Page 58 - Studio International - December 1970

Derek Boshier role, and his inability to structure the total Hackney; although not completely since he
uses them as devices. But the autobiographical
environment .... The danger for me is in the
on his interpretation of any architecture/sculpture feature should be kept to the colour supple­
ment; if they are good paintings they stand
link. In the end whatever one's approach to a
on their own anyway. It is a matter of the
'Constructed problem, source is subservient to aim.or intent. work being intelligently done.
My concern is one thing: getting around to
the formal idea. There is the fact that certain
I think there is much more to works of art
prints', others, and this feature an artist cannot than simply illustration of events. If it is used as
artists draw upon outside sources more than
a vehi«le for a bigger idea it achieves a
a suite of three wholly control. It is, I think, a built-in thing. certain force. But the danger lies in the over­
One can't really say that one really knows; in
balancing of events and situations and finally
only interpreting the WQrk through these
one stage of the work it seems fairly objective,
In conversation with yet i.n another it is not. The reason why it is channels. The worry of finding where the
difficult to calculate this is that one can never
work of art came from-through whatever
Christopher Fox be completely aware of it. It takes a long time scheme-is subservient to what the work
to gain a full knowledge of the source of one's expresses. You can look at a piece of work
work; and it is only through looking back without any concern for its origins. A parallel
retrospectively. establishing a worthwhile procedure might be
I've been getting more and more away from made in relation to music. After having
source material and now concentrate on the . listened to it-classical blues, or whatever­
formal ideas. In a way this is what I've tried to you are then naturally led to thinking about
do in my film Link. If Link was about anything its structure.
it was about the unwillingness to be tied down The difficult problem in definition of source
to source material. For the individual things by an artist is in the diversity of source itself.
were not done so wholly for themselves; it Anton Ehrenzweig points out in his book
was the act of bringing them together which The Hidden Order of Art ' . . . All ar.tistic
interested me, of seeing them brought together. structure is essentially "polyphonic"; it in­
In the end it may be important to under­ volves not a single line of thought, but several
stand something of the artist's background. superimposed strands at once.'
!f an artist, say, entitles his workJu{y 1970, he The catalysts responsible for getting together
wants no reference to be made to outside the aims are more difficult to asse'ss. Aim is
The prints are a set of three in an edition of experience, the nebulous area which gradually what the artist has most control over,' source
seventy-five. And each is concerned with leads up to the work. I think that too much and influence to a much lesser degree. The
formal ideas. King Edward Seventh Avenue is a pre-summary can be dangerous. The ex­ articulation of that aim becomes the artifact.
street-scene with trees and parked cars taken perience preceding the work can be interest­ With an artist of most disciplined intent, aim
down the centre; another is called .N. r.- ing - but it can take on more importance than is well defined, source hardly ever accounted
which stands for NEW YORK; a third is the work. for. An argument for this might be that the
called Gizeh. I searched everywhere for the The source behind my work can be more starting point of a work is, directly, its aim
third photograph, and it had just the area I easily seen in relation to Link. It is that it is (the artist's aim) rejecting prior motivations.
needed to deploy the relationships of forms. just used in the most malleable sort of way ... This, obviously, is the purist's viewpoint, and
The prints derive from different attitudes. it is just the easiest way of tying up the pieces valid. Donald Judd's aims might be described
One is an elevational plane. Then there is a into a bundle. Something of this concern also as directness and presence. This he attains. It
perspectival plane. Following this is the use of accounts for the reason why certain art move­ remains only curiosity that asks what formed
isometric perspective-plus the different struc­ ments get more coverage than others. I think the aims-did a particular e�vironment or
tural senses. The diagram or the photograph journalists had a field-day with Pop Art, for seemingly unrelated work of art previously
is used purely as a device: to add to the formal instance. I think that Dick Smith has become seen contain this directness and presence? To
idea, to repeat it really in order to strike up a increasingly more difficult to write about; some artists this is important, but not to
different relation. with his most recent work even harder. others. For instance, in Dick Smith's paint­
The graphic medium for me is an extending In a way, aim is more easily defined than ings of 1962/3-Pack, Package, Gijtwrap and
one, to be used to further realize an idea. In source, because in general it is a similar pre­ Surfacing-the reference is pointed, yet in later
the case of the new prints it is a way of impos­ occupation to all artists. That ultimate aim work, perhaps beginning with the corner of
ing the formal structure in a very conscious might be described as the exploration and 1966, source seems less specific, but with a
effort, almost an exercise to sort out various manipulation of objects/forms in space, more intensified concern with aim.
archetypal forms. This series is the nearest realizing them either in a two-dimensional or I think my present development came about
I've got to actually using architecture as a three-dimensional concept. Whether it is a when, being dissatisfied with my paintings, I
source. I'm not directly interested in archi­ personalized description or one by someone had to reject some of the ideas I had. The
tecture; it just seems to me that apart from practised in the new art linguistics, in the end . point about the earlier works which I had to
the history of structure, building is the most it is technical. It is enough that any question come to realize was that they could become
useful way of diagnosing man-made order-at that the work throws up is its content. The decorative. The present work derives from a
the same time being as interested in an source is always implicitly there; but it is need for greater cohesion, more presence;
eighteenth-century formal garden as a foot­ more subtle. But I think there is a delicate and without the added trappings of being
ball pitch. balance between the source material and called a Pop artist, Op artist or illusionist.
The function/form concern of the architect getting the truth out of it. And seen in this I had to scale my concerns down to allow
has always been his traditional base. Unfor­ way it is a consideration sometimes better left certain elements to be more concentrated.
tunately, in the twentieth century the archi­ aside. More recently, the unifying element which I
tect is having less and less effect on the total Obviously some people's work has a close like in experience-books, films, people-is
environment due to his 'buildings builder' relation to their personal lives-such as David one which can be described as 'restraint'. D
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