Page 22 - Studio International - July August 1970

For a US in an 'innovative' print workshop to last most of feels that the ECG, while 'not necessarily a sensible
the summer, characterized by the Smithsonian as
idea, is an interesting one, and will bring pressure
`providing a non-political setting for direct ex- on the US Government'. More than ever, the
emergency change among people who share the common issue of who owns a work of art is paramount. No
interest of drawing the international community
court of law can be expected to have the last word
into harmony'. in an historically anarchistic aesthetic and moral
cultural Ruscha, in London June 10, announced that he world of the artist.
was withdrawing from the Biennale exhibition and
`That image is mine,' Oldenburg told this maga-
from the workshop, to which he had been invited. zine. 'If it's a beautiful image I made, and it makes
government Artists who learn of a proposed boycott of a contro- good, I should have the right to remove it. Takis
people feel good, and I don't want people to feel
versial exhibition before they have been informed
that they are in the exhibition can hardly be (MOMA issue, Art Workers' Coalition) is right—
Early in June less than three weeks prior to the expected to support the organizers of that show. In the artist should have control over his own work...
opening of the United States Pavilion at the Venice London preparing for the opening of his- one-man if I protested against a work of mine going into a
Biennale, major American artists joined in a power- show at the Tate Gallery June 24, Oldenburg on particular show, then no one should have the right
ful action of reproach toward their country's war June 9 had just received a special delivery letter to send it. If they did, on principle...if I were
escalation in Indochina and the killing of college from Lois Bingham, 'Chief' of the International present, yes, I would physically remove it. The
students by police and National Guard. They sup- Art Program of the Smithsonian, dated June 5. image belongs to me.' Oldenburg refused ECG
ported the manifesto of the Emergency Cultural 'It was not a very pleasant letter,' he said. 'It requests to boycott the US Pavilion at Osaka, and
Government committee of the New York Artists' would be very hard to reply sympathetically.' His to cancel his current show at the Tate because it
strike, calling for immediate boycott of US telegram of reply is as follows : 'My position regard- was organized by the Museum of Modern Art,
Government-sponsored art shows abroad until ing the Venice showing is unchanged. I am with- variously accused by militant groups in New York
'policies of ruthless aggression abroad and intoler- drawing the Airflow print and am reserving it for as agents of the Government or the CIA. Cancelling
able repression at home' are stopped by the present the ECG protest exhibition to be held this summer the Osaka show would be a retroactive action and
administration. in New York City as an expression of solidarity damaging to personal commitments made openly
In refusing to allow their works of art to be shown with the artists against the policies of the present by Oldenburg before the strike became an issue.
abroad under the auspices of the U.S. Government, administration.' (According to Philip Leider and Oldenburg feels his Tate Gallery show has nothing
and assigning authority to the ECG to supplant the others in New York, the show will be held in mid- officially to do with the United States Government.
Government 'in all its activities as the sponsor of July at the Jewish Museum; whether it will be a ECG leaders in New York are represented by a
American art abroad', the artists—including Roy Salon J'Accuse or the full American Pavilion in four-man Committee: critic Max Kozloff, artists
Lichtenstein, Jim Dine, Ron Kitaj, Ed Ruscha, New York remains to be seen.) Frank Stella and Robert Morris, and artist-writer
Frank Stella and Claes Oldenburg—effectively Just as this issue of Studio International was going to Irving Petlin. Galleries active in the movement are
diminished the print show and workshop pro- press, it was learned here '99 per cent' of the Bykert, Feigen, 0. K. Harris, Castelli, Janis, and
gramme in the US Pavilion at Venice and again American show was in a New York warehouse, Emmerich. The feeling in New York during the
raised serious moral and ethical questions about packed, ready to leave for Venice, with each piece first week in June was almost universal sympathy
exhibition policies in the US. For those first days accompanied by legal loan forms authorizing the with the artists. Thomas Hoving extemporane-
in June, the threatening, murky New York sky US Government to exhibit the works of art at the ously addressed a meeting of the American
rained rhetoric—unfamiliar to the normally apoliti- Biennale. If this was indeed so, the artists' strike Museum Association at the Waldorf, after it had
cal world of American art. Shibboleths of 'soli- could legally be an empty gesture since the prints been noisily interrupted by Artists' Strike members
darity'— accusations of racism, sexism, repression, were owned elsewhere. However, Lois Bingham's demanding that a drastic seven-point militant
aggression—were hurled by strike leaders against letter states that 'unless you inform us otherwise in programme be adopted by the assembly. Hoving
the US Government, which replied with restrained writing, we shall assume that you wish your work (claiming to be a pragmatist) told the audience of
—but pained—charges of 'pressuring', 'putting art to remain in the exhibition'. Miss Bingham's letter 500: 'Two years ago in New Orleans I told you
in the political arena', 'using art as a hostage'. does not suggest that the work is packed and ready people that unless you confronted some of these
In the meantime, this magazine learned that none to go, nor does she indicate a deadline for with- issues you would be kicked unceremoniously into
of the major artists so far named had been informed drawal. Earlier in the letter, she states: '...each the soup. What I wanted was to get these people
by Washington, by Henry Hopkins (asked by the artist must speak for himself, and only such a direct into our soup. What has happened this week was
Smithsonian to pick the show), or by private request from an artist to the International Art predictable. We have, in fact, been kicked into the
galleries or museums that they had been invited to Program will be considered sufficient reason for soup.' Hoving, as the self-appointed ombudsman
participate in the Biennale. Claes Oldenburg had cancelling the negotiated loan agreements pertaining to for the Museum world to the Real World, makes
heard informally through Gemini in Los Angeles work by him.' an interesting picture, but in this case he is right.
that this year's Biennale would involve prints. The Smithsonian, and Hopkins, as this issue went The art world in America is definitely in the soup.
Oldenburg stated in London that he was not to press, anticipate a '99 per cent show'. The When Cambodia, Kent State and Jackson State
happy with the 'off hand, incidental way' the Emergency Cultural Government claim solidarity brought the 'silent majority' of students together
Government handles invitations. Neither Kitaj or among the artists' community and predict no show with the more loudly radical in open gestures of
Dine, also in London, had ever heard of Henry whatever for Venice. Jim Dine said in London, 'I protest, it was natural that the art world would
Hopkins, nor had they heard from him until news would normally think that 95 per cent of artists are accompany them. Venice Biennale or no Venice
of the boycott, and their telegrams of disassocia- left-wing. If Nixon wanted sympathy from the Biennale— the issues have moved far beyond a
tion from the Biennale reached Washington June 4. academic community, he would get it from about print workshop encapsulated in an out-dated
Lichtenstein said in New York that he, too, had 12 per cent'. Though Mr Hopkins may be acting exhibition bubble.
q
not been advised of an invitation to the Biennale. in good faith, there is a very large question regard- BETH COFFELT
Forty-four artists, it is rumoured, were to have ing his failure to individually inform major artists
been represented by 100 prints in the Biennale about their inclusion in a major international show. [This journal learnt in mid-June that the US Pavil-
exhibition. Some of them, including William The repercussions from this to future militancy in ion at the Venice Biennale would not open.]
Weegie and Bob Damers, and reportedly (though the art world could be deafening. If nothing more
not confirmed) Robert Rauschenberg and Sam happens as a result of the present contretemps, the
Francis, were to be 'in residence' as artist-teachers artists are organized as never before. Oldenburg

Contributors BETH COFFELT formerly worked for the Los Angeles LUCY LIPPARD, the American writer, critic and art
County Museum. She has been visiting Europe as a historian, teaches art at the School of Visual Art, New
to this issue free-lance for the San Francisco Chronicle. York, and has organized major exhibitions of current
art in Seattle and Vancouver. She has also written a
MIKE SCAMMEL. is a free-lance translator and writer. He is book on Ad Reinhardt. She lives in New York.
at present writing a critical biography of the Russian
novelist Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
THE ART-PAPER SECTION OF THIS ISSUE, GUEST-
CHARLES HARRISON is assistant editor of Studio Inter-
EDITED BY SETH SIEGELAUB, IS PUBLISHED IN THREE
JONATHAN BENTHALL organized the Hans Jenny exhibi- national and has written regularly for the magazine. He
LANGUAGES BECAUSE OF THE GREAT INTEREST
tion currently at the Institute of Contemporary Art. He organized the 'Idea Structures' exhibition currently at
EVINCED IN EUROPE IN IN THE WORK OF THE
writes regularly on Art and Technology for Studio the Camden Arts Centre and at the Central Library,
CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS. International. Swiss Cottage, London.