Page 54 - Studio International - November 1970

porary architecture; but it may be used in the to which their works bear witness are general concerns. at the Galleria Sperone in Turin in July this year.
same spirit to point the urgency of the need 5 See note 1. "From 'Alice's Head: Reflections on Conceptual Art'
for a rigorous approach to the question of 6 Robert Ryman is not a younger painter than Stella, in Artforum, February 1970.
but his work came to public attention later and appears
21 The first documented insert from this series was
abstraction in art. Art is recognizably bad consistent with concerns which one might consider more made in The Nation, December 23, 1968, as one of four
when it ceases to bear relevance to our modes art-historically advanced. He thus offers something of parts to I. Existence (Art as Idea as Idea), itself only one
an exception; but Ryman's work derives much of its section from the synopsis. Ref. the exhibition and
of attending to other varieties of experience.
refinement and strength from what seems to be a highly catalogue 'January 5-31, 1969', Seth Siegelaub, New
In his work over the past year Burgin has terminal concept of painting: a notion of painting as York. The 'work', as art, was completed with the
achieved what I would regard as a remarkable painting compatible with Reinhardt's of art as art. decision to publish the synopsis.
7 See, for instance, the published version of Greenberg's 22 See for instance, Sunday-paper coverage on both
degree of real abstraction. Sets of messages
lecture, 'Avant-garde Attitudes: new art in the sixties', sides of the Atlantic.
are used to determine areas of concentration; printed in Studio International, April 1970. 21 In a typical group endeavour by the Art-Language
these in turn interrelate to form patterns 8 For examples see Judd's 'Complaints part 1', and artists a piece of hardware constructed or specified by
Flavin's 'Several more remarks', both in Studio Inter- Bainbridge or Hurrell (who are both technically com-
which we can recognize in terms of specific
national April 1969, and Kosuth's 'Art after Philosophy' petent), while often intentionally self-sufficient may also
situations (a very rare and original use in art in Studio International, October 1969. be used as the starting point for a series of theoretical
of memory and association as particular 9 See note 1. constructs and investigations of art functions to which
structural functions). These situations stand 10 This term was coined by Donald Karshan at the all or any of the group may contribute. The Lecher
time of the exhibition of 'Conceptual Art and Con-
System model and texts are typical products of this way
as example; the test of the pattern is whether ceptual Aspects' which he organized for the New York of working. See note 26.
it holds good for general experiences of a kind Cultural Center earlier this year. (See his introduction 24 Art-Language vol. 1, no. 2, February 1970. Art &
to which the specific situation belongs. If it to this, published in the September issue of Studio Inter- Language Press, 26 West End, Chipping Norton. Oxon.
national.) It is useful as a non-specific term relating to
25 See note 15.
does, then Burgin has succeeded in implanting certain recent art, and I employ it here in that sense. 26 Model 1 of the Lecher System was exhibited in the
in our minds an archetype — a structure rele- 11 This is a more specific term and implies a degree of `Idea Structures' show at the Camden Arts Centre,
vant to our means of perception—which is differentiation. I feel that it can properly be applied to London, from June 24 to July 19, 1970. Commentaries
the four editors of Art-Language (Terry Atkinson, were published in the catalogue of that exhibition and
truly abstract in so far as it does not depend Michael Baldwin, David Bainbridge and Harold (in abbreviated form) in the July/August 1970 issue of
for its validity on the existence or memory of Hurrell), to Joseph Kosuth, who has become the Studio International.
any particular object or set of objects. Need- journal's American editor, and to Ian Burn and Mel 27 Which they never are.
Ramsden, who constitute the 'Society for Theoretical 28A snow-shovel purchased by Duchamp from a
less to say, the implanted structure has a Art and Analysis' in New York. This differentiation is Broadway hardware store in 1915, and so titled in
potentially corrective effect. Like all signifi- not here intended to imply any judgement of value. reference to a newspaper report. The original was lost;
cant works of art it offers a pattern of con- 12 `Cezanne could never paint what he was optically a replica ( !?) dated 1946 is in the Arenberg Collection,
aware of and you could only guess at what he was 29 Philadelphia Museum of Art.
ceptualizations which we can hold like a driving on by looking at the work. As I see it he was From 'Introductory Note by the American Editor',
template against the rough edges of our own using two main event-categories: the make-episode, Art-Language vol. 1 no. 2. Kosuth became American
models of experience. The singular mind and multivalued time form. Cezanne's working idiom editor between the publication of the first and second
aimed to where one could see time as n units long, numbers of the journal, following Atkinson's visit to
responsible (in every sense) for its formulation good for any value of n. On the other hand the pictures New York in the summer of 1969.
is revealed in the imprint which the pattern are also defined in terms of his own working. The two 30 See note 15.
time-values didn't come to coincide easily. It was a 11 It is art-historically very apt that one of the entries in
leaves in the mind of its receiver.
marvellous example of the collision of two exclusive Morris' Card File should refer to Reinhardt, whom he
Of course if you don't get this far you're events. The result was Cezanne, our picture'—John met on a street corner while on his way to purchase the
nowhere. There is now no object more easily Latham, from 'Where does the collision happen: John file. This led to an INTERRUPTION (q.v.) of several hours
Latham in conversation with Charles Harrison', in while they talked.
identified, more common than the one in your
Studio International, May 1968. 32 From 'There is just one Painting; Art-as-Art Dogma,
mind—nothing to replace the painted canvas, `It is a paradox that the force of the sequential picture 33 part XIII', published in Artforum, March 1966.
nor anything to depend upon as validation of of experience is such that "the instant" is contemplated This should be seen in context: 'Picasso and Monet
were to have painted the last painting. The Impres-
your response except your confidence in the as a thing in the abstract when it is in fact the only sionists were called crazy. They took the worst beating.
thing in reality'—Victor Burgin, from an article
appositeness of the sensed pattern to the written for Architectural Design, August 1970. Poussin painted the last painting, and in a real sense he
evident structure of the words you read. In 13 This is perhaps what Kosuth meant when he wrote, did because Rococo and Mannerism broke up his
these circumstances those who allow auto- of Lawrence Weiner's decision that it didn't matter elements. Ingres painted the ultimate. . . .' From 'An
whether his work was 'built' or not: 'I always found interview with Ad Reinhardt' by Phyllisan Kallick,
biographical associations to direct their con- this . . . sensical in my terms, but I never understood published in Studio International, December 1967.
centration before the pattern has been com- how it was in his.' (See 'Art after Philosophy part 2' in 14 From 'Situational Aesthetics'. I hope that it will be
prehended may reach conclusions about the Studio International, November 1969.) obvious from the quotations I have used, if from nothing
14 In 1961, in response to an invitation to participate else, how much I am indebted to the artists concerned.
nature of the work which owe very little to in an exhibition of portraits at the Iris Clert Gallery, I owe particular thanks to Victor Burgin, Joseph
the artist and his endeavours, and which Paris, Robert Rauschenberg sent the following tele- Kosuth and Terry Atkinson. The conclusions and
reward them even less. gram: 'This is a portrait of Iris Clert if I say it is'. It was generalisations are my responsibility.
at about this time that Marcel Duchamp's work was, as 15 Relevant datable works which I take as establishing
I see no answer to this—no valid form of it were, put back into ideological circulation. this assertion are Kosuth's first definition cut from a
compromise. As always the artist must hold 15 Published in Air-conditioning Show 'Frameworks. 1966-7, dictionary and mounted (`Water', dated 1966), Atkin-
out for the decontamination of the mind and by Terry Atkinson and Michael Baldwin. Art and son and Baldwin's Air-conditioning Show/Frameworks,
Language Press. dated 1966/7, and Bainbridge's Crane, built in 1966
the reordering of consciousness. q 16 In 1953 Robert Rauschenberg obtained a drawing and considered in terms of its possible art applications
from de Kooning which he subsequently erased. The jointly by Atkinson and Bainbridge in that year (see
1 From an interview published in the catalogue of result was framed with the legend 'Erased de Kooning the editorial article in Art-Language vol. 1 no. 1).
`Prospect 69' (Düsseldorf, October 1969). Kosuth's con- Drawing/Robert Rauschenberg/1953'. It was said to Bainbridge and Hurrell's joint 'Hardware' show at the
tribution to the exhibition was included in the interview. have been a very good drawing. Architectural Association, London, in Spring 1967, con-
2 From 'Questions to Stella and Judd', an interview by 17 The strips of canvas left bare between the coloured tained devices with mechanical functions which were
Bruce Glaser, originally broadcast in New York, bands of Stella's paintings serve to minimize this dis- employed as 'analogical source material' for considera-
February 1964, as 'New Nihilism or New Art?', sub- junctive effect. Their presence is indicative of Stella's tion of art functions. There have, of course, been many
sequently edited by Lucy Lippard and published in anti-illusionist and anti-associative inclination. other claims to contemporary or earlier work with simi-
Art News, September 1966, and reprinted in Minimal 18 Carl Andre's work of the mid sixties is one of the lar intentions, but none that I have yet seen bear witness
Art; a critical anthology edited by Gregory Battcock, exceptions which helps to prove the rule. Until he to the crucial prime interest in art's abstract function
Dutton 1968. attracted plagiarists his position was unique: a romantic which I feel distinguishes the works listed here. This is
3 The locus classicus for the identification of Modernism materialist able to invest his objects with ideological not necessarily to disqualify other virtues in other works.
as a critical concept is Greenberg's essay Modernist functions, presenting these objects as constituted not of 16 Kandinsky was an ardent Theosophist; Mondrian
Painting, originally published in Art and Literature no. 4, interrelated (and thus inherently divisive) compositional was also involved with Theosophy early in his career
Spring 1965, and reprinted in The New Art; a critical elements, but of 'particles'—i.e. those units of equal and subsequently came very heavily under the in-
anthology edited by Battcock, Dutton 1968. status of which any material whole is constituted. No fluence of Dr Schoenmaekers' eccentric Neo-Platonist
4 The accusation of over-specialization is often levelled one else, at least since the 1920s, has produced an art mathematics; Malevich was inclined to mystical
at the more analytic of the post-object artists; but compatible with Marxist aspirations which is not con- Christianity.
however specialized the literary (as opposed to aes- servative as art. 17 Quoted by Victor Burgin. See note 12.
thetic) vocabulary of these artists may be, the concerns 19 Eleven of Kosuth's works dated 1965 were shown 38/39/40 See note 12.