Page 63 - Studio International - October 1970

7
Lecture Theatre at the University of Guelph openness is the most significant answer.
On Screen: Roy Lichtenstein, The Engagement Ring The interchangeability of experience is not an
1961. Coll: Mr and Mrs Robert A. Rowan, Pasadena,
California. American invention : when the Italian Futur-
(Slide courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art, New ist Severini called one of his paintings
York. Photograph Audio Visual Services,
University of Guelph) Dancer=Sea he meant to imply that as these
two sources of stimuli release the same human
8
Ad Reinhardt responses then they are in effect identical. A
Black Paintings. Installation shot of retrospective
exhibition at the Jewish Museum 1967. reality of standardized experiences is envisaged
(Photograph courtesy The Jewish Museum) as a replacement for a reality of unique
9 identities. If the things which make up our
Tony Smith 1962, steel, 6 x 6 x 6 ft.
Die. conceptional world of material objects are in
Installation shot from 'The Art of the Real', fact mere variations in the distribution of
Tate Gallery, April 1969
Courtesy Fischbach Gallery, New York electrical impulses, it makes little difference if
the impulses come from a cathode-ray tube or
a comic strip. In a world of standardized light-
ing conditions, central heating, contact lenses
and air conditioning, it is only the memory of a
less sophisticated age which makes us distin-
guish as reality the large screen which does not
have programme breaks. American writer
Jack Burnham in a recent edition of Artforum
sees a Systems Esthetic as the most valid for our
age.8 He sees it as an international tendency
but like its scientific equivalent in systems
analysis, it is further developed on this side of
the Atlantic.
I accept this view of life with a certain resigna-
tion, but there are heroic overtones to its
American embodiments. My final example
evokes presentiments of an ultimate futility
which is strangely heroic too. In October,
work can only be repeated endlessly. The 1967, Allan Kaprow staged a happening in
standardized ultimate art object falls into line California. Ice was delivered to fourteen sites
with the standadized stencils and heads in box- in Pasadena. In three days, fourteen rect-
es of Jasper Johns and the standard light fitt- angular structures were built without windows
ings of Dan Flavin. In attaining its ultimate doors, or roofs. The structures were left to
realization the work of art loses that individual- melt.
ity which, for philosophers as recently as The disintegration of Tony Smith's work is
Etienne Gilson, has been the criterion which slower. His cube, of mild steel, is treated from
distinguishes reality from imagination. time to time with linseed oil but this only
A term which Lawrence Gowing uses in con- slows down the process of corrosion. In time
versation though not in published works so far the rust will destroy it. Its existence on the
as I know, is 'nostalgia for the thing'. He uses dimensions of times is as finite as that of the
this particularly in connection with Roy observer who watches it fade like a mirage in
Lichtenstein's enlarged comic-strip paintings. the desert. q
It is consistent that it should be difficult to
identify the level on which the reality of this 1 Peter Schjeldahl, New York Letter in Art International,
art operates. Are they pictures of human Summer 1969, p. 68.
emotions so common-place as to be as much a 2 Lawrence Gowing, 'Paint in America' in The New
Statesman, May 24, 1958, pp. 699-700; quoted in
standard cliche as the comic-strip format? Is
John W. McCourbrey, American Art 1700-1900, in the
the thing represented the human object or Sources and Documents in the History of Art Series
the comic-strip itself? Are they pictures of edited by H. W. Janson. Prentice-Hall Inc., 1965.
people or pictures of pictures of people ? Is the I am also grateful to Lawrence Gowing for permission to
reality to be located in the human situation, in publish comments on Roy Lichtenstein which appear
below.
the illustrator's original concept on which the
3 Kandinsky: Concerning the Spiritual in Art, George
mass-produced image was based, in the Wittenborn, New York, 1964, p. 59.
industrial processes by which his drawings 4 Leon Steinberg: Jasper Johns, George Wittenborn,
were accommodated to the needs of economi- 1963, p. 15.
cal printing, in Roy Lichtenstein's own hand- 5 Ibid., p. 15.
Wilhelm Worringer 1881, Abstraction and Empathy.
rendering of the mechanical conventions, or
Translated by Michael Bullock. London, Routledge
beyond that in the 2 x 2 in. slide projected and Kegan Paul, 1963.
onto an 8-foot square screen which makes the 7 Quoted from a recorded interview with the artist, to
work available for critical scrutiny in the be the subject of a forthcoming publication.
lecture theatre, or in the art-magazine repro- I am also grateful to John Jones for permission to pub-
lish observations on the parallel between Whistler and
duction which brings the painting to its
Pollock which appear above.
widest audience returned to the scale of the Jack Burnham, 'Systems Esthetics', Artforum, Sept.
comic strip. The question is left open, its very 1968.