess. Smith's closely parallels the inversion taking place between ally. Neither do good artists develop substan-
technics and man: as the craftsman slowly withdraws
statements and his work are contradictory to his personal feelings from the constructed object, the object tially from other artists' work. q
my own. Bob Morris' dada interests are very gradually gains its independence from its human maker;
alien to me and there's a lot in his dogmatic in time it seeks a life of its own through self-reproduction.'
articles that I don't like. I was especially irked (Burnham's italics.)
by Fried's ignorant misinterpretation of my
use of the word 'interesting'. I obviously use it I dislike very much this sort of sloppy correla-
in a particular way but Fried reduces it to the tion of such highly different activities as
cliche 'merely interesting' : science and art, the careless and general
history and the mystical projection of the
'Judd himself has as much as acknowledged the future.
problematic character of the literalist enterprise by
his claim, "A work needs only to be interesting."'
'Sculpture can choose one of two courses: it can be
fashioned as a reaction against technology or as an
Fried is not careful and informed. His pedantic extension of technical methodology.'
pseudo-philosophical analysis is the equivalent
of Art News' purple poetic prose of the late That's the choice? That's Max Kozloff's or
fifties. Hilton Kramer's choice.
That prose was only emotional re-creation Originally I agreed to write this to keep
and Fried's thinking is just formal analysis Studio International from calling me a minimal-
and both methods used exclusively are shit. ist. Very few artists receive attention without
Artforum, since it came to New York, has publicity as a new group. It's another case of
seemed like Art News in the late fifties. There's the simplicity of criticism and of the public.
serious high art and then there's everybody It seems as if magazines are unwilling to give a
else, all equally low. Flavin plays Reinhardt, new artist space by himself. Artforum has had
entertaining but not worth an article on his some discussion of single new artists, mostly by
work Bell and Irwin hardly exist: Green- John Coplans. One oerson's work isn't con-