Page 48 - Studio International - January 1972
P. 48
New York in a very raisonnable fashion. He offers his the old overemphasis on experience of a sensible
programme in pithy statements at the very order. Sensibility is not enough, they seem to
commentary: beginning, the first being his disclaimer of be saying, you must understand objective
being an artist CI have been presenting works thought as it is being explored by
Abracadabrizing which were not works of art') and the next being mathematicians and logicians. The idea is to
the contradictory evidence of his coquetry with create, as Buren suggested in his essay last year
art art : 'The art was existing only on a propositional in Studio International, scientifically and
and conceptual level.' To which he might have theoretically. The issue is (as it always was),
Dore Ashton added, 'And because museums, art galleries what constitutes creation ? I submit that
and other surfeited agencies were only too pointing, or even choosing, requires no creation,
glad to have something to exhibit that did not but only intellection. The invasion of museums
require the troublesome sifting and rumination with information theory placards represents a
the work of art demands.' cultivated choice of topical ideas. The docent
Venet from the outset abrogated his rights on this trip through current intellectual events
as a creator, with pride. 'My work is a manifesto can at times be entertaining, original, even
against aesthetics, against the expression of the shocking (which borders on the aesthetic),
individual's personality'. The manifesto takes but he cannot infuse his 'works' with the smell
the didactic form of instructive placards of creation.
covering a number of fields that interest Venet, Venet's activities enter into the general
ranging from astrophysics to meta-mathematics. discourse circulating around the proposition
His is the schoolmasterish pointing (with the that the object of art need not be an object, with
same dogmatic fervour those chalk-wielders its corollary that it ought not to have style.
often have) to which so many Americans have Anti-object activities, pursued by those who
become so accustomed. Eat this, drink that, variously regard themselves as artists or anti-
fly here, fly there, and now, on that more artists, range fairly wide. Almost always those
exalted plane: think deep. It's good for you, activities require discourse (manifestoes and
and good for art. disclaimers), and almost always the discourse
Unquestionably Venet points well. His mind flirts with philosophy. The Polish artist Tadeusz
in its magpie activities has alighted on the most Kantor has always had a penchant for
serious and innovative activities in the world philosophical discourse, although in recent
of intellectual endeavour. But of course, it only years his thunderbolt has become more and
alights, which seems to be enough to warrant a more abbreviated. Not long ago he issued
life's work of five years, and enough to warrant another group of notes centring on the
the serious consideration of all those intellectuals completion of a great replica of a folding chair
who are only too happy to colonize the realm in Scandinavia. Kantor's reduction of terms
of sensibilities, a realm which has always been goes like this : 'A work without form,
difficult of access to them. Venet, and other without aesthetic values, without perception,
conceptualists, open the purlieus of bohemia impossible, or possible only through creative
to all sorts of intellectuals who are thrilled to activity ! A work that expresses nothing, doesn't
make the liaison. They, too, must have a act, communicates nothing, isn't even a
deathwish, for the substitution of the didactic testimony or a reproduction, doesn't refer to
The Hebrew source, abreq ad hâbra, of that placard for the book is a serious deviation. The reality, or a spectator, or even the author, is
euphonious magic formula abracadabra, can book has been in danger for a long time. As a impermeable to exterior penetration, turned
be translated as : 'Hurl your thunderbolt even publisher said to me recently, for this generation nowhere toward nothing, being only the void,
unto death.' What with all the endgames, in their teens, we're going to have to find a hole in reality without destination, which
huis clos, assaults on sensibility, and assaults on something else. Venet's catalogue raisonné leaves the sacred terrain they have reserved for
insensibility to which our century (and the perhaps ? it without seeking rationalization, which (quite
one before it) has been subjected, it would seem This is decidedly something else, and it is simply) is, which by the sole fact of its auto-
that the literal meaning of abracadabra has something else than art, as Venet insists. Who existence puts all the environing reality into
been faithfully followed. Each time the can resist asking then, but what is it ? It an unreal situation (one would say
thunderbolt seems to have been hurled even appears that most commentators can resist "artistic") . .
unto death. And each time it miraculously since they are not sure, and can no longer state Kantor, who I suspect cannot help being an
recharges itself; like a movie in reverse, only to confidently : I don't know what I like but I artist, winds up with an artistic proposition of
repeat its abracadabra. know what art is. If a conceptualist comes along, considerable power — a gigantic replica of a
The latest event in this history of finales is points briefly at a geometric theorem, or folding chair in a landscape, with all the
the retrospective exhibition of the conceptual linguistic diagram, waggles his finger and says, imaginative possibilities that offers. But he has
artist ( ?), or perhaps conceptualist is a better You ought to know about this, is this art ? Is not escaped the abracadabra trap of ceaseless
word, Bernar Venet at the NEW YORK CULTURAL this science ? Is this pedagogy ? Is this manifestly finales. No form, no meaning, the delicious
CENTER. With considerable relish the museum a manifesto against bourgeois art ? Or is it a void — a quest as wearying, finally, as the quest
has mounted the five years' production kind of intellectual dandyism ? I'm inclined to for meaning.
announcing Venet's retirement as an artist, and think of it as dandyism, although I recognize Where Kantor's need for the word is always
simultaneously issuing a catalogue raisonne. the modest medicinal properties such activities linked to his guilty fabrication of some thing,
Venet is the art historian's ideal subject since undeniably possess. That is, there can be a whether a performance or an object, the pure
at the age of thirty he has completed his life's temporary relief from the headache of conceptualists are totally dependent on the
oeuvre, so he says, and can now be classified aesthetics when your mind is directed cleverly word and printing and communications codes.
permanently. He himself is eminently co- to intellectual pursuits. Venet and the squads They seem fatally attracted to the old
operative, having planned his catalogue raisonné of conceptualists in every city are pitted against Mallarméan dream of The Book. Unlike
38