Page 34 - Studio International - June 1972

Notes' on Jan Dibbets's2 contemporary3 nature'

of realistic' classicism' in the Dutch' traditions

(Notes) these notes are good criticism, they will be catalogued. Of course this information is just
When I first wrote an essay for publication like Dibbets's works : each will reflect on and be that sort of curriculum vitae in catalogues; but
I was asked to reduce the text by two-thirds informed by all the others, whatever the those who understand that it is partly
without losing any content and told 'but you chronology of their encounter. This first note determined by what Dibbets does and partly
can use footnotes' when I asked; so I put could and perhaps should be (re-) read last. by what he tells others can perhaps see that
two-thirds of the content and text into footnotes. Dibbets has a sense of humour, an eye for
But as I was negatively criticizing some professional prestige, and he works hard and
criticism for its non-scholarly academicism travels much.
(a characteristic of which is the irrelevant Fuller and more direct information on Jan
footnote), I was determined to make my own Dibbets and his work can be found in the
footnotes interesting. As a result I got interested interviews he has given to Willoughby Sharp
in footnotes per se, and when discussing that (published finally in Avalanche, Autumn 1970)
article with artists and critics in 1969, I and Charlotte Townsend (Arts Canada,
laughingly promised to write an article which August/September 1971). Both interviews
was nothing but a long Germanic title dangling show him to be very aware of himself as an
long footnotes. This is it. artist distinct from others whose work is
Although I'd originally thought of this superficially similar; both show him to be a
format as a parody of a dusty and rigidly straightforward speaker, clear, and strong-
traditional non-creative literary form to be minded on some things like the difference
accentuatedly abstracted into an extreme of between making art and selling it and what are
`art', I now think there is more to it. In some the essential problems for an artist; and taken
ways all criticism could be construed as together, the interviews show Dibbets's lack of
`footnotes' to whatever is criticized. Some shyness about making public his changing
criticism is titled 'Notes on' something, but interests and opinions on issues like 'painting
Perspective Correction 1968, rope and park;
presents itself in the old linear essay sequence negative in collection Pier Luigi Pero, Turin is dead'. But Dibbets does not like to do
of linear sentences gently moulded into interviews. This is not just because he feels the
paragraphs; this implicitly manifests a whole awkwardness of expressing himself in a foreign
statement with one beginning, middle, and end language, or the mis-communication potential
(in that order) as a finished object. As such, it 2(Jan Dibbets) with an interviewer which has resulted in
gives the lie to the tentative in-process notion Exhibition catalogues like those for 'When publication of things which he did not think
of the title, is incongruous with the on-going Attitudes Become Form' (1969), Krefeld's he said (he disclaims the whole 'interview' in
character of work by any living artist, and is Haus Lange Jan Dibbets Audio-Visuelle Avalanche); it is also because his natural
particularly incompatible with young artists' Dokumentationen' (1969-70), the Museum of penchant is for more concerted control of and
work which is less fixed materialistic objects Modern Art in New York's 'Information' distance from whatever he produces for
than processes of thought experienced through (1970), and the 1971 Guggenheim Biennale exhibition (see note 6 below) than the casual
a variety of media in discretely structured will tell you that Jan Dibbets was born in 1941 immediacy of an interview allows.
`entities'. Footnotes have that implicit physical in Weert, Holland and lives and works in But direct friendly knowledge of Dibbets
block-like form which de-emphasizes any Amsterdam. If they speak of his education, they gives a much richer picture. He loves a good
single parameter; their numbered separateness invariably mention that he attended St joke and a good time, and his home has often
allows a multi-directional cross-reference of Martin's School of Art in London in 1967; some seemed a hotel for artists (mostly American)
associative thought between hard verbal note also that in the same year he was a visiting Amsterdam over the last four years. He
information; and they don't pretend to tell founding member of the International Institute and his wife (who models clothes part-time)
the whole tale or deal in overriding for Reeducation of Artists in Amsterdam, and speak five languages with fluent slang, live in
generalizations. that before all this he was a drawing teacher; a white-walled spaciousness which is closer to
All this seems particularly appropriate for they do not mention the provincial Dutch Manhattan artists-loft decor than to traditional
an 'article' on Jan Dibbets by me now. I have art-school he attended because he does not tell tapestry-tabled bibelot-crowded Dutch
been intending to write on Dibbets almost as curators about it Cit was too terrible' to get any interiors, 'collect' Art Deco and ferns and
long as I've intended to use this format, and publicity). If they list his exhibition activity, potted-palms, and are on close communicative
know too much and too little of his work to they will mention most of the major terms with selected collectors, dealers, and
be satisfied with just an essay form. Dibbets's `conceptual art' international exhibitions in the critics throughout Europe. But with this
work is very much in process, very prolific, and last few years, as well as some Dutch and sophistication, Dibbets has a down-to-earth
very uneven in quality as exhibited (see notes German one-man shows of painting and quality which is evident in his pragmatic
2 and 3 below); it deals with notions and issues serialized works in the early 196os; but so far efficiency in his dealings with the artworld and
which are in themselves worthy of whole his nine exhibitions of 1972—including one-man his exhibition requirements, in his delight in
separate books; and at its best these separate shows in the principal museums of plain-spoken straightforwardness and openness,
aspects are interrelated in a fusion which defies Eindhoven, Amsterdam, and Jerusalem as well in his disgust at social pretentiousness and
direct linear connection or description. And if as the Venice Biennale—have not been crowded 'openings', and especially in his
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