Page 52 - Studio International - November 1971

film criticism, with its vast opportunities for as he caressingly applies makeup over the upper imagery expands. The terms are not so rigidly,
intellectualizing, wavers. I have been put into half of his body in very slow motion. At one and so simplistically, set as they are in the work
the position of a film critic in this voyage point his hands cease performing and he sits in of the others.
through the synoptic loft, like it or not. Not only meditative repose for a long, long moment. The Cinema, says Hollis Frampton—an artist
that, but I must try to forget the history of film, close-up of the body in almost quietude but not who has really succeeded in creating a painter's
with its masterpieces, and gear myself to the quite, is an old art film technique. The stable work of art in the film medium—is probably the
art-gallery film as something else again. camera has been used in much the same way by last art that will reach the mind through the
But is it ? masters such as Antonioni. And colour too. senses. In this SoHo voyage, it seems to me, the
Screen number one shows Robert Morris's What, then, is Nauman's contribution ? It is a senses have been delimited with increasing
Wisconsin 1970, a silent record of what is contribution by default. In refusing good colour, pedantry. The film artists in the synoptic loft do
clearly a traditional happening in the vein of artful camera work, and complex content, he fulfil one of Frampton's prophecies—that the
Kaprow. Ten years later. Morris has evidently isolates his preoccupation with time. It then film-maker might succeed in exercising only one
taken his Wisconsin undergraduates into a devolves on the viewer to decide whether perfectly rational option at each move as in the
collective enterprise in which they surge Nauman's time is as interesting as Robbe- Knight's Tour in chess —but at the expense of
together and apart on a frost-bitten meadow with Grillet's, or as Godard's, or even Warhol's. This their art. He, on the other hand, exercises one
2 3

ritualistic fervour. One might expect some kind puts him in the position of a film critic. option at a time, but it is an option with
of Nietzschean catharsis in this rudimentary Richard Serra, on screen number three, is unlimited scope, in which all the senses are
exercise in mass psychic release, but there is also interested in time, and he adds one little alerted, and in which the mind is an accessory to
none. The reason there is none is that the dimension, space. Frame is a 22-minute black the fact of exquisite visual artistry. Frampton's
camera is handled with the same rudimentary and white film, with sound, in which the artist own films are fraught with connotations,
artlessness as the choreography. An occasional is exploring the dimensions of a given space by allusions, and a sense of pre-history of the visual
sheepish grin on the students' faces is enough to means of a ruler and his hands. The dialogue is fact, and are furthermore expertly crafted and
destroy the effect. This then is a record (was that between him and the camera-man, I think, edited. While they deal very much with the
all there was to it ?) of the submission of a bunch although it was hard to catch. They discuss discovery of the relativity of filmic time, they
of youngsters to a collective happening measurements and placement, while Serra's have a few other sources of speculation to
engineered by Morris, in keeping with his theory hands roam the perimeters of his space. In explore precisely because they are films and not
that the recording of behaviour is somehow between there are longueurs. Long instances of a paintings or sculptures. De Maistre's basic idea
within the realm of art. It is a translation of a completely white screen, those negative spaces is endemic.
translation of a theory. It tells us a little bit about so dear to the art film-maker. In keeping with Moving up the next flight of stairs we have
Morris's ability as social engineer; a bit about the tradition, the film goes on and on, long not yet left the realm of motion and time, for
the tradition of the happening; a bit about the enough for the viewer to understand that the there are George and Gilbert, the living
environmental interests of the dance, and a bit rhythms of the exploring hands are infinitely sculptures, complete with sound track. For a
about the state of mind of the contemporary extensive, and that the white space with its long time it has been said that art, visual art, is
student. But it tells us nothing in its own terms. putative edges is a mystery infinitely extensive. being purveyed as entertainment, to which I
As a film it is a home-movie. There was a bit more to contemplate in have little objection. Here, with no expense to
Projector number two is rolling Bruce Keith Sonnier's black and white exploration of the customer, is live entertainment. Even better,
Nauman's ten minute Art Makeup No. 2, Pink. negative and positive effects in which a leg is it arrives at a moment when all of America is
This film furthers the other voyage because it isolated in the opening section, explored, made investing in the merchandising of nostalgia.
has so many literary connotations. It isn't to flex and move, to a steady chain-gang rhythm What could be more nostalgic than these two
difficult to guess what it is about, because it's on the sound track. Sonnier is by far the most parodies of English gentlemen, with their neat
about what most art-gallery films are about—the sensuous of the lot, enjoying fleeting effects, suits, assuming the postures of mannequins on a
discovery by a visual artist of the fascinating enjoying the tricks of the camera, and enjoying small table and singing 'Underneath the
fact that the motion picture has to do with time. the suggestiveness of many of his shots. Again, Arches' on an average of once every five minutes.
It has certain precedents (Warhol) and a rich he isolates a single aspect of his medium and I suppose it rouses different sources of nostalgia.
film tradition of which it partakes only concentrates exclusively, but in its visual I thought immediately how much Breton would
minimally. The camera focuses on Mr Nauman ambiguity (based on the use of negative) his have liked it all, including the atrocious drawings

200