Page 41 - Studio International - February 1972

great Kulturhunger of the 196os, in a be politically effective, and retreated into their intermediate stage between the object, still
Theoriehunger. The 196os were in Germany— shells —into art—without reflecting that the perceivable as such, and the autonomous
and not only there—the golden years of art. It generation that had preceded them had called aesthetic structure, is established in the
was the suppression of the revolutionary art into question in a radical spirit, and that montages.... Through differentiation there
movement of 1968—which in Germany had a more was expected from the next generation— arises a dramatic quality which disappears in a
preponderant theoretical element—that set free themselves—than pure art or self-display. The series built up without a break.... To cause a
a whole complex of previously unformulated proof that art is more than just art, more than metamorphosis to take place without oneself
questions about the distribution of power and an end in itself, has been demanded everywhere, metamorphosing anything.' From 1963 onwards
wealth. These are issues that practically every and everywhere has failed to materialize. But— Roehr verified his theory with blank, featureless
young German considers to be the decisive and here the English will probably say 'typically sequences of typed figures, squares, anonymous
ones of the 197os ; but of course they are not German'—the next 'Documenta' exhibition and emotionless photographic details, tiles,
exactly visual. And the artists, who have always is going to tackle just this decisive issue: what black cardboard labels; he took clips from
seen themselves as revolutionaries, suddenly value in terms of reality art possesses today. American film commercials and repeated the
found themselves face to face with a younger It is only against this background that it same motion again and again in order to
generation, among the public at large, which becomes comprehensible that there should be in establish the point where the perceptual network
despised them as 'studio revolutionaries', who Germany a whole class of interesting artists breaks down and gives way to fatigue or to a
might be capable of selling their ideas to the under thirty, not one of whom has moved into tendency to abstraction, when, for instance, a
captains of industry but could never change the an elite position comparable with that of, say, a film loop shows the same bridge being crossed
world. The young artists, who had fought for Nauman, Serra or Buren. The Wunderkind, again and again. This is basic research into
years against the prevailing institutions and whose example is still invoked by conceptual optical receptivity and into the psychology of
opinions, came up against a progressive younger artists such as Dibbets, is dead: Peter Roehr, frustration. What emerges is that a dramatic
generation which regarded the whole enterprise one of the youngest artists in art history, incident (such as a car going over a cliff) does
not as a shining example but as a side-issue, and perhaps the youngest there can ever have been. not bear many repetitions because the viewer's
which demanded from art direct solutions like Born in 1944, he died of cancer in 1968, at the attention is fully stimulated at the outset,
those provided by chemistry and physics. The age of twenty-three. He had had to stop whereas subliminal dynamics (as in a drive
consequence was—regrettably—that the best of working at twenty-two, in 1966. At eighteen, through an illuminated tunnel, always being
the younger artists went back to art as it was apprenticed to a signwriter in Frankfurt, he snatched back just before the end is reached)
previously defined—which means, in social discovered the principle of 'precise, intensifies its effect each time, ultimately
terms, back to the cultural milieu which unpretentious, simple series'. The picture loses attaining a 'magical' compulsive quality. He
welcomed into its midst a circle of artists large its sensual and subjective qualities entirely. The conducted similar experiments with music and
enough, and comfortable enough, to erase all investigation is not directed, as it was with the speech, and carried out tests on his friends to
consciousness of isolation. The young artists Constructivists, at the establishment of see if the results could be averaged out to give
could very clearly see that the increase in the pictorial laws, but at that of quantitative laws of an optimal time-threshold. They could; the
number of those interested in art, due to the perceptibility. Where, in a monotonous series, perceptual psychic structures of gestalt
development of the art market in general and of is the watershed between accumulation and psychology proved to be less of an individual
the museums, had not produced any detectable fragmentation ? Mere accumulation is the matter than had been supposed.
payoff in terms of the quality of peoples' living- effect created by too few units, fragmentation by Roehr's coloured series of motor-cars have
rooms, let alone society as a whole. They turned too many. Between the two is a point where sometimes been misinterpreted as Pop art, by
this into a let-out, a proof that they could never quantity becomes visual structure. 'The those who failed to perceive that the event
6 7

represented is totally dissolved into a light-and-
dark field of force. The last thing he did was in
the winter of 1966-67: it was an 'Exhibition-
Exhibition'. The exhibition consisted of ten
identical panels each consisting of thirty-five
black rectangles; no op effect, no spatial effect,
just the theme of repetition, repeating itself,
exactly on the frontier between intolerable
monotony and loss of identity. This was Minimal
art avant la lettre (neither Sol LeWitt nor Carl
Andre had his first European exhibition until
the winter of 1967—68); it went further than

67