Page 52 - Studio International - September 1970

of the South London dance halls are littered This was dispiriting. Unhappily, it was not
with shards of bakelite from the rockers' the only cloud which hung over Greenberg's
instruments; the fans applaud as the means of talk-in. Another, bluntly, was this : if the
music are smashed. We may be burning our Americans have the art, they have the war too.
cultural boats as we exhibit our burnt books. It seemed impolite, blundering, obtuse to say
We should not allow DIAS any purchase in so, but it was said. People have clearly been
creative life. That's an extreme view, but a ill-at-ease with the self-referential, self-gen-
lot of people feel it. At the same time, most erating nature of American modernism, and
young artists seem unconcerned by such with the way that it seems to float clear of
gloomy reservations, the despair felt by an all that is hideous in American society. It is
older generation. Nor do they seem particu- impossible to argue with the art, but easy to
larly disposed to formulate any aesthetic. accuse its champions, especially if they carry
This is the point of Charles Harrison's moving such influence, and such an elitist air, as does
`Notes towards Art Work', which naturally Greenberg. It is perhaps for this reason that
assumed the position of an aesthetic construct English artists this summer have usually
itself, not a comment on other aesthetic preferred the Oldenburg retrospective to that
constructs. There is little responsible writing of Frank Stella. If Oldenburg isn't such a
about art at all, and no criticism whatsoever good artist, they argue, he is the one that
of the newest forms of art. Most art journalism you'd take to a desert island with you. This is
has little relation to the good old verities. Or so profoundly unfair to Stella that one can
about as much, say, as 'University Challenge' only repeat, as a principle, the plaintive cry
bears towards what is admirable in academic of a New York artist who was berated by
enquiry. militants for not making his work more
However, there have been a lot of American `relevant' to Vietnam : 'You must allow me to
critics, artists, and academics in London this be esoteric!' What is the critical and political
summer, all of them talking. The ICA seems position about Robert Rauschenberg's latest
to be nosing its way towards a full-scale work? It's called Currents, and is fifty-four feet
symposium on art criticism, so perhaps these long, the largest silkscreen print ever made.
matters may be clarified. Clement Green- Its thirty-six separate panels are filled with
thing else, but what a difference an art school berg's visit to London was a curious affair. collages of newspaper headlines and photo-
makes to the feel of a town ! Places like The not-quite-undisputed king of American graphs, and with nothing else, and they could
Loughborough, Worthing or Farnham are criticism, the man who has defined the line of go on until the war stops. Rauschenberg says,
simply lifted degrees above their natural dull- classic modernist painting, was prepared to `The first decision was to make the collage
ness. One reason why there is such a feeling answer questions, in public. Totally un- black and white. I didn't want it to look pretty
of dead conservatism hanging over Oxford is announced, the news spread quickly enough in any way. The next was to settle on an
that there is no art college there, no feeling to attract a largish audience to Goldsmiths arbitrary length. I picked fifty-four feet, but
for painting. Look at the collections formed College. Greenberg himself, accompanied by give or take another sixty or four thousand
by those affluent and generous bodies, the Kenneth Noland and Anthony Caro, swept feet the message would have been the same'.
Oxford Junior Common Rooms; stultifying, up in a chauffeur-driven limousine, advised Not drawn over in any way, the message of
unadventurous. In 1965, David Hockney's us not to be shy of asking him questions, and Currents is simply in its news: KILL ARMY
clever and accomplished early painting The was totally charming. Nobody was shy, but WIFE, 2 IN LSD RIOT, ANTIWAR
Most Beautiful Boy in the World, was smuggled the questions remained unanswered. The MARCHERS BACK G.E. STRIKERS,
into the Balliol collection (for sixty pounds). monolith of his version of modernism stood PANTHER BRAWL ROCKS COURT,
But it was then mutilated by outraged and firm against every probe. He does not believe RUN-OFF FLUSHES SEWAGE TO
beer-happy young gentlemen who could only in debate, and would not even be seduced RIVER.
feel at home with Christopher Wood and into conjecture. The possibilities of a modern New paintings by Kenneth Noland and Jules
sporting prints. It was a despicable episode. art that did not square with the Greenbergian Olitski, none of them looking particularly
Despite its culture, and tolerance of succession from Cubism to Abstract Expres- new, were on show at Kasmin during the
eccentricity, Oxford is one of the most sionism to Post-painterly Abstraction could summer, but were completely overshadowed
philistine towns in England. not be considered. The influence of Duchamp, by the brilliant but incomplete Frank Stella
In the arts, prediction is futile, and a salutary for instance, was dismissed : 'He had a retrospective at the Hayward, on its way
prognostication more so. Nobody knows common-place mind'. So much for Du- from New York to Amsterdam before going
which way the visual arts will go, but it seems champ. If Pop was mere novelty, without on to Pasadena and Ontario. Few painters
certain that they will move away from paint- `staying power', then conceptualist work have as much of Stella's gift for snapping a
ing, away from the unique and solitary (split now into so many different streams spectator into altertness before his painting,
expression of a single work. They will become that an overall informed discussion is an and so it is good to have intelligent mono-
more socially active, vividly involving the urgent necessity), had not even the passing graphs from two of his longstanding admirers,
spectator as participant. They will become interest of novelty, and its fluid nature was William S. Rubin and Robert Rosenblum.
wilder and more impermanent; they will obviously so antipathetic to Greenberg's hier- It's even better to have the paintings, of
appeal to experience rather than to reflection. archical and historical cast of mind that it course, especially since the black ones and the
This will challenge most of the assumptions could not be discussed at all. One came away aluminium and copper series have all too
that lie behind the way we judge the arts. It with the feeling that Greenberg's example, often been reduced to mere diagrams to
can be argued (it has been) that a love of together with the sheer strength of advanced accompany argument, a nasty fate for a
excitement is now prevalent, and that Pop American painting, has led to a school of picture. It has been held by some that the
proves it. Love of excitement is so far removed critical writing which is powerless to evaluate early series, especially the black paintings,
from a love of beauty that it inevitably results innovation that does not proceed from his were merely a method of clearing all the
in its opposite, a joy in destruction. The floors sanctified tradition. ground away before Stella's career as a free