Page 18 - Studio International - November 1972

garde as a thing of the past. When Germano a posteriori consideration that will later belong of the aesthetic. Art is not made only for
Celant was at one point tempted to theorize Arte to the province of art history. Thus we still speak aesthetic reasons; i t is also and above all made to
Povera as a possible 'neo-futurism', he very today about a Pop language; we relegate it to accelerate the change-over of mental processes,
quickly decided against it. style. to nourish a new logic the nature of which is still
Even the notion of 'advanced art', The idea of advanced art thus becomes to be determined, but which, at any rate in its
subsequently used by the critics as a term irrelevant along with the notion of the artist as period of gestation, seems chock-full of myth.'
descriptive of the new tendencies, is little more `anticipator of values and sensibilities'. And this Since the aesthetic, for many years, entered
than tolerated. In 1967 this is the way in which is natural in a world dominated by the new more completely into art than it is now
Michelangelo Pistoletto described his way of sciences and technologies. After all, not even managing to exit, it is probable that art and the
making 'advanced' art: science and technology are always capable of aesthetic will not be able to avoid functioning
`The way in which I move now is by astonishing us. Leaving aside the pathos of its as communicating tubes that regulate those
stepping to one side. Every piece I make is a aspects as a space 'race', the conquest of the interchanges that no one can seriously want to
liberation and not a construction that is moon has been very little thought of as eliminate. In the works and the artists under
intended to represent me. I am not reflected in exploration, and not at all as evolution. It was all discussion, these reciprocal exchanges manifest
them, and others cannot reflect upon me by seen not as the adventure of a voyage, but as the themselves in the frequent shift-overs from the
means of them. Every piece I make is destined adventure of an information circuit. Putting the way of experience to the way of the concept,
to proceed on its own way by itself without first men on the moon was like putting a from the aesthetic to art, and sometimes vice-
dragging me along behind it, since I am already computer terminal on the moon. And at that versa. This is true for Lucio Fontana as well,
somewhere else and doing something different. moment, art definitively abandoned the themes the only artist that the new Italian generations —
There is no longer sense in the problem of and images of the information world with which indifferent in equal measure to tradition and the
being up to date in form.' it had been principally concerned from Pop avant garde — recognize as a possible master.
Having been anticipated by Manzoni, the to Op. From Manzoni onwards, the young artists have
denial of every formal problem became the Information, based both on urban and found Fontana to be a source of useful
explicitly declared praxis, from 1966 onwards, industrial images and on visual rationalism, was reflection on both art as idea and art as
of artists like Pistoletto and Pascali. They even replaced by a search for communication. Art experience. As Paolo Fossati pointed out,
eliminated the idea of working in consistent and began to experiment with mental processes, these are two aspects that cannot be totally
sequential ways; discourse took second place to behaviour, the earth's ecology, etc. For many separated:
a freedom of connection between one work and artists, communication meant leaving art and `When Fontana entitled many of his works
another, each being radically different from the entering into the free associations of aesthetic "concepts", he was not giving any special
one before it. There is no such thing as experience; and their exit was positive, ample privilege to an intellectual or mental moment.
`advanced' art for these artists because there is and joyous. This is the case with Pino Pascali as Quite the contrary. Even in his title he was
no such thing as linguistic evolution. Their art well as with Pistoletto and the communitarian drawing attention to the inextricability of
is no longer to be defined in terms of typical experience of the 'Zoo'. In these last few years, concept and operation, of thought and action.
colours, forms, and materials, and for this no one has made a greater effort than Pascali did He thus demonstrates the impossibility of
reason they are free to use them all. They don't to dilate the aesthetic beyond the limits of art. intervention without concept as well as the
ask themselves what morphological and In Pascali, as Calvesi has very accurately put it : impossibility of proposing concepts to oneself
topological characteristics a work must have, but `The aesthetic attempts to go beyond the and others without first having used, verified
if, in order to be art, it needs certain colours, confines of art and to infiltrate itself into life, and invented them in a concrete intervention.'
certain forms, and certain materials. In other behaviour, custom, and to turn itself into pure But we mustn't forget that Fontana went
words, the linguistic identity of their art is provocation, or struggle, or philosophy; art, on beyond his own works and made public the idea
irrelevant to the extent to which it is an the other hand, tends to go beyond the confines of the end of art. He understood the series of
Baroque ovals entitled La fine di Dio as a
metaphor for this idea as well. And he saw this
idea as an idea of the future. In this sense,
Fontana ends up by not identifying himself with
art. If art is to finish tomorrow, then what is it
today ? Thus we find that the younger artists
deny themselves any projections into the future.
Instead of projecting themselves into the future,
they have given realization to the possibility of
not identifying themselves with art in the present
by constantly expanding the aesthetic
experience.
The second half of the 6os was thus a time of
continuous change. While Pascali was
rediscovering the mythical sources of homo
ludens, constructing objects for a private
theatre at first and then scenographic
sculptures that challenge urban space,
Pistoletto and the 'Zoo' went out into theatrical
activity in search of a new epos (which was later
to be realized in terms of film and a book).
Both were acting in the spirit of that return to
the pleasure principle that has largely been
promoted by the youth movements. This is
the source of the extra-artistic considerations
Pino Pascali 32 MQDi Mare Circa 1967
Galleria L'Attico, Rome that weighed down the creative praxis and
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