Page 18 - Studio International - December 1972

chances of modern art and minimizes the risk of Tape and track has continued to be composed mostly of
bad investments in art.' film-makers with a background in painting
These price-value criteria are based on or sculpture. For various reasons it is only in
average prices. Dr Bongard discovered that the the last year or so that any serious attention
average price for a work by a painter or has been paid to film within the fine arts.
conceptualist was 19 times more than the total This monthly column will give information
number of points the artist had acquired, for a about the current situation of film as `Art',
sculptor (bearing in mind the cost of materials) and deal not only with visual artists who have
32 times more. From this he can determine who newly decided to work with film as an
is cheap and who expensive and, in the manner extension or aspect of their other work, but
of the Dow Jones Index, establishes a price- with the film-makers who moved from the
point ratio for each artist. Thus Rauschenberg other arts into film at an earlier stage, and
is (surprise) expensive, Stella (12th) very those who have already begun to build on the
expensive, Cesar (13th) cheap, Noland (18th) substantial film art culture, purely as film-
very expensive, Rivers (69th) a good buy, and maker artists. Although my own
Smithson (67th) very cheap. involvement has been mostly with film, I
So now you know, and if you have between shall, increasingly, include experimental work
DM 10,00o and 25,000 (Dr Bongard's estimate in video. I shall also attempt to refer as far as
of the price) you would be advised to stop possible to events within the month previous
reading this and go out to buy an Allen Jones to publication.
who, 28th in the list with 3,35o points, is cheap.
Or, if you prefer a concept rather than a Jones `Hamburger Filmschau 72' (31 May-4 June)
or a flutter on the stock market, you could do was split into two sets of shows in different
worse than acquire a thought by Weiner cinemas, one almost totally of political film,
(92nd). He, according to Dr Bongard, is very the other devoted to the most comprehensive
cheap indeed. Other snips at the time of writing review yet of the new 'formal' directions of
are: Christo, Pol Bury, Don Judd, Bruce independent cinema - what P. Adams Sitney
Nauman and George Segal. (after Jonas Mekas, second High Priest of
For those artists about to abandon their Film Culture, and of the Anthology Cinema
careers because they do not appear at all in N.Y.) misleadingly christened 'Structural
Dr Bongard's list there is a word of comfort: he Cinema'. This section, organized by Klaus
has only taken 'artists of the 6os and Ios' into Feddermann of the Hamburg Film-makers
consideration. He has, for example, left out Co-operative, showed clearly that the European
Frankenthaler and Hundertwasser because they contribution to this movement is at least as
belong stylistically to the artists of the 5os, and strong as the better publicized American work.
the 'modern masters' Albers, Bill, Fontana, In addition to this the American direction can
Lindner, Lohse and Vasarely do not appear be seen as a return to philosophical problems
either, presumably because Dr Bongard feels which are historically European. The
that their true value is already common importance of the Austrian Kurt Kren,
knowledge or else that he would prefer not to ignored by Film Culture, was again
risk including them in his points-system in case demonstrated. Baum in Herbst, Mauern-
they were to appear too low down. (Film-makers and artists working with film and positiv-negativ, and Fenstergucker, Abfil, etc.
This is the third list that Dr Bongard has videotape are invited to send information (available under English titles or numbered
prepared for Capital. As with the Cashbox and regarding their recent and current work to 3/6o, 4/61, 5/62 from the London Film-
Billboard Top Twenties, part of the fascination `Tape and track', c/o Studio International, makers Co-operative, 13a Prince of Wales
of Capital's Top Hundred is what it reveals of 37 Museum Street, London WCI, for possible Cres., London NWI) prefigure in
the trends. Who are the new entries ? Who are notice in this regular monthly column.) 1960-62 ideas which occurred to Hollis
those definitely on the way up or down ? Frampton and Michael Snow around 1968. Of
Rauschenberg and Johns are where they were Recently, developing out of Concept Art and course Snow, Frampton, Paul Sharits and Ken
last year. But how about Richard Smith, down Land Art, a number of painters and sculptors Jacobs, all with justifiably strong reputations,
from 4o to 50, or Tilson, also down to places have found themselves involved in photography, were featured. Sharits showed two new pieces
from 38 to 48 ? Dieter Rot leaped ahead from film and video: Richard Long, John Hilliard, S:TREAM:S:S:ECTION:S:ECTION:S:S:
97th to 57th place and Richard Long, at 74th, Richard Serra, Dan Graham, David Dye, ECTIONED and Inferential Current, prior to his
appears here for the first time, as incidentally Barry Flanagan, Ian Breakwell, etc. screening at the Kassel Documenta; but there
do Heizer (80th), Gilbert and George, Kosuth However, this involvement of artists in film was also less well known American work by
(84th) and Oppenheim (98th). The fact that of is not a new phenomenon. The beginning of an Larry Gotheim, Fog Line and Barn Rushes, and
the 25 books included in Dr Bongard's list of `alternative' Film Art culture was established George Landow, Institutional Quality and
important literature 9 are concerned in a tentative way in Europe during the Remedial Reading Comprehension. (Could some
exclusively with conceptual or land art might twenties and thirties. Walter Ruttmann, Viking friend persuade Landow it is time to tour
have something to do with this sudden Eggeling, Hans Richter, Marcel Duchamp, Europe ?) From Holland the best films were by
appearance of so many conceptual and land Fernand Leger, Oskar Fischinger, all made Barbara Meter, and Matteijn Siep whose
artists. films primarily from the standpoint of visual Double Shutter is one of the most interesting
So here it is : the Top Twenty of Capital's Top artists attempting to see film as an equally post-Snow films to date; shot from a swing
Hundred for 1972. Please clip out and save. valid medium of artistic expression. The more with a secondary shutter, it begins to establish
Doctoral thesis writers of the 199os will give recent extension of this culture in post-war a new, time-based `cubistic' space. As usual,
their back eye teeth for this. 0 America, through the increasing impetus of the most provocative work from Germany
FRANK WHITFORD film experimentation and the 'Underground', came from Birgit and Wilhelm Hein. They
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