Page 58 - Studio International - November 1972

Art and terminology sense of 'visionary/philosopher/prophet' with exercised a greater degree of control had he
Science and Technology in Art Today by the sense of `craftsman/technician/designer'. added the chapter on 'social responsibility'
Jonathan Benthall. 180 pp., illustrated. The author's commitment of such a 'sense' which he says he decided to leave out. As it
Thames and Hudson. Cloth £2.5o, paperback simply makes a paradox of the immediate stands, his conception of 'social responsibility'
£1.50. strategic objective of the book. is largely offensive.
The chapter on kinetic art deals with its HAROLD HURRELL
In the light of available antecedent theory, subject positivistically, yet it is intended to
it might be expected that any purported provide a shift of emphasis from 'media' to Forget the paintings
consideration of the possible relations between `expression'. Benthall says that "kineticism" The Life and Times of the New York School by
art and science would avoid the exhumatory has no theoretical basis that could be taken Dore Ashton. 256 pp., 52 illustrations, approx.
paradigmatization of the artist as consumer of seriously today' but that 'it was at least an Adams and Dart. £3.50.
the art supplies provided by the scientific attempt to develop a theory from which a new
community. Where there is a art might grow.. . . As a fashion it has been Dore Ashton makes it clear from the start that
quasi-hermeneutic reportage on the superseded by "technological art" but the she's not writing about the paintings. Thus
scientific/technological background to the latter has developed no coherent body of warned, any potential reader who has not already
various aesthetic endeavours Benthall finds theory or principle in that in all, or almost all, read Irving Sandler's Abstract Expressionism —
to his taste, it provides interpretive devices. visual art there is an important element of The Triumph of American Painting would do well
But to have devices is not to have grounds (or movement'. It is hard to see how this is to do so before proceeding with Dore Ashton's
instrumentalities). The scientific reportage of supposed to illuminate 'expression'. It is also book, if only to satisfy himself as to why he
information is, however, usually equivalent to hard to see how 'movement' can be a principle should read the latter at all. This particular
the parenthetical technical information of any kind. Even if Benthall wants to talk of cultural history is predicated upon the
available from the art material suppliers. statements (of aesthetics) functioning as assumption that the work of the New York
Benthall emerges from this book, as from his aesthetic principles, 'movement' in aesthetics School is of sufficient quality and/or interest to
series of articles in Studio International, as this has an important intensional aspect and justify so close a focus upon the background; it's
year's propagandist of the culture-hobbyist therefore will not readily involve questions as to a quite reasonable assumption, but the art is, as
cul de sac, which is sloganized as 'the reuniting whether or not it is identical with 'movement' it were, most conspicuous in Miss Ashton's
of art and technology'. 'Hard thinking' is in other contexts. The consequences of the book by its absence. The point is that if you were
consequentially vitiated by the confusion about 'movement' are grave for not already convinced of the status of Pollock,
anachronistic triviality of his selection of a Benthall's notion of 'art as enquiry'. de Kooning, Newman, Rothko, Motherwell,
parameter space. Even if you could accept the There is more terminological trend setting: Rosenberg, Greenberg and a host of lesser others
vectorial assumptions, Benthall's attempt to ecology. The term seems to be interchangeable you might wonder why they should have been
stimulate 'hard' thinking emanates from an with 'culture' in its most amorphous ambiguous chosen as spokesmen for the Zeitgeist. And the
alleged emphasis on 'theory' which is not so sense. As no new unpacking of the latter term is question of whether or to what extent painting
much 'heavy' as heavy-handed. Where there provided by revision, why bother ? We are also can serve to reflect and to encourage the more
is any theory, it's picaresque art theory that left to wonder whether being an artist (`being creative movements of history is one with which
does little more than to suggest his satisfaction someone of superior imagination or the American artists and writers were
with a haphazard notion of a humanized clairvoyance which is expressed through some themselves first passionately and then perhaps
technology. medium or other') is a necessary condition of disappointedly concerned.
Most of the chapter headings seem to need giving account 'of the relationship between the The Life and Times of the New York School
counter intuitive explication in the text; the physical and the "cultural" ' or not. The offers a very detailed and close-textured study
section purporting to treat art and 'media' does physical-cultural distinction is in other contexts of the 'cultural background' against which the
nothing to clear up the logico-syntactic both fruitful and valid. Here, however, paintings of Pollock, de Kooning, Rothko, Still
squalor generated by artistic attempts to `clairvoyance', 'ecology', etc. intervene to and Newman stand out very strongly. The book
establish an element of social/ideological generate noise. contains a wealth of information, much of it
critique through meritricious analogy. In the inevitable chapter on linguistics interesting because it bears obviously upon the
There are other terminological/conceptual (Chomsky) Benthall's perhaps fragmentary development of the art, much of it interesting
difficulties. For example, Benthall deliberately exposition on transformational syntax is quite because one wonders how it might have done
chooses to use the term 'information' loosely clear, but the question can be asked whether a (e.g.: as a result of the war and events leading up
and non-restrictively. A restriction on the Chomsky primer of the kind provided is strictly to it, about two-thirds of all European
meaning of 'information' is presumably felt necessary when all that follows is a little dry psychoanalysts were eventually driven to the
to threaten the scope of such a small volume. speculation about the prospect of utilizing US), and a lot of it frankly pretty wearisome
Yet the interest in the large number of methodological analogies. (though I think too much is better than too
reference works cited might be thought of as In the final chapter the commentary is of a little). It's not easy to write about the
a function of the absurdity of making (at best) restricted methodological scope. The Zeitgeist; the alternatives are usually too much
ad hoc (asymptomatically arbitrary) terminology argument suggesting an analogy between some evidence and too few conclusions, or too many
decisions when the utility of dependent epistemic aspects of 'art' and 'science' is made conclusions and inadequate or incompatible
distinctions lies at stake. For example, out in such encapsulated idiosyncratic terms evidence. Miss Ashton does well here (though
logical integration/differentiation is possible that the supporting methodological context/ the book is very under-footnoted for my taste),
even where systems are divided on basic problematic is almost entirely obscured. and manages to present a selection of the usual
concepts. The use of commonplace (ie 'non- Similarly an application of Mary Douglas's hoary abstract-expressionist issues with a lot
restricted') distinctions has the consequence of anomaly technique tacked on at the end of the more precision than many writers have done :
inhibiting any possibility of further book seems either to be a demonstration of the the Project, the Function of Art in Society (does
systematic study. We are all left in the position author's ignorance of the usual context of it have one, and if so is it active), Surrealism,
of the most perambulatory of general readers. application or just an indication of his Myths, Existentialism, Clement Greenberg
We are told that, irrespective of its methodological perversity. and his Dogma, Individualism, the Sense of
conduciveness to strain and paradox, the term Jonathan Benthall is enthusiastic about his Community, etc. (my chapter-headings, not the
`artist' is irreplaceable because it combines the perhaps difficult subject. He may have author's). There's a lot of overlapping, and much
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