Page 47 - Studio International - November 1972

art to people; now artists like Richard Long and experience in a seemingly more complex way;
Hamish Fulton refuse to talk in any explicatory and Keith Milow or David Dye seem to borrow
way about their art, while Gilbert & George in from Abstract Expressionism — they translate
the catalogue interview only seem to talk. (Other Abstract Expressionism into a new medium the
artists do talk, or write; but those are mostly way early Pop Art found a structure in Abstract
discussions about technical procedures; in Expressionism. Or, new media possibilities are
contradistinction a text by Mondrian or Léger is used to reformulate already existing stylistic
exclusively concerned with meaning.) structures. These are what one might term 'art
To see this at work was, among other things, games', and playing art games might be relevant
what made the Hayward show interesting .There to art continuity, as language games are in
were fourteen artists (or combinations of philosophy; mostly, though, they fail to reach
artists) with rather little connection between that state of inexorable naturalness
them — though in the general field of this characteristic of really major art. q
conceptualistic 'new art' several styles seem to
impose themselves, around which one can group
artists, though never as clearly as was possible
before. (It is obvious, of course, that Richard "The New Art', with Keith Arnatt, Art-Language,
Long and Hamish Fulton are close, but Victor Burgin, Michael Craig-Martin, David Dye,
continued inspection shows some quite Barry Flanagan, Hamish Fulton, Gilbert & George,
John Hilliard, Richard Long, Keith Milow, Gerald
fundamental differences, precisely those [Newman, John Stezaker, David Tremlett. Catalogue
differences essential to their being art. Hamish by Anne Seymour (who organized the show for the
Arts Council), with important contributions by the
Fulton started out a couple of years later than artists. The Hayward Gallery, 17 Aug.-24
Richard Long — and if he had somewhat the Sep., 1972.
Keith Arnatt Trouser-Word Piece 1972
(Photo relating to facing text.) same feeling it was essential for him to be 'Again, this is not a typically British situation; one
different in order to be a relevant artist.) This derived the same impression from the last
`Guggenheim International', 1971. It is also
marked difference. A Monet picture is very fact, that there are several styles within interesting to note that, as I was told by Jan Dibbets
straightforward and very open about itself, conceptualism, could mean that here a new and Ger van Elk, some of the objections on the part
while a Cezanne is rather hermetic; it is not just mode in art is originating — an organizational of artists to Germano Celant's Arte Povera book
concerned precisely this question: that Celant was
an artistic reflection on a naturalistic situation system with the same kind of independence as trying to establish a group, in the way Pierre Restany
but more a reflection on how art can ever reflect; classic illusionism or twentieth-century established the New Realists in France.
there are aesthetic preconceptions which don't abstractness. As there are stylistic variations 'There was, I felt, a curious contrast between the
privateness of the works presented and the publicness,
show openly in the picture and thus can't be within abstractness (ranging from cool geometry so to say, of the Hayward's spatial organization.
understood directly. One has to concentrate very to lush expressionism), similar variations might Clearly the gallery was conceived and built in the
hard; the picture has to be scrutinized for clues— exist in the conceptualist mode. I am not sure, time of big paintings and large sculptures. The
`new art', however, demands a much more intimate
and that makes it, as an art object, radically however, that conceptualism is altogether as new space.
different from a Monet painting. and contemporary as it would claim to be, or as 'Compare my 'Mondrian in Holland', Studio
International, May 1972, pp. 229-231, or my
Cezanne's art reflects a more private the Hayward show's arrogant title would imply. introduction (Dutch/German) to the catalogue of the
conception of what art should be; and it is this Some of the artists (Long, Fulton, Arnatt, Ad Dekkers exhibition in The Hague
Gemeentemuseum, 1972.
which eventually did grow into what I believe to Gilbert & George) certainly are, but others 'These are, in fact, the three main goals of classical
be one of the most fundamental issues in the (despite all their privateness) can all too easily rhetoric as formulated by Cicero; later they were
contemporary avant garde: that art now can only for my taste be related to existing, traditional introduced into classic art theory.
be very private to the artist, and that there styles. Gerald Newman's light structures or 'Victor Burgin, in the Hayward catalogue, p. 22,
makes a somewhat similar point.
seems to be an obligation for the artist to make Michael Craig-Martin's mirror pieces could be 'There must not be any misunderstanding: I am not
himself known as an individual, someone with a related to Op Art — they provide a similar arguing that a Monet is a very simple painting.
language completely his own, instead of
somebody using, along with others, an existing
language to a goal outside that language itself, as
was the case with old art. Being private is now
art's proper way of existence. It does become a
speciality for some people, an internal code of
communication — which is, if I understand them
correctly, precisely one of the points of the
Art-Language Institute. (The Index, in the
Hayward exhibition, storing all shades of
idiosyncratic opinion concerning art
propositions from the Institute's members and
structuring it with a multiple cross-reference
system, seemed to me almost the grand allegory
of art's contemporary privateness). Gone is even
that marvellous ambition of early modern
artists, Léger for example, or Mondrian, to
construct theories about an 'objective reality'
that could be understood (or should one say,
felt) through the senses. Little of that kind of
theorizing goes on now, which is significant in
itself if one assumes that Mondrian or Malevich
or Léger came to their theories to explain their Richard Long Untitled 5972
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