Page 59 - Studio International - September 1969

US Postal Service (with a marvellous be useless to be potent. Roles are too easily, structures have shown themselves disastrously
irrelevance to the real social function of that and nowadays too immediately, ascribed to slow in responding to developments in art. Of
service) ; and the instant required for the finite sculpture and painting. A role or the four British exhibitors in 'When Attitudes
mind to grasp the concept and to trace the function ascribed to an art work limits its become Form' only one is represented by a
same line across America's width. The last field of action to an area within the existing gallery. The great majority of the artists from
really significant act was the selection of the structure, since functions and roles can only abroad are now showing in England for the
process as a means of isolating the concept; be attributed relative to context. We should first time. Not one of them has yet been given
after that the work completed itself. In the final always be in a position to envisage a new a one-man show in London; and this includes
documentation— the evidence and explana- context entirely. We have to keep our such established artists as Robert Morris,
tion of the parcel's passage—both systems of options open, to pose questions to which the Carl Andre, Sol LeWitt and Joseph Beuys.
time are reconciled for the benefit of the answers are not predictable, to which answers The more adventurous American and Con-
spectator. Art presented as documentation might come in a different language, suggest- tinental dealers and critics are generally
is not necessarily systematic in intention or ing a different grammar—a different system, better informed about the majority of
didactic in effect. The scope and sim- a changed conciousness. q advanced younger British artists than are
plicity of the concept invoked by Huebler 1 The international and implicitly political nature of their British counterparts.
testify to a less easily defined quality in the work represented was emphasised in an article by The good dealer is the one who will find a
human volition. Piero Gilardi which served as the foreword to the means of marketing and promoting whatever
catalogue of Op Losse Schroeven (Cryptostructuren), at the
The effect of work like this is to stretch the he is convinced by; not the one who will seek
Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, March/May 1969.
range of our imagination and our concep- 2 From 'Notes on Sculpture; part 4; beyond objects', in out, however assiduously, the kind of work he
tions. If we were not generally so terrified of Artforum April 1969. knows he can sell. The good critic will not
devoting ourselves to what has not already 3 From 'When does the collision happen; John Latham wait for the galleries to present him with a
been pronounced serious and socially accept- in conversation with Charles Harrison', in Studio digest of what is already under his nose. It
International, May 1968.
able, we might respond more easily to the would be a poor critic who could not find
4 In 'Sensibility of the Sixties' by Barbara Rose and
invitations made by artists such as those Irving Sandler, Art in America January/February 1967. better fare for himself in England than the
represented here. It is very easy and very The phrase was used by Duchamp to disparage London galleries have usually to offer him.
natural to become involved in the special Courbet. Perhaps the London showing of 'When
excitement of a process or the imaginative 6 Statement in the catalogue of 'When Attitudes become Attitudes become Form' will act as an irritant
Form'.
potency of information. Discrete objects and and will serve to show how inadequately we
images do no more than secure these POSTSCRIPT are prepared to draw benefit from even the
experiences within familiar and comforting Our administrative and marketing structures London-based exhibitors, let alone those
contexts. In clinging to the former we risk have evolved in order to cope with objects of American and Continental artists whose
restricting ourselves to the latter. Art must fixed dimensions. In this country these work we so desperately need to see in depth.