Page 34 - Studio International - March 1972

century. I can think of no better way to convey into relief a case which seems to me much more principle of pure reciprocity: the reciprocal
how far removed this position is from what is the interesting, since it represents arguably a kind relations of what one supposed to be the two
case today than by quoting an autobiographical of extreme extension of the notion I related to artist/sitters and by extension the reciprocal
instance. van Doesburg. For rather more than a year now relations of sender and receiver.
A few weeks ago, while I was visiting a Dutch I have been receiving regular packages, bulletins I'm not sure what impression I have given
friend who is an artist, he received an invitation and things of that kind from two organizations of my attitude to 'Art and Project'. But I do
to submit works for a prize exhibition organized based in Paris and Amsterdam, called certainly think that it represents an inherent
by the 'Cercle littéraire et artistique de Nice' — respectively 'Meta-art' and 'Art and Project'.'° aspect of our situation, indeed a necessary
C.L.A.N. for short. After a certain amount of At first I accepted the 'Art and Project' bulletins development in the evolution of art, in a way
French bureaucratic rhetoric, the invitation as notifications of coming exhibitions, and, in a that phenomena like the paradigmatic prodigies
went on to specify that the works submitted very loose sense, this is what they were. But I of the 'Cercle littéraire et artistique de Nice' do
were to be divided into categories. However, gradually became aware that it was curiously not. The early Modernist notion of the work of
these were not to be the traditional genre unsatisfactory to view them simply as art as a syntax deriving from a banal and obvious
categories : paysages,portraits,nus,fleurs etc. notifications of the appearance of certain art code seems to have been metamorphosed into
The works were to be classed according to the objects at a certain time and place. This was the notion of connection between persons
following series of terms : impressioniste, cubiste, clearly not the case with, for example, a set of overriding both the element which makes that
néo-cubiste, réaliste,abstrait and musicaliste. It instructions inviting the reader to dig something connection and the object (if any) to which that
goes without saying that my friend's work, up in the suburbs of Amsterdam in accordance element refers. All those who for one reason or
which might be described as geometrical relief with certain clues some of which were, and some another belong to the mailing list of 'Art and
constructions in the De Stijl tradition, could be were not, in the gallery. It was certainly not the Project' constitute a network, a kind of
about as successfully described according to the case with a brilliantly laconic bulletin that geographical syntax, in which the slim white
categories of Cubism, Impressionism and unexpectedly came from Japan, and perhaps bulletin winging its way from Amsterdam
Musicalism as they could according to the bore some relationship to a subsequent constitutes at the same time the indispensable
genres of landscape, the nude and flower communication involving comparative link and the guarantee of irreducible distance.
painting. He declined the invitation. phenomena at Tokyo and Amsterdam airports. I'd like to end that particular discussion with
The point I want to make about the 'Cercle What had really been happening in this series a quotation from the artist Mel Bochner,
littéraire et artistique de Nice' is that they have of bulletins, I finally concluded, was the also a contributor to 'Art and Project'. He
a perfectly coherent view of the work of art reduction of the work of art to a system of writes : 'The "history of art" and the "history of
existing in relation to what might be called a communication, or, to put it another way, the painting and sculpture" are not the same, but
series of paradigms, the additional dimension abandonment of any fixed meaning, as merely coincident at some points.'11 What I
which Foucault mentions. But these paradigms represented by a fixed object, in favour of the have just been talking about belongs conceivably
entirely fail to answer to the present state of pure notion of connection. In Foucault's terms, to the history of art, but not in any sense to the
what most of us would call art. No doubt the a network was being established in which each history of painting and sculpture. I'm now
`prestigious cadre' of the assembly rooms at individual work found itself to be dumb. The venturing on to more traditional ground, and
Nice, and subsequently the Casino at Deauville, Japanese bulletin emphasized this point in an looking at a kind of test case that lies very
have by now been festooned with cubist extremely succinct way by presenting merely definitely within that well-trodden area. What I
landscapes, impressionist nudes and musicalist two juxtaposed studies, under the same date: want to do is to suggest, in a fairly detailed way,
flower paintings. I doubt whether any one took Gilbert by George and George by Gilbert. the kind of approach that seems to me to be
much notice. Anything a life study might ordinarily represent indicated in a shift from the metaphoric to the
I mention that particular case in order to set or connote was therefore subordinated to a metonymic level. I should say that my thoughts