Page 66 - Studio International - July August 1972

after all is only a peripheral involvement) which is reprinted in this book) are to be of the Institut Supérieur des Arts Plastiques in
to the status of being an underlying principle adjudged with the same seriousness as the the same city. He has plainly had more
which she provides as a 'key' to the art-public assertions that 'artists are mystics rather than opportunity than many writers on African art
for making sense of the conglomeration of rationalists' or that 'Gregory Battcock is not to see his subject matter in terms of the 'contexts
`material' she subsumes under the label and never was Gregory Battcock'. of usage, society and religion' and thus to qualify
`Conceptual art'. Her representation of Largely all this is a result of the assumption himself for the 'profound poetic experience'
conceptual art is by no means uncommon, and of the priority of the individual artist's work as which he (or his translator) suggests is waiting
the result has been that, rather than establishing a whole over the theses or whatever which for those of us who make 'the tiniest attempt to
a reversal of pre-established priorities, there has are advanced. Value judgements tend to be pierce the mystery of magical works of art to
been an elimination of any kind of priority made about the 'individual' rather than being which the atavistic element within us responds'.
whatsoever. excercised critically over particular theses And yet the text is void of all sense either of
Ursula Meyer says 'the function of the advanced. The myth of the individual artist, original scholarship (this is not to question
critic and the function of the artist have been it seems, cannot easily be shaken off, and this Cornet's scholarship so much as the nature of
traditionally divided; the artist's concern was helps to promote the belief that whatever an his use of it) or of original experience.
with the production of the work and the critic's artist does, and however pointless and absurd I do not entirely blame Cornet. This is the
was with its evaluation and interpretation' and his pronouncements are, they have a value kind of book which makes one wonder about the
now 'certain critics no longer insist upon the which in some way puts them on the same level publishing trade. The plates are of course the
absolute division of functions'. Amongst such as all other assertions etc. in the realm of art. main feature, and they are excellent of their
enlightened art-critics she cites Gregory Perhaps too this is not unconnected with kind: well-taken photographs, good
Battcock and John Perreault who contribute another famous myth—that of the 'iconic' blockmaking, good colour printing, the colour
to her book as 'conceptual' artists. They have `work of art' which as such presupposes a plates tipped in; and so one should expect at the
apparently, either through a sense of their uniformity of attention; for example when price. The whole book exudes a sense of luxury
own redundancy or through what Ursula Meyer adjudging the relative value of a succession of and high-key vulgarity, as if some designer had
judges to be through their enlightenment, paintings or sculptures. The absurdity tried to make his name with it. Text—a large,
assumed the role of the artist in a very perhaps arises in making evaluative judgements over-spaced and fussy type face—occupies less
conventional sense (Gregory Battcock's of things which are essentially ideational than half the area of each page allotted to it;
contribution to the book is the single statement: within a value structure inherited from the paragraphs are marked by chocolate-brown
`Art, I am, and never was Gregory Battcock', realm of 'aesthetic preferences' etc. q quods rather than by new lines—as if space had
and John Perreault has the score for one of his JOHN STEZAKER been at a premium. There are four colourful
`events'). maps but otherwise no illustrative material of a
It seems that Ursula Meyer and her documentary nature; and this in 'the first
colleagues have somehow missed the point. serious and comprehensive book in English on
The difference between the artist's and the Negro art in the region of the Congo river' !
critic's roles only changes when art-activity is There is an extensive bibliography as is only
such that it requires no mediation (as personified Coffee-table Africa appropriate in a book whose author seems so
by art-critics). That is to say, when it is not an Art of Africa by Joseph Cornet. 365 pp with anxious to summon the authority of others.
activity which engenders a multiplicity of 108 colour and 72 monochrome plates. Phaidon The luxuriousness of the production seems
possible interpretations, but when the activity Press. £20. to enshrine these marvellous masks and
postulates explicit theses which preclude any Introduction to Traditional Art of West Africa sculptures in a world quite other than that for
variation in interpretation and which therefore by E. V. Asihene. 88 pp with 68 monochrome which they were intended. They have been
require no mediators. It seems that such plates. Constable. £3. most skilfully photographed against
`critics' as Ursula Meyer, Gregory Battcock African Designs from Traditional Sources by backgrounds of crimson, orange, blue and green
and John Perreault have jumped the gun Geoffrey Williams. 22 pp plus 200 pp of lit to look like Olitskis. It takes a conscious
somewhat, for most of the work presented as monochrome line plates. Dover. $3. effort to recall the crusty surfaces of mud and
`conceptual' art is self-evidently nothing dried blood and rusty nails. Even the superb
remotely approaching it if Ursula Meyer really Joseph Cornet's Art of Africa is unobtrusively Kongo nail fetish from the Brussels museum
believes in her own definition of conceptual art subtitled 'Treasures from the Congo'. The looks like some kind of shaggy domestic pet.
(`Conceptual artists take over the role of the original version, published by Editions Arcade `The aim is to show only the really valuable
critic in terms of framing their own propositions, in Brussels, was called 'Art de l'Afrique noire pieces ...' (p. 13). Of the i8o works reproduced,
ideas and concepts'). It seems then that to au pays du fleuve Zaire'. The true identity of some 15o are from the collections of either Jef
publish a collection of work which requires the this extremely expensive book seems to have or René Vander Straete of Brussels and Lasne,
same kind of mediation that all prior art-work eluded the grasp even of its publishers and 20 are from the Tervuren and Brussels museums,
required (with the modification of merely not blurb-writers. The one sure fact is that it is and 10 from other private collections, including
fulfilling that requirement), can only serve to concerned with the art of the Congo; Cornet's only two works from outside Belgium. There is
confuse the uninformed public (who, by the text painstakingly surveys the characteristic no question, overall, of the quality of works
refusal or inability ? of art-critics to provide artefacts of the principal tribes of one of the reproduced, but one cannot help feeling that
any form of enlightenment, remain world's richest-ever sources of major art, though those who desire or need acquaintance with the
uninformed). with little sense of the enthusiasm that must contents of the Vander Straete collections (and
The result of this then is that there is a surely be aroused in front of the material he there must be many—including me) would have
rather bizarre idea of conceptual art put reproduces. The text seems sound; Cornet been better served by a complete and well
forward in this and all other books of its kind. seems conscious enough of his responsibilities documented catalogue. The brief notes which
What is pictured is an activity consisting for the as a scholar to avoid once giving a judgment or accompany the plates in this volume do little
most part of arbitary single pronouncements and opinion which reads as his own. In a subject like more than provide an excuse for changing the
of a fragmented conglomeration of disparate his, that seems a testament to the waste of some colour of the type; all too often information is
ideas. An onlooker (the art-public) is left to grand opportunities. According to the blurb restricted to a description of just those features
decide whether the assertions made in the Cornet was Director of the Kinshasa Institut which are obvious from the illustration (an
introduction to 'Art-Language' No. t Vol. Supérieur d'Architecture and is now Director annoying habit very prevalent in caption
52