Page 33 - Studio International - December 1970

at the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford and really compare; it should also really try to and sculpture of the present time. Perhaps
the Arnolfini, Bristol; and both the Knowles remember the facts. British critics dismissed many will have noticed that most of those
and Bell exhibitions have off-shoot shows at Peter Lanyon (who was perhaps a great British painters and sculptors who have
the Park Square Gallery, Leeds) is eloquent, painter) at his memorial retrospective at the recently gained the support of New York are
fertile and commands a sheerness of image Tate some years ago as a mere imitator of artists whose visible links with established
that is absolutely masterly compared with the De Kooning; whereas the facts were that half Americans are the most obvious; that is to
pompous rhetorical emptiness, the sloppy Lanyon's Tate show was painted before Lan- say, what the Americans support amongst the
construction and the arbitrary choice of sheet yon or anyone else in Europe had even heard British are idioms which can be related to
metal (usually too thin for the job it has to do) of De Kooning—or indeed of any American American prototypes—but always related in
of the almost flopping boxes of Don Judd at painter except Pollock. Again, to judge by such a way that they appear to have derived
the Whitechapel. The only hope for Judd's De Kooning's Tate retrospective (and its in large measure from American sources. So,
present idiom would lie in an immaculate catalogue), De Kooning did not seriously turn in giving them support, American critic-
perfection of physical realization of idea. But to landscapes until immediately after Lanyon's promoters are achieving two objectives at
what do we find? Boxes with or without six first major one-man show in New York—and once : they are encouraging near-disciples
sides which look as though they are falling to even then he at first used Lanyon's colours of over here and thus colonizing whole areas
pieces along the edges, having been assembled, the period; i.e., dirty green, dirty white and amongst the British; they are also establishing
it would appear, by the equivalent of an dirty Cornish cerulean—so that I once thought, enormously effective bridgeheads for the
underpaid garage hand who couldn't care in New York, that I had come across some further expansion of the reputations of their
less about any sort of real toughness of con- rather over-relaxed Lanyon, when I was in own artists, (whose status as world masters they
struction; and as for 'finish', the mere concept fact looking at some new De Koonings. are now trying very hard to establish, don't
would be laughed out of the assembly shed ... One more doubtless troublesome observation: forget) and in effect dominating the future
(I know—`concept' alone is supposed to be those latest muddy Olitskis at Kasmin's had development of younger British artists. In all
enough; but it isn't —if only because the con- edge-conscious devices deriving directly from this what they are really doing, of course, is
cept of the concept isn't good enough, in English middle-generation gouaches (the creating a new international academicism
Judd's case anyway). whole edge-consciousness of Michael Fried, based on New York. When a leading Ameri-
I would like to see criticism starting all over Olitski and Noland derives from the English can critic observes that today the avant garde
again. It should try to detach itself from pro- middle generation of course, an historical fact has 'taken over' what he charmingly calls the
motion and from the vast distortions of what I will enlarge upon sometime) ; but in particu- `foreground of the art scene', what he should
might be called 'received status values'. The lar there was a single wobbly chalk line, very of course be realizing is that the kind of art he
English newspaper critics are so superbly English, drawn wanderingly down from top has lately been guilty of promoting is not
sensitive to the 'status value' they are in- to bottom of the canvas just inside the right- avant-garde at all—but academic to the core.
tended, subliminally, to 'receive' in the case hand edge in one Olitski; and a sort of pale Only an academic and to all appearances a
of American artists that they hardly ever get wedge-shape—a wedge with its tip broken off— mass-produced art could possibly succeed in
it wrong! But real detachment is of course not obtruded horizontally inside and along the appearing in the foreground of the inter-
quite possible in the final analysis. Neverthe- top edge here and there (English gouaches national scene in such a massive way, quanti-
less, instead of assuming that Motherwell is a again). But no certainty of feeling; no spon- tatively speaking.
far greater painter than, say, Roger Hilton— taneous authority.... All in all I think the time What are the characteristics of this new
which he is not, though he is a very good has come to recognize that the values inherent American-promoted international academi-
one—or instead of assuming that De Kooning in the most successfully promoted American cism? How does it differ from the most
is a great world master and Peter Lanyon just art today are fundamentally at variance with important productions of our own artists at
a nice Cornish landscapist— criticism should those which inform the best British painting this moment? Can it be that the Americans—
as they are trying with much success to brain-
wash us all into accepting—really do have a
monopoly of the new, the advanced and the
forward-looking in the art of the present
time ? Is it true that the best painting and
sculpture in Britain is always inevitably
`behind' whatever it is that the Americans
happen to be doing and promoting—at a
given moment ? Or is the reverse of this fre-
quently the case? Have there in fact been
numerous silent occasions when the British
have taken the lead in various respects—a
lead which has gone unheralded over and
over again ? Has the inventiveness of British
artists been capitalized by the Americans at
the very same time as it has been ignored by
those in Britain whose business it should be to
spot it and shout about it? I am afraid that I
am convinced that whereas the British at this
very moment excel in creative inventiveness
(I have strong views about the present con-
dition of British art schools : to me they are
seething with the most brilliant activities and
achievements; a whole new generation in this
country is demonstrating a potential in all the
visual media simultaneously which has no