Page 65 - Studio International - April 1971

part of the picture to the detriment of another, produces for the museum as one painted/ its emollient power. It is an enormous piece of
or like composition and perspective until Manet produced the representation of something, its machinery that crushes the more easily, those
or Cézanne, a composition and perspective illustration, without posing this problem, before who risk themselves as this subjection is
which privileged, inside the picture, a certain Cezanne. considered as self-evident. In fact, it is not
object in relation to another or a certain person Thus contemporary art history would taken into consideration : work is done with
(powerful-hero-prince-king-lord) to the oscillate constantly between two poles the object of being subjected to the museum/
detriment of the others (servants-slaves- symbolized by Cezanne and Duchamp. The gallery. It is time, it seems to us, to envisage
conquered-poor), or vice-versa, the museum first represents the positive/open pole and the stripping this process bare.
accords importance to that which stands out in second the negative/regressive pole. We were saying that contemporary art
relation to that which does not and among the The open positive pole sets in motion the oscillates between two poles. It's true of the
works that do, emphasizes (publicity-value- questions announcing possibility of rupture; `interior', but we discover that these two poles
catalogue) a particular work rather than the negative/regressive pole prevents, by are themselves attracted towards a third which
another. Duchamp's undertaking is not only a burning the steps and trying to accomplish a engulfs and annihilates them: the museum, the
censure of the work accomplished by Cezanne, forced rupture without analysing the gallery. The unique point of view from which a
but also a reversal, with rediscovery of formal indispensable conditions, any possibility of real work is seen. We should say the place for which
problems posed since the Rennaissance ! The and permanent rupture. One sees that this a work is made, to the exclusion of any other
`rupture' effected would then be just a censure—which is bourgeois—had/has the most consideration. It is here that the role of the
regression in relation to Cezanne. profound repercussions on art until today. museum/gallery should essentially be
The museum is thus an excellent weapon in History of art thus finds itself (t) on the one questioned, because the supposedly anonymous/
the hands of the bourgeoisie because its role, hand, really fissured by the impetus given by neutral place has become through habit or
at first sight, is not tyrannical. It is indeterminate Cezanne, a fissure enlarged here and there carelessness the only point of view, the place
and self-evident. It preserves. Also, access to (c.f. Mondrian, Pollock, Matisse, Newman, where, inevitably, a work is made and, finding
privilege of the museum/gallery is often Stella) and replastered by censure-blockage itself or not, exists or does not exist.
submission to vigilance over what the system undertakings (c.f. the same as above5 plus all Cezanne shook, fissured that which habit
considers dangerous. One sees clearly here the their followers, schools, etc.; the geometric forced on to a canvas, posed clearly the existence
political interest which there is for the abstracts for Mondrian, the abstract of the picture as illusory ground to question/
established order to privilege that which it fears expressionists for Pollock... see above for the analyse. It is high time to question the existence
might escape it. The museum can assess in its process followed by Cubism vis-a-vis Cezanne's and the exact role played by the museum/
own time what is presented, including that work, the same process here on a smaller gallery as the support, and the habit of showing
which has no a priori value (of an aesthetic- scale); (2) on the other hand, in a 'succession-of- work there.6 But only the question of art
saleable kind), and will succeed all the more simulated-ruptures' thanks to radical appearing in its necessity can permit an
easily as everyone lends himself to this process, (petit-bourgeois) solutions given by Duchamp's understanding of this partial question. q
and no-one notices this phenomenon or else descendants, who by a regressive censure, annul August/September 1970 (to be continued)
considers it as inevitable and self-evident. This the questions and answer under brutal-radical
is what Duchamp understood marvellously well, appearances, thus carrying back [retarding the [This text appeared in German on the occasion
by remaining silent (pretending to) rarefying development of] art generally well ahead where of an exhibition at the Monchengladbach
himself the 'valueless' objects he placed inside they find it. (They are evidently more numerous Museum in January of this year, under the title
the tableau/museum, going even as far as than those of the first type, the venture being 'Positions/Proposals'. It will be published in
stopping production, thus accentuating the much more spectacular on the one hand, and French under the title 'Repères' in the VHIOI.]
valorizing process of the museum. In fact, on the other, corresponding much better to
Duchamp's 'silence', valued morally so much, what the bourgeoisie expects of art, that is,
was only aesthetic and finally an excellent noise, 'novelty', brio and talent. Let us cite in
commercial affair. particular the Surrealists, all Pop Art and the 'When we employ (and insist on) the words 'to see',
New Realism in general, a part of Minimal `visible', they are to be understood in a broad sense
that never confines their reference to the eye as an
IV NECESSARY QUESTIONS(S) Art, all the lumino-stereo-neon-kinetic ventures, independent organ, which would be absurd and
To sum up, as an artist, Duchamp does not Conceptual Art ... ) What characterizes art mechanistic. To see, to look, are the actions which
answer (neither closely nor badly) the questions attracted by the second pole, which we call render our work perceptible and without which it
posed by Cezanne's work; he ignores them and regressive, is that it is ideologically, in its would not exist, as opposed to certain works (called
conceptual) which would not require this.
`paints' directly what we will call 'Chardin-type foundations and its results, traditional and —The proposal 'to be seen' —yes, of course, but
still lifes'. Simultaneously, and without having conservative, petit-bourgeois. without forgetting there can be no vision without
wanted it, but irrevocably, he shows that the It is nevertheless more and more difficult thinking.
2To question : this expression which recurs and will
place where a work is put (any work) is the now—not to say impossible—to distinguish recur often does not mean a problem must be resolved
framework, the limit and for the first time the between artists of the first group and those of or rejected, but that a problem is posed and that it
insane [senseless] link that exists between the the second, because the incessant games of anti must be examined, even, and above all, if that
problem is comparable to a form of usage having the
museum/gallery and that which is shown, and pro, hot and cold, etc., have finally force of law. To question is to examine the problems
exposed. All the pseudo-revolutionary myth, amalgamated in the same battle and the same that are posed; sometimes to clarify them or uncover
and what it continues to influence, was/is perspective those one would have believed were them, always to confront them.
3There is not an art which is political and an art which
possible only because one's attention has been irrevocably opposed. It is what some call 'the is not. All art is political and as a whole art is
fixed only on the object shown, its meaning, crisis of art' and what forces us to say, since reactionary.
without looking at or discussing even once the 1967, that art, all art, was reactionary. We now 4 It's the first important step towards the
mythification of Cezanne's work wherein the painted
place where it is shown. Now, only the place think, on our own part that one of the reasons for result/style becomes a model to copy or sublimate to
where the object is exhibited permits discussion this state of affairs — doubtless the most the exclusion of its meaning, of the reason why it 'is
of the latter. Outside this place art does not important one—is that everything is said, every painted' in a particular way.
°This means Mondrian painting Mondrians, Pollock
exist, in any case not as we know it up until battle occurs in the same unique area without painting Pollocks, Stella painting Stellas.
now. Conversely, this link is so strong that one the area being questioned. Now, this area is not °It goes without saying that it seems insufficient and
can say that everything shown in a museum or a neutral battleground, it is integrally part of unnecessary to exhibit in the street or the countryside,
outside museums or galleries. This neither solves nor
gallery is a work of art and that one paints/ what is shown and subjects all and everyone to even poses the problem.
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