Page 22 - Studio International - February 1970

Notes towards the area of art; the area of art expands by
accretion, it does not alter through redirection.
art work Pseudo-art continually aspires to non-art
conditions : hence 'anti-art', 'technologic art',
`pop art', etc. etc. The art is either there or it's
not; the labels— 'anti', 'technologic', 'pop'
Charles Harrison and so on—direct attention away from the
issue into less critical areas. (e.g. Lichtenstein is
more involved with art than with pop : pop in
Lichtenstein's work is a metaphor for pre-
sentation, which is not- art. His real endeavour
is corrective and critical. His public Pop
image is misleading and irrelevant and
nothing much to do with him anyway.)
Pseudo-art is involved with avenues of escape
from art. An art position can harden into a
pseudo-art position. Similarly, involved criti-
cism can harden into pseudo-criticism. Green-
berg's concept of Novelty Art movements
similarly acts as if to obfuscate ideas which
operate within the context of art but outside
Greenberg's concept of 'Modernism'. (The
longer this term retains currency the more
ironic its modes of employment become.)
For Greenberg to imply that one cube
sculpture can usefully be differentiated in
Art now has no object in view. value from another only in terms of its visual
quality—i.e. through the comparative 'right-
Some withdrawals are more operative than ness' of its size, surface, etc.—is patently
most engagements. ridiculous.5 (For a start, how can there be a
`Is it that the only useful thing a sculptor can specific and meaningful size for a cube,
do, being a three-dimensional thinker and relative to other cubes?) Two separate but
therefore one hopes a responsible thinker, is to identical cubes could be two very different
assert himself twice as hard in a negative works of art at different dates or even in two
way ?' —Barry Flanagan (June 1963). different places at the same date (maybe that
`A stack of several hundred blank sheets of distinction has no meaning anyway). It seems
paper—one for each day on which a concept pointless to pretend that one can come to a
was rejected.'—work by Christine Kozlov. work of art with no prior information about
`You can only make absolute statements anything except a narrow range of earlier art
negatively' —Ad Reinhardt.' objects, or to pretend that certain kinds of
Operative: this word only has meaning in information—specifically about probable in-
regard to the possibilities. Which suggests tentions—can be screened off at the moment of
that you can't get out of the context of art `aesthetic contemplation'. Any information
even if you're misguided enough to want to which the artist provides will inevitably
try. 2 become a part of the spectator's area of con-
6There's no such thing as anti-art; there's sideration—and this includes titles, however
only art.' —Victor Burgin. flippantly added.
`Art's only claim is for art. Art is the definition Certain artists, in taking a 'my-life-is-my-art'
of art' —Joseph Kosuth. 3 attitude, are doing no more (nor less) than
`There is just one art, one art-as-art.'—Ad making explicit the extreme and inevitable
Reinhardt.4 consequences of this truism. There is of course
Art is the only sure means of judging art. Art no inherent virtue in this : it's only fatalism
criticises art (i.e. it elucidates it, reshuffles it, after all. To counter this, art has always
re-arranges it, re-enlivens it). Art stays within thrown up new strategies by means of which

Contributors CHARLES HARRISON is assistant editor of Studio Inter- BARN= NEWMAN, the distinguished American artist,
national and contributes regularly to the magazine. had an exhibition covering his work from 1959 to 1969
to this issue at Knoedler's gallery in New York last April.
JONATHAN BENTHALL has joined a partnership working
in electro-environmental engineering and design, and DON JUDD, the artist, was born in Excelsior Springs,
writes regularly for Studio International on art and Missouri. He studied at the Art Students League, New
technology. York and Columbia University. From 1959 to 1965 he
worked as critic for Arts Magazine and he has published
BARBARA REISE is a contributing editor to Studio Inter- articles in Arts Yearbook and Art in America.
national and a visitor in the history of fine art department
at Coventry College of Art. She has assisted in the DORE ASHTON, the American critic, is a regular contri-
editing of this issue. butor to Studio International.
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