Page 20 - Studio International - June 1971

Gurgles around exhibition closed. Even before I could reply, expression and affirmation of imperialism.
the painting was taken out of the show without `In the artistic milieu the pillar of the system
the Guggenheim my authorization. is the artist himself, whether he is politically
There could clearly be no question of radical or not. If the artist has anything against
Just before the opening of the Guggenheim exhibiting Painting 2 without Painting 1; this the art system, he should start by rebelling
international in New York a work by Daniel would have been a mutilation of the project as against himself as an artist, i.e. against his own
Buren was withdrawn from the show without the originally conceived. As for the one-man show, product as a culture-gadget. This attitude is not
prior agreement of the artist. OnI April, the which would certainly have interested me in often seen. Radicalism in the field of art cannot
Guggenheim cancelled its planned Hans Haacke other circumstances, it was no more than a be an exclusively external (formal) thing but
exhibition. On 4 May, the Robert Morris skilful means of taking some of the odium from only a fundamental one, at the level of the
exhibition at the Tate Gallery was temporarily the censorship that was being exercised by product itself; and there, and only there, lie
closed and the main part of the exhibition— certain artists, thus obviating a confrontation the risk, the possibility of interest, and the
primarily designed for physical participation—was from which they could hardly have emerged exacting responsibility of the artist. The place
removed on the grounds that it had become with credit; by shifting my piece out of its initial where the work (in this case my own) is shown
dangerous through the 'overzealous participation' context, it would be possible to defuse the issue is a direct consequence of the work itself, not
of visitors. which it raised by its presence. vice versa.' (From DB, Wise en garde no. 3',
These separate events are interrelated because I tried getting up a petition, in order to find VH 101, December 1969.)
they call in question the relationship between out which of the participating artists were in `In fact the work, as it is seen to be without
public museums or galleries and artists whom they favour of having my piece in the exhibition. I composition and as it presents no accident to
invite to exhibit, the responsibilities of such collected fourteen signatures [out of twenty] — divert the eye, becomes itself the accident in
institutions when they exhibit the work of living some of them ambiguous or dubious, according relation to the place where it is presented.
artists, and the responsibilities of the exhibiting to the Museum. Five artists did not sign, and The indictment of any form considered
artists themselves to both institutions and public. one was out of town. The minority forces as such and the judgement against such forms
We publish here statements by Daniel Buren against the piece were much more vehement and on the facts established in the preceeding
and Hans Haacke and by Thomas M. Messer, more effective than the less noisy majority who paragraphs, leads us to question the finite space
director of the Guggenheim Museum, and Diane were opposed on principle to the censorship in which this form is seen.
Waldman, a curator at the Museum, relating to that was taking place. Carl Andre took his own It is established that the proposition, in
the occurences in New York. In our July 1 August piece out of the show as a protest against the whatever location it be presented, does not
issue an article by Barbara Reise, with interviews censorship that mine had suffered. "disturb" that location. The place in question
with individuals at the Giggenheim and the Tate, This censorship of a piece of work which appears as it is. It is seen in its actuality. This
will deal with some of the general issues raised, the had been known as a project for a considerable is partly due to the fact that the proposition is
background to the exhibition cancellations, and the time (since October 1970) and accepted in not distracting. Furthermore, being only its own
general implications of the way in which they were writing by the Museum (6 January 1971)—and subject-matter, its own location is the
handled. which has existed in precisely the same form proposition itself. Which makes it possible to
since November 1965 —poses a number of say, paradoxically: the proposition in
ROUND AND ABOUT A DETOUR questions, quite apart from that of freedom of question "has no real location".
I SEQUENCE OF FACTS expression (in which I have never believed, in In a certain sense, one of the characteristics
Descriptions of project accepted by the Solomon or out of the artistic ghetto). of the proposition is to reveal the "container"
R. Guggenheim Museum in October 1970 as in which it is sheltered.'
part of the sixth Guggenheim International 2 ESTABLISHED ORDER (DB, 'Beware' (July 1969), in Studio
Exhibition, which opened on II February 1971. The interesting fact is that this censorship was International, March 1970: 'la mise en
Two paintings : enforced by the reaction of a number of artists, accusation... qui lui sert d'abri.')
(1) Interior (in the centre of the Guggenheim and not of what is often called the System (i.e.
Museum from the dome at the top to the first the museum). This reinforces the thesis which 3 ARCHITECTURAL ORDER
ramp at the bottom): painting, acrylic on I have developed previously, which is that inside The demonstration I tried to make at the
textile, 20 x 10 m., visible from both sides. the art world the system is the artist. In plain Guggenheim incorporated among other things
Description: cotton woven in alternate vertical words, power resides with a certain artistic a certain use of the space which revealed both
stripes of blue and white each 8.7 cm. wide, the avant garde, allied with certain powerful the place itself and the attraction which diverts
two outer white stripes being coated with white groups — avant-garde commercial galleries — attention away from the spiral ramp on which
paint on both sides. which together apply to the museums, the paintings are hung; the architecture renders
(2) Exterior (in the centre of 88th Street between periodicals, etc., a literal censorship. This can what is exhibited obsolete and peripheral. One
Madison and 5th Avenues, a site chosen by the be detected in the information which they of the reasons for this is that most works are •
Museum): painting, acrylic on textile, 1.50 x distort, and in the history which they write and thought of a priori in terms of their eventual
10 m., visible from both sides. Description: can afford to circulate. In this connection it is support, their frame—the walls of the museums
cotton woven in alternate vertical stripes of blue noticeable that in the sixth Guggenheim and galleries—and of their envelope, which in
and white each 8.7 cm. wide, the two outer International there were no less than twelve the majority of cases is a box, a cube. These
white stripes being coated with white paint on American artists as against eight representing boxes set off what is shown in them, and make
both sides. the rest of the world ! it possible to juxtapose in space and in time
Painting I was installed on io February, the Without making any hasty judgements as to works which without this artifice would be
day before the opening. Certain participating whether these practices are more current in the incapable of existing, of being seen. There is
artists, led by Dan Flavin, immediately United States than elsewhere, anyone can work nothing like this at the Guggenheim.
threatened to withdraw from the exhibition if out the political and economic causes which lie The interior of this museum offers two
the work was not immediately removed. The behind them. Art is not above ideologies, but a appearances, apparently contradictory:
Museum then asked me to exhibit only Painting part of them. In the case of the 'avant garde', (1) By virtue of its spiral structure it does not
2, and to withdraw Painting t from the show; in art is a reflection of a dominant ideology—in partition off the works on show into a series of
return I would have a one-man show which our society, that of the bourgeoisie. What this boxes; it brings them into contact, and
would open immediately after the group means in the case of American society is the immediately reveals the chaotic and aberrant

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