Page 50 - Studio International - February 1971

superior to the setting already provided for artist denies (quite correctly and with traditionally have done, we certainly don't yet
him by the commercial gallery system. uncommon precision) that he is a conceptualist. understand what these reasons are. Painters
Moreover, the unrelatedness of his art to that of A typical piece, to bring out the point, was who cry ruin at the new turn of events (as
local contemporaries makes personal interaction his Walk Along This Line, set up in the 1970 Australian painters are now doing) are
less attractive to him, except socially. But he Transfield Prize Exhibition. It was simply a undoubtedly prejudiced, and they may not even
lives parasitically on art, working for a tape line some dozen feet long, glued to the be right. q
picture-framer. floor of the gallery parallel to a wall and only
Ian Milliss, who lives as a house-painter, is two or three inches away from it. To follow the 8 John Armstrong
Box, 197o
even less disposed to revise the institutions of the instruction was exceedingly difficult; and
Mixed media
art, except through his art—which is probably the artist insists that the work of art is neither 9 Ian Milliss
the most radical of all the new generation in the line nor its context, but the inner somatic Floor Piece, 1970
Plastic foam
Sydney. He has shifted the centre of action so and psychological experience of negotiating the
far away from the visual toward the engagement line. Mowry Baden in the USA has pursued a
of the vestibular and kinaesthetic senses that he similar objective, but Ian Milliss rejects the
may even, arguably, not be counted a visual artificiality of Baden's elaborately non-natural
artist at all. constructions and tries always to relate his
At the precocious age of fifteen, five years ago, apparatus closely to natural experience; to the
Ian Milliss knew (arrogantly, but rightly) that negotiating of doorways and stairs in something
the local art school had nothing for him. He has very like ordinary conditions —except for the
exhibited for two or three years now, firstly at wry twist that is given in order to force aesthetic
CENTRAL STREET GALLERY—although he was more attention.
interested in structure than in colour, and Typical of this approach is his Floor Piece,
tended at first to be discouraged and confused 197o, which amounts simply to the laying of
by the prevailing orthodoxy of 'ambitious' art. two-inch-thick plastic foam at the unavoidable
However, he quickly discovered Morris, Andre, entrance to the 197o Contemporary Art Society
Serra and others, and picked up confidence in exhibition in FARMER'S GALLERY
his own direction well before the failing colour- There are some awkward logical problems
dynamic of Central Street became apparent. associated with the aesthetic perception of inner
Christo's incomparable landscape wrap-up experiences, which have not yet been sufficiently
at Little Bay in 1969 clinched the matter. Ian analysed and discussed. I believe that Ian
Milliss participated in it absolutely, giving all Milliss, like Baden and others, is mistaken in
his time and care to the project, and he has trying to locate the work of art in the realm of
clearly been formed in emotional attitude more private individual experience, rather than in the
by this than by any other single event or public world. But although the theorist may
experience. Since Little Bay he has thought legitimately bully the artist about what he can
only in terms of aesthetic structures, and of properly say, the creative artist has no need at
aesthetic experiences that open out beyond the all to let the theorist determine what he shall do.
merely visual. For the time being it seems that the artistic
His notions, however, are distinctly less exploration of sensory modes that have not
grandiose than Christo's; in spite of that they hitherto figured prominently in the arts is greatly
have mostly, for one reason or another, not to be encouraged. If there should turn out to be
been realised. They remain in the form of good reasons why the arts have related to the
written instructions and diagrams—although the sensory modalities in precisely the way that they
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