Page 19 - Studio International - February 1969
P. 19

The                                        People are judged, or should be, on what they   rather misuse of the word 'commitment'.

                                                    do rather than what they say they are going   Imaginative but tolerant enthusiasts, dis-
         Whitechapel's                              to do. I am probably being ill advised in   posed to be catholic in taste and judgement,
                                                    blurting out my hopes, aims and attitudes only
                                                                                              have been bullied into fearing that they are
                                                    seven working days after taking up my new   `uncommitted' and therefore somehow colour-
         future                                     post. I deliberately risk future accusations that   less or dilettante. I hope to prove that a
                                                    the result did not match my declared inten-  catholic taste need not be an easy way out.
                                                    tions. But I think that on balance it is worth   It can be just the opposite. An effort of his-
                                                   saying something now out of respect for the   torical imagination is needed to get the most
                                                    curiosity and interest which focuses on the   from the art of seventeenth-century Holland,
                                                    Whitechapel at the end of a brilliant fifteen-  Renaissance Italy or sixth-century Athens. In
                                                   year regime. The thousands who have made   the same way an effort of up-to-date sociologi-
                                                    the journey to Aldgate East for Pollock and   cal imagination and awareness of contem-
                                                    Rothko, Johns and Rauschenberg, Turner    porary life should be positively encouraged so
                                                   and Stubbs, and the artists that have shown   that we can get the most and sift the best out
                                                   and have yet to show at the Whitechapel are   of the many channels of contemporary art. A
                                                   valued supporters. They do not deserve to be   love of Matisse does not debar one from the
                                                    kept in the dark about what is going through   love of Picasso or Mondrian. Why should one
                                                    the new Director's mind.                  not be fascinated for different reasons and in
                                                    I would like to plunge in by saying that I do   different ways by both Oldenburg and Ad
                                                    not think that the Whitechapel's exhibition   Reinhard ? I agree with Professor Gombrich
                                                   policy has been or should be doctrinaire or
                                                   narrow. This means rising above an existing
                                                   undertow of second-rate thinking which has   Mark Glazebrook, the recently-appointed
                                                                                              Director, outside the entrance to the
                                                   centred around, and resulted from, the use or    Whitechapel Art Gallery.













































         PAUL WALDO SCHWARTZ,  art critic for the  New York   ROBERT KUDIELKA is assistant editor of das Kunstwerk.   CORRECTION  Due to an error, the sense of part of Tim
         Times  since 1963, is author of 'Cubism' arid 'The                                  Scott's 'Colour in Sculpture' statement in the January
         sculptor in his studio', both to be published this year.   JOSEPH MASHECK is  an American art historian doing   issue of Studio International, page 22, was destroyed. Line
         His interview with Magritte, published in this issue, is   research and writing in Dublin and London.   9 as printed should have been positioned between lines
         perhaps the last ever given by the artist.                                          22 and 23. Line 9 should read
                                                                                                                       must be judged to
                                                   FRANK WHITFORD has recently returned from Germany,   do so in comprehensive...'; line 22 should read  	was
         DAVID SILCOX is Arts Officer of the Canada Council.
                                                   where he has been studying twentieth-century German   used in order to emphasize and delineate...' The dates
                                                   painting.                                 given on page 10 of the same issue for Tim Scott's
         DR STEPHEN BANN teaches in the Faculty of Humanities
                                                                                             periods of study and teaching at St Martin's School of
         of the University of Kent. He is at present working on
                                                   DORE ASHTON,  the American critic, is a regular con-  Art should read '1955-58' and '1961—' respectively.
         an anthology of Constructivist documents and a study
                                                   tributor to Studio International.
         of modern painting.
         NINA OSNOS  is a curatorial assistant at the Corcoran   PETER PLAGENS is  an instructor in the History of Art
         Gallery-Dupont Center, Washington.        Department of the University of Texas.
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