Page 60 - Studio International - September 1971

Multiples in If certain prototypal works are disregarded— characteristic works to watershed experiments,
most notably the replicas of his own however successful those experiments may be if
the USA `readymades' produced by Marcel Duchamp they happen to break a stylistic mould. Originals
from the 193os onward and the same artist's are valued as status symbols, but any real
1941 edition, Boite-en-Valise —the domestically originality that may emanate from them and
created multiple was a relative latecomer in the thereby interfere with immediate recognizability
United States. Indeed, it wasn't until a good six is not. Acutely aware of this, Jim Dine got off a
years after Daniel Spoerri conceived the first brilliant ploy two or three years ago, when he
European multiple that Tanglewood Press produced and successfully marketed a series of

John Chamberlain
Le Mole 1971
Polyester resin,
aluminium and
silicon oxide
Edition 56
Gemini
2 Cruz-Diez
Physichromie MB 1969
5o x so cm
Edition 5o
Denise René
3 Marisol
Fishing
Cast acrylic sculpture
144 x 174 x 6in.
Abrams Original Editions

published 7 Objects in a Box, a collaborative perfunctory watercolours that barely were
edition generally considered to mark America's distinguishable, one from another, except for
entry into the multiples field. slight variations in the content of the very crass
Just why the Americans, as susceptible as messages stencilled on their surfaces (`This is
they are to the lure of the mass-produced object, for $f ; 'This is for $10 000').
were so slow getting started is debatable, Of course, these easy generalizations don't
although one reason might be that the prevailing necessarily apply to the big American collector,
artistic style of the early 196os, which formed a who tends to pride himself on the advanced
sort of nexus between Abstract-Expressionism degree of his perspicacity. The big collector is a
and Pop, hardly lent itself to easy replication, as member of a dying breed, however, and his place
would the harder-edged work of a few years is rapidly being taken by members of a
later. In any event, once the multiple did make generation nurtured on inexpensive graphics and
its American appearance, it lost little additional Kitsch-y posters; a generation that habituated
time in making its presence felt—and it hasn't itself to the purchase of art at a time when the
slowed down since. At the moment, the purchase of anything singular became a matter
`industry' is burgeoning apace and, with a very of pause, a generation whose members find their
shaky economy militating against the sale of strength in numbers and equate individuality
unique works of art (not to speak of a growing with weakness. To such a generation the
disaffection on the part of American artists— multiple offers the easiest way out of them all.
possibly a manifestation of sour grapes—with In view of all this, it is little wonder that the
the precious object and all its elitist multiple, off to a late start in the United States,
connotations), shows no sign of losing its is catching up very fast indeed. That a reasonably
momentum in the foreseeable future. decent share of the multiples now being
In a number of ways the multiple is peculiarly produced consists of superior work is almost
suited to the American mentality: there is that beside the point : what the American consumer
aforementioned fascination with mass- finds most to his taste is to act somewhere in that
production per se, and, moreover, Americans celebrated gap between life and art—to have his
do not have the British tradition of cultivated aesthetic experiences fed to him, like canned
eccentricity. Thus, the major appeal a few years soups, by an assembly line. All of which is not to
ago of Warhol, whose mechanically produced say there is anything inherently wrong with the
`paintings' commanded prices usually fetched by multiples concept; it's just that the element of
unique works, but who, to all intents and aesthetic risk—and along with it one of the chief
purposes, was producing multiples. By and satisfactions of acquiring art—is drastically
large, American art collectors prefer reduced. q J. JACOBS

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