Page 23 - Studio International - February 1970

certain endeavours can be made to read as artist's comparative indifference to traditions NOTES
1 From an interview with Ad Reinhardt by Phyllisann
relatively specific. This is often a question of of critical or art-historical thought invests him
Kallick, published in Studio International, December
medium—e.g. the distinct and various means with a sole authority for illuminating past 1967.
2 An anti-art gesture only has iconoclastic significance
of presentation for Joseph Kosuth's Art as endeavours in art. The rest is archaeology at
within the context of art. It's only remarkable to pick
Idea as Idea. Ironically, the more in-series one extreme and public relations at the other. up the ball and run with it if everyone thinks you're
playing soccer. Even then you're still playing games.
the condition of the work presented, the more At best the perceptive critic informed about 3 In 'Art after Philosophy', Studio International October
a considered presentation is needed to render art history can do no more than give a literate 1969 (conclusion).
4 From 'There is just one Painting: Art-as-art dogma,
the work accessible as something specific. To exposition of the effect of a current art part XIII', published in Artforum, March 1966.
put it another way, the more explicit the endeavour upon our understanding of the 5 'The quality of art depends on inspired, felt relations
or proportions as on nothing else. There is no getting
strategy, or the more evident the distinction significance of earlier work.
round this. A simple, unadorned box can succeed as art
between strategy and purpose, the heavier Art alone is engaged with other art on equal by virtue of these things; and when it fails as art it is not
because it is merely a plain box, but because its propor-
the demand for a strategy which will stand up terms. tions, or even its size, are uninspired, unfelt...The
to scrutiny. Art of this kind does not evade superior work of art, whether it dances, radiates,
explodes, or barely manages to be visible (or audible or
criticism; it challenges it out in the open. Most of what is seen as Art is just Picturesque. decipherable), exhibits, in other words, rightness of
The critic's policy is characteristically to Picturesque situations are established by the "form".' (The degree of progress made in formalist
criticism can be judged by comparing Greenberg's use
divide and rule: divide the presentation from evidence of solutions— 'formal resolution', of the concept of 'rightness of form' in 1968 with Clive
the idea and rule the presentation (or the `style', 'character', 'brushwork' etc.—rather Bell's of 'significant form' some 55 years earlier. Both
6
presentation of the presentation) confident than by dilemmas. Everything I easily think usages imply that, in the face of 'inspiration', linguistic
precision must ultimately bow to mystification). The
that few will notice that the idea has been of as a way of making art involves the passage quoted is from Greenberg's 'Avant-garde
Attitudes—New Art in the Sixties', the John Power
sacrificed. It is a sad irony that the critic, picturesque. Much writing on art is nostalgia
Lecture in Contemporary Art, delivered at the Univer-
knowing that literacy will tend to be mistaken evoked by picturesque situations. (English sity of Sydney on 17 May 1968 and published by the
Power Institute of Fine Arts, 1969. The above passage
for intelligence by those who are less literate, culture particularly has a heavy bias in favour
is immediately followed by a surely wrong-headed
can always rely on literary presentation to of the literary/scenic . . . even today. How to account of Duchamp's intentions. It seems to be a
characteristic enterprise of the formalist critics to put
characterize his status as one involved with defeat an Eng. Lit. education? How to be
down 'minimal' art on the basis of the misinterpreted
art. anyone but Wordsworth?) intentions of one 'forbear' or unrepresentative repre-
sentative. For example see Fried's use of Tony Smith's
Alas, information supplied by the artist is not The major problem is never how to do some-
( !) prose to put down the whole of minimal art (as if
all, however indiscriminate, that comes up for thing; it's always what to do. Those who are `minimal art' were viable as an entity anyway), in 'Art
and Objecthood', Artforum summer 1967.
consideration: in the end, the spectator's concerned principally with how to do it have
6 'There are all kinds of things going on in art, but they
experience of the work of art will come to got presentation confused with art. (At the sec- have nothing to do with the pretensions of a serious
painter'—Ad Reinhardt (see note 1).
include information imposed upon the art ond hand level of course this also applies to
7 Because there have been a lot of artists by now who
work by writers and others. Mud does stick. critics.) There's no excuse for this nowadays; 7 have laboured to make the point. It's a long list and
starts with Duchamp if not earlier. In scorning the
Fried's criticism is now a part of Noland's which is to say that anyone involved princi-
`visual thrill' in Courbet's work I don't think Duchamp
art. No wonder the better artists tend to pally in how to do it can be taken as having necessarily meant that he thought Courbet a bad
painter. Duchamp's critical propositions were aimed at
protect their work from indifferent exposure; opted for convention rather than creation :
`Art' and not at artists. L.H.O.O.Q. rase is an under-
i.e. to protect the idea from indiscriminate i.e. in the end you know you'll forget them. estimated key work (and pre-empts, incidentally, most
of the questions later posed by Rauschenberg's Erased
presentation of its presentation. The notion Criticism concerned primarily with resolution
de Kooning), but it doesn't in any way devalue the Mona
of 'cubes' obscures the endeavour of Braque does more harm than good in the end : because Lisa; quite the reverse: it 'restores' it as if by cleaning
off layers of browned varnish— it renders it operative
and Picasso and no critic's initiative will the problem becomes more important than
once more.
prize it loose. what it's about,8 and bad artists are promoted 8 I owe this way of expressing this point to Seth Siege-
laub; see 'On Exhibitions and the World at Large' in
Artists tend to become indifferent to the because they have the 'right' concerns (even
Studio International, December 1969.
continued currency of such labels perhaps long after these concerns have any relevance 9 From a talk, 'Art as Art Dogma', given at the ICA
in May 1964. Transcript published in Studio Interna-
only because for them words lose their to art). This is yet another way of avoiding
tional, December 1967.
meaning faster and become abstract. This confrontation with art. Ideas pursued beyond
situation may not last much longer. Du- their currency in art become ideas concerning
champs' ironic instructions, anti-informative the picturesque. (E.g. most formalist criticism
legends and complex nonsensical puns pointed is now defence of the picturesque.)
the way—through the looking-glass as it
were—towards an investigation of language on Criticism never holds good for long.
art's terms; i.e. within the context of art—not
literary—ideas. Just now language seems The only alternative to criticism is art.
potentially operative as never before within
the primary art context. ('When somebody says, "Well, where do you
The artist's indifference to literacy is the one go from here or where do you go from here ?"
hope for the salvation of language as a means I say, "Well, where do you want to go?"
to illuminate art. By the same token, the There's no place to go .... ' — Ad Reinhardt.9)
SARAH WHITFIELD studied at the Courtauld Institute lished a book on Klee and lectures extensively. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: We wish particularly to thank
and is currently working on a book on the Fauve Barnett Newman, the artist, for his help and co-opera-
painters. FRANK WHITFORD is at present writing a book on tion in the production of this issue. We also wish to
German Expressionist Cinema, and is a contributing thank the editor of Art News for his permission to re-
PETER LAYTON studied at the Central School of Art in editor to Studio International. produce the article on Chartres and Jericho by Barnett
London and has taught ceramics and sculpture in the Newman, which first appeared in that magazine. For
United States. His work has been shown in Los Angeles, EUGEN BRIKCIUS was born in Prague and studied philo- the loan of colour sets and other assistance we wish to
San Francisco and Chicago and he is at present teach- sophy at the Charles University in Prague. He is thank the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Art Now New
ing ceramics and glass at Hornsey College of Art. continuing these studies at University College, London. York, Art News, New York, the Museum of Modern Art,
He has performed a great many happening and 'pub- New York, and M. Knoedler & Co. Inc.
DENNIS DUERDEN runs the Transcription centre, the aim lic mystifications', and is now attempting to turn his
of which is to promote African culture. He has pub- whole life into one continuous exercise.
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