Page 56 - Studio International - September 1969

Against

precedents

Charles Harrison

THIS ARTICLE IS ALSO PRINTED AS A
CATALOGUE INTRODUCTION FOR THE
EXHIBITION 'WHEN ATTITUDES BECOME FORM',
FIRST SHOWN AT THE KUNSTHALLE, BERNE,
EARLIER THIS YEAR, AND NOW AT THE
ICA, NASH HOUSE, THE MALL, UNTIL 26
SEPTEMBER. CHARLES HARRISON HAS
ARRANGED THE LONDON SHOWING.

Art changes human consciousness. The less
an art work can be seen to be dependent, in its
reference, on specific and identifiable facts
and appearances in the world at one time, the
more potent it becomes as a force for effecting
such a change. If art relates critically to
specific social and/or political situations, it
does so best out of respect for the potential
quality of life rather than out of a desire for
limited improvements in present conditions.
The artist of originality has to divest himself,
in his working state, of much that the average
man will not try to do without. The spectator
who is anxious to feel upon his consciousness
the full effect of the work should be prepared
for sacrifices of a similar nature. In order to
entertain certain ideas we may be obliged to
abandon others upon which we have come to
depend. All we have to lose is the security of our
alignment with a particular consensus view
of the world. We stand to gain by the impact
upon our consciousness of a variety of experi-
ence relatively unrestricted by particular cir-
cumstances. By opening ourselves to such
experience we render possible the realign-
ment of our own consciousness in favour
of the constant rather than the immediately
insistent factors of human life.
It is ironic but inevitable that those who are
prepared thus to explore the quality, rather
than the present condition, of life will find
themselves largely preoccupied with just those
factors in their own present circumstances that
appear to impinge upon this quality. Which
is to say that when the general drift of their
culture is against them the artist, and the man
committed to the art of his own time, are
likely to find their own circumstances more
desperate, more restricting, than other men.
The artist's activity may then appear negative,
extreme and obscure to the extent that his
values are opposed to those adopted by the
majority. The celebrated 'paranoia' of the
creative artist is not an inevitable condition of
his profession; it comes to some as a con-
sequence of the remoteness of their vision of
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