Page 32 - Studio International - June 1970

Correspondence `Avant-garde Spanish Art' by Luis Gonzales Hamilton's
Robles against which he was reacting in grand masterwork
histrionic style, since the latter supplied the only
penetrating comment on the present and future of I was most surprised to note that in the recent
`art' to be found in the two pages covered. exhibition at the Tate Gallery of the work of
This unanticipated inversion knocked aside Tapies's Richard Hamilton, his major work and master-
protestations, kicking them back into history where piece was not included. I refer, of course, to The
they belong. The very quotations which he had Large Glass. It may be that the organizers were put
intended to strengthen his arguments, served only off by the fact that the piece bears the same name
to lay bare his weakness. He proved unable to and appearance as a piece by Marcel Duchamp, a
dispel the indictment that art, as he understood it, work that has inspired a great deal of print and
was the 'foolish and impossible fantasy of the critical attention; but it should be plainly obvious
minority and the elite without roots among the to anyone of sensibility that the Hamilton piece is
masses'. The inadequate implication of his writing by far the richer.
seemed to be that removal from public comprehen- I am not of course referring to the visual aspect of
sion is, in fact, a mark of quality, so that those able the two works; for all intents and purposes they
to 'appreciate art' should enjoy the joke, laugh at may be read as being identical. To look for a com-
the philistine ignorance of the mob, as represented parison on that level would be, in the apt phrase
by Luis Gonzales Robles, and consequently share of a contributor to your January issue, 'mere naive
in a sense of greater security and surety that the phenomenalism'; the shattering of the glass of the
mysterious creative personality had once more Duchamp version affects the work no more or less
triumphed and shown itself to be beyond question- than a fly settling on it. In other words, the works
ing. However, this presupposed a sympathy with should be treated as 'concept', not 'object'.
Tapies's activity and an enjoyment of 'the use of To illustrate the point one might begin by con-
codes and readipgs between the lines for the sidering the placing of The Nine Malic Moulds.
initiated and those in the clique'. His 'intervention' According to history, Duchamp achieved this by
was written for an already converted audience, as a the primitive method of shooting at the work with a
lullaby for those 'enlightened minds' cosily tucked gun and making his marks where the bullets fell.
up in the little international art cradle. Given the state of physics at the time (still inebri-
Yet a warning against being drawn into this came ated with Einstein's simplistic view of the universe)
only four pages later in Jonathan Benthall's and the positivism of the early Wittgenstein, this
article 'Social Responsibility in Science and Art' method was probably as good as any. For Hamilton,
(The artistic sensibility) often turns a blind eye on however, the problem was infinitely greater; he
the social outrages next door, and prefers to con- could not just copy the Duchamp, that was not his
centrate on events of its own choosing'; 'the world of stated intention. He could have tried to be
fine arts can hardly dare to be critical of the world Duchamp, tried to relive so completely the intel-
of science on the question of responsibility'. lectual life of the man that the bullets would
It seemed obvious which side was nearer the truth. automatically have fallen where they did fifty
Thus, being called upon to take sides, I found years ago; but this again would have been recon-
myself drawn to identify not with 'the true artist, struction and Hamilton did not want to reconstruct,
poet, or great thinker' as Tapies termed them, but but rather re-create the work from the point of
with the man who could write: view of Richard Hamilton in the 60s and, what is
`People, society, whether organised or not, are not more, re-create it identically. The choice of how to
interested in what artists ponder over in their position The Nine Malic Moulds was now infinitely
studios, it means nothing to them'. more difficult, as theories of chance and their
Strange customs `They (the artists) are the ones who have not relationships to the arts had changed. He now had
In 1968, after considerable correspondence with, understood society, who have shut themselves up in to make his decision complicated not only by
and, I believe, payment for handling and/or their ivory tower'; 'the artists are not misunder- Heisenberg's theory of uncertainty and the by now
storage charges to, I think, B.O.A.C., I was stood victims'. commonplace use of random in contemporary
allowed to receive, or import, an unsolicited free And how could the decision be otherwise? The stochastic art, but also by the immense body of
sample of paints from Australia. In 1970 I received choice was between the second half of the twentieth writing that had already been written on the
the enclosed letter from H.M. Customs & Excise. century and a nineteeth-century, indeed even more consequences of the choice he was about to make.
I could only tell them that I did not know. out-dated model: the misunderstood, isolated, His own positioning of the Moulds exactly where
Yours sincerely, outcast artist; the elitist mentality which believes Duchamp had placed them forty-seven years before
Mark Lancaster itself unique, important, and above common is a gesture of great pathos and nostalgia for a
Artist in Residence understanding. I was not moved by Tapies's now bygone age (a theme incidentally manifest
King's College, Cambridge traditional sob story, the sorry tale of rejection. I throughout Hamilton's oeuvre).
will not be sucked into history by a man whose In every part of the works, the intention is
Dear Sir, considered response to society, and work, is to triumphantly realized: the re-creation is perfect.
You imported some tubes of artist's paint samples retreat into 'another world where his art... can One would of course like to see Hamilton's notes
really contribute to harmonious development', open and sketches, workings-out, no doubt, covered
value £8 8 0 in October 1968 via L.A.P.
Would you please tell me whether it is intended to to the chosen few who know the hallucinatory plea- with erasion and pentimenti, but obviously this can
sures of masturbation (as such an activity seemed never be: Hamilton's Large Glass would fall to
destroy any product (i.e. any painting produced
with these paints), and if not, how will such a to Benthall). Furthermore, I can only laugh at pieces if the notes presented along with the work
the argument that Picasso and Miró as representa- differed in any detail from Duchamp's. The slow
product be disposed of?
Are any of the eighteen tubes or the contents of the tives of the 'true artists', have shown their deep struggle to erase logically all solutions that did not
bottle of spreader still unused? concern for society, for 'justice, peace, honesty, lead inexorably to an identical solution to Du-
What have you used the tubes of colour and the and freedom', by their gifts of a few painted objects champ's must be surely considered as a major
spreader for please? to some isolated communities. But this puts me achievement of its era.
Stamped, addressed envelope for reply. with Luis Gonzales Robles among the ignorant Duchamp's work is fixed in time, a not over-
J.H. Honeyman who would answer `no' to Tapies's question : 'wasn't complicated reaction to a specific historical
Officer art one of the few recourses left to man for calling stimulus; Hamilton's, infinitely richer, is overlaid
H. M. Customs & Excise things by their true nature?' with many more layers, temporal and intellectual,
Cambridge So I would welcome more from the refreshing critic a magnificent comment not only on the specific
of the ABC newspaper who cannot see a future for situation, but on the history of art and human
a privileged community nor their non-productive, thought as well, a work which makes all Hamilton's
Uncivil art and civil servants self-referential activity, even though his opinions other works seem pitifully chained to their time
May I suggest that, in order to counteract the have only entered your magazine by accident. and place.
cliche sentiment of Antoni Tapies's 'Art and Civil John Tagg Yours sincerely L. J. Grobs
Servant's (March issue), you reprint the article Nottingham Edinburgh