Page 23 - Studio International - May 1971

retreat into rhapsodizing in the face of doubt. critic (in his role, perhaps, as spokesman for all `extensional' objects' in `De legibus naturae'.
15 Clement Greenberg; from `Avant-garde Attitudes—
There is always danger in a situation, in the who are conscious of a dissatisfaction at 'not
New Art in the Sixties'; see Studio International,
realms alike of art, social organization and being' artists') operates essentially in the area of April 1970. In the context of a previous use of this
politics, when a certain faction is prepared to behaviour. It's not nearly so simple a matter, of paradigmatic Greenbergism I suggested that 'The
degree of progress made in formalist criticism can be
avow its conservatism in order to defend its course, as one of adopting a life of licensed
judged by comparing Greenberg's use of the concept
rights to emotional responsiveness or to uphold neurosis; consciousness and admission of doubt of "rightness of form" ... with Clive Bell's of
the priority of its notion of 'the quality of life' and uncertainty are not necessarily either "significant form" some 55 years earlier. Both usages
imply that, in the face of "inspiration", linguistic
(or of 'are). The notion (or the notion of a incapacitating or 'uncreative'. q
precision must ultimately bow to mystification'.
notion) of a 'sensibility' based on precedents is 16'A policy for the arts'( !); 'Lord Eccles ... talks to
as impotent in the domain of art now as the Edward Lucie-Smith'; Studio International,
notion of a 'new' sensibility, held by 'avant- 1 At worst, in painting, a typically Northern European January 1971.
deformation of abstract-expressionist grandeur into 17 I'm grateful to Andrew Higgens for drawing my
garde' artists in the 192os, was impotent in the attention to this and many other political/cultural
self-indulgent tachiste rhetoric.
political/social domains. Both notions rely upon 2 The January 1969 issue of Studio International was ironies.
' 8
a concept of ineffability of experience as a largely devoted to consideration and documentation For a worked-out consideration of issues involved
of the work of sculptors of different 'generations' in 'art education' see Atkinson and Baldwin's article
defence against those assaults made by on the subject in the forthcoming (fourth) issue of Art-
associated with the St Martin's sculpture course.
empirical experience upon the concept of a 'From 'An interview with Clement Greenberg' Language.
`quality of life'. conducted by Edward Lucie-Smith and published in 19A situation is posited in which A (who is English)
Studio International, January 1968. The interview has said to B (who is French): 'What you have just
Philosophy has always at best offered a said is meaningless to me!' In order to judge the
provoked an irate response from Heron: 'A kind of
corrective to the retreat from uncertainty : cultural imperialism ?' (Studio International, possibility or nature of discourse in such a context one
would need to know, for a start, whether B had
`Uncertainty, in the presence of vivid hopes February 1968). spoken in French, and, if so, whether an
4 From his introduction to the catalogue of an
and fears, is painful, but must be endured if we `understanding' of French is among A's
exhibition of British Sculpture in Battersea Park,
wish to live without the support of comforting London, in the summer of 1966. Caro and the 'New accomplishments. One might eventually be in a
position to decide whether the onus in the given
fairy tales. It is not good either to forget the Generation' were shown alongside Moore and context was upon B, to 'clarify', or upon A, to
Hepworth and the 'Middle Generation' sculptors.
questions that philosophy asks, or to persuade Bowness has been in a highly influential position in `understand'.
ourselves that we have found indubitable the 'administration' of modern art in England over the 20Betrand Russell; from the Introduction to his
answers to them. To teach how to live without last decade, but he has rarely been given to such History of Western Philosophy, 1946.
`daring' public pronouncements. I could wish that he 21Emphatically, this is a question of 'modes of
certainty, and yet without being paralysed by approach', rather than of 'that which is approached'
had been more prepared to give courage to his
hesitation is perhaps the chief thing that convictions. Evading argument is an 'English' (or addressed). Perhaps one can hope to pre-empt a
certain kind of aggressively defensive response to
philosophy, in our age, can still do for those who tendency.
5A word employed by Michael Fried in discussion of `positions' seen as 'taken', by asserting that 'art' is not
study it.'20 The employment of philosophic `philosophy'. To assume that 'the methodology is the
Caro's work—with the latter's approval. (See, for
modes of approach in art" (at both primary and instance, Fried's introduction to Caro's important function' is as mindless as to assert that 'the medium
secondary levels) has recently offered correctives retrospective exhibition at the Hayward Gallery, is the message'.
London, in January 1969.) The use of such a word
to both the romanticist (`filling-the-gap-
implies criteria of analyticity —relevant or not.
between-art-and-life') and formalist 6 See, for instance, the interview with Greenberg
mentioned above. The possibility of a 'special
relationship' between British and American artists
(`it's-all-a-matter-of-taste-applied-to-things-which-are-"tasteful" ') approaches.
was suggested (in those words, though in a slightly
Our own past attachments are surely different context) by Alan Bowness in the catalogue of
inviolate where they are valuable. But our `London: The New Scene' in 1965. I find the
connotations odious (for reasons which may then have
present priorities should not need to depend
seemed irrelevant); so, I imagine, did the British
upon residues. Art continually questions the artists concerned—if not necessarily for the same
terms in which we have become accustomed to reasons.
I've personally very little taste for the American
structure, to store, to evaluate past experience—
attempts to flog the dead horse of 'modernist' painting
a condition which art shares with philosophy. back to life (`post-post-painterly abstraction', 'the
One can 'change' only by allowing oneself to be post-abstract rediscovery of perspective', 'abstract
illusionism', and all those works that look like
put in doubt as to the 'reality' of one's own
unstretched Olitski or bleached Louis), and I don't
experience. You can't make such experience believe that young English painters will win any kind
`reliable' by nominating it as 'conventional'. of independence for themselves by seeking new
solutions to painterly 'problems' which were/are
(`Conventions are essentially principles of
relevant for painters who are now often their tutors in
tolerance.') Nor can you assume that such the better art-school painting departments.
experience is 'reliable' in terms of its relevance 8In an article on 'British Critics and British Sculpture',
in Studio International, February 1968. I meant that it
to your notion of the 'quality of life', while you
was too late to challenge the 'mean taste levelled out
are unwilling to question the values from whiCh through process of committee'.
you derive your notion of 'quality'. This is not 9 I use this term to apply loosely within a context of
art produced, rather than to specify an 'age group'.
to say that 'emotion' has no 'place' in art or in
10 `Forces against object-based art' (as if there really
criticism; rather that if one concerns oneself were any) by Andrew Forge, in Studio International,
with an art which asserts some criteria of January 1971.
11'... we are absolutely committed to not knowing' —
analyticity as a prerequisite (or even one which
John Latham, in Studio International, May 1968.
raises the possibility of the application of such 12 `It is obvious that the elements of a given framework
criteria being relevant), then (whether one 'likes' (and this includes the constituents of construct
contexts) are not at all bound to an eliminative
such art or not—and indeed before one is in any
specifying system'. This is the opening to
position to make such 'judgements') what one Frameworks by Atkinson and Baldwin, Art & Language
writes or says needs to be—even, I believe, Press, 1966/7.
"From 'A smart set of concepts' by Suzi Gablik, in
necessarily is—itself susceptible to criteria of
Studio International, February 1971. So far as I could
analyticity. understand her, Miss Gablik seemed to be accusing
Seen in this light the consequence of a claim (unspecified) perpetrators of 'art theory' of breaking
up some happy family life of art.
to be on 'the other side' of some notional (or
14 For instance those involved in Atkinson and
`conventional') 'line' dividing the artist from the Baldwin's consideration of 'intensional' and