Page 56 - Studio International - January 1969

New York

commentary

`The Machine as seen at The End of the
Mechanical Age' (Museum of Modern Art),
Dan Flavin (Dwan), Francis Bacon
(Marlborough-Gerson), Antoni Tapies
(Martha Jackson) and Pierre
Alechinsky (Lefebre).

Lucy Jackson Young (artist) Niels 0. Young
(engineer) Fakir in ¾/4 time 1968
base: aluminium, plastic and motors, 30 x 25 x 16 in.
fountain effect: textile cord or tape, adjusting from
4 to 40 ft. Coll: the artist and the engineer
2
Jean Dupuy (artist) Ralph Martel (engineer)
Harris Hyman (engineer) Heart beats dust 1968
Dust, plywood, glass, light, electronic equipment
84 x 24 x 24 in. Coll: the artist and the engineers
3
Dan Flavin Untitled (to the 'innovator' of
Wheeling Peachblow) 1968 pink, gold and daylight
fluorescent light 96 x 96 in.
4 audience into literal play, as they tangled with
Francis Bacon Portrait of Lucian Freud 1968
oil on canvas 78 x 58 in. this self-propelling form and altered its ani-
mated course. A witty but one-dimensional
experiment, this piece has its traceable appeal
As a prelude to its spectacular exhibition, in two sources : the play impulse, and the awe
`The Machine As Seen at the End of the produced by the defiance of gravity.
Mechanical Age', the MUSEUM OF MODERN The first prize, however, comes much closer
ART called a press conference. The occasion to the untraceability of the sources of works of
was the awarding of cash prizes to the engi- art, and is therefore more compelling. Called
neers who had won the international competi- Heart beats dust, and conceived by French
tion co-sponsored by the museum and EAT. artist Jean Dupuy, it sets up a more closed and
(Experiments in Art and Technology). suggestive system of relationships. It is a boxed
There was something coquettish about award- spectacle with authentically magical over-
ing the prizes to the engineers and rather tones. In a glass-faced box, the artist has
pointedly ignoring the initiating artists. But it strewn a red pigment, described as having low
had a purpose: without the goodwill of the specific gravity, over a tightly stretched rub-
engineers and their well-heeled employers, the ber membrane. When a tape-recording of the
endeavour would fail. The artists were willing human heartbeat is played directly beneath
enough to play at the game of marriage, taking the membrane, the dust leaps up and, drawn
the recessive female role. into a funnelling shape by a powerful stage
Everyone, in fact, seemed willing to play the light above, appears to form a column.
game, which entailed listening to the pieties of There are many obvious associations with the
a labour union official (whose pride includes heart beat, the redness of the spectacle, and
the servicing of spacecraft as well as 'art'), a the fountain-like spurts of dust as the particles
corporation president and a labour mediator. man-made nature, and if we are to believe prepare to take their positions in the 'sculp-
The liaison of labour and art, so much longed Whistler, nature imitating art. Now we have ture of dust', as it is called. Mr Hultén, the
for by the romantics of the 1930s, seemed to the machine imitating art. Thereby hangs a originator of the machine exhibition, even re-
have been sanctified at this assembly of professorial treatise, aided by the truly stimu- calls Duchamp's use of dust on the Large
aesthetes, artists, curators, and exceedingly lating illustrations these technologically depen- glass, and Man Ray's famous photograph, the
friendly (to each other) representatives of dent works provide. Breeding of dust, and he might have alluded to
labour and industry. All three of the prize-winning works depend Picasso's well-known obsession with the my-
I report the setting for the prize ceremony for to some degree on the spirit of play—the de- sterious power of dust. But beyond these
what it's worth. As the participating organiza- light which seems implicit in human nature historic references are a whole realm of or-
tions seemed so pleased to list among the guests that the animation of inanimate matter calls ganic, metaphorical and allegorical references
high officials of George Meany's AFL-CIO— into play. The child reflex of wonder at the made possible by the implicit ambiguity in the
that august coalition so intent on helping our workings of a complicated toy enters, as does complexities of the piece.
war effort, and saving the high wages for the Aristotle's principle of mimesis. One of the I think this is true of Rauschenberg's Soundings,
white man—I believe the general nature of pieces, for instance, which activates stainless also on view at the Museum of Modern Art.
this new relationship between art and indu- steel rods so that they appear to be doing a Although museum mentors explain that
stry must be seen within its full social context very human shimmy, drew 'oohs' and `ahs' Rauschenberg's construction is a radical de-
at its very inception. and then pleased laughter from the audience. parture from the traditional relation between
As for the prize exhibits, they struck the view- Another, a really delightful invention based artist and audience, since without the viewer's
ers with the considerable force of their novelty. on the principle of the cowboy's lariat, in participation it does not exist, I think its
Certainly the philosophic questions involving which a powerful machine toiling at 100 miles meaning lies elsewhere. The eight-foot high
the nature of 'art' were forcefully raised. We've an hour twirled a loop of cord into space, units of layered plexiglass are installed in a
had man imitating nature, and man imitating forming elegant curving shapes, drew the darkened room, providing an immediate well-
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