Page 60 - Studio International - October 1972

The New Art

Rosetta Brooks

`THE NEW ART' WAS AT THE HAYWARD GALLERY Duchamp. Nevertheless, the contradictions `plane of simultaneous . . . events' and it could be
17 AUGUST - 24 SEPTEMBER; `A SURVEY OF THE between Duchamp's prediction and his stated to compensate for this that the idealistic notion
AVANT GARDE IN BRITAIN' IS AT GALLERY preference for novelty sustained in the avant of the art work as a purely 'mental entity' has
HOUSE, LONDON, UNTIL 15 OCTOBER garde serves to indicate the persistence of the arisen, which enables the art work to fit more
`myth' as well as Duchamp's deterministic adequately into a temporal (and logical)
A full rejection of the problematic issues which belief in his own historical position. perspective. Another way of interpreting the
in the past have confined art activity to lack of I would suggest that the recent interest in interest in the framework (generally) of art, of
unified meaning and function is necessarily a time and temporal succession can be interpreted art works and art practice, is as a means towards
rejection of the notion of the avant garde, even as an acknowledgment of the position of the understanding the inter-related concepts of
though that rejection is engineered by the very historical commentator in determining the historicism, novelty and the avant garde as being
section of the art community to which the term public apprehension of art. Victor Burgin, logically prior to an ultimate rejection of them
seems most appropriately applied. Two recent whose work has an obvious temporal perspective, and their associated artistic conventions. Thus
exhibitions, 'The New Art' at the Hayward and writes 'predominantly . . . studies in art tend to there appear to be three significant phases of the
`A Survey of the Avant-Garde in Britain' at be conducted along the historical axis rather work in the exhibitions : acknowledgement of
Gallery House, address themselves to this than within the plane of simultaneous cultural some determining framework (conceptual,
problem. The ways in which redefinitions of events contemporary with the study and pierced historical, cognitive, political, ideological, etc.);
art's function have been proposed are as by that axis'. He stresses the temporal dimension understanding the determining framework; and
divergent as the varieties of approach evident in of his art works and it seems inevitable that this lastly, the rejection of all extraneous aspects of
both exhibitions, though not all the artists should entail an historical perspective in the art the determining framework. Perhaps the
represented are engaged in a direct way with the work's connotation of art itself. One would convenience of history is that it provides an
kind of redefinition referred to. The upshot of expect John Latham to share Burgin's immediate unification of what are otherwise
these sometimes incompatible tendencies is a opinion, as he regards his work, with Andrew completely disparate phenomena. The
general repudiation of value systems which have Dipper's, as being an engagement with disadvantage of taking historical explanation as
outgrown their viability, and a development of `quantified time investigations' relating to the a priority is that it tends to obscure all but
new ones to replace them. Time Base Theorem. Hilliard and Breakwell temporal causal relations between phenomena.
This may be a phase necessary to clarify are other exhibitors whose present work is With this underlying priority, it is common to
pertinent issues before re-embarking upon he predominantly interested in temporal succession. mistake a temporal succession of phenomena as
practice of art : it may be the onset of a Such concerns run through much of the work always being causally related. A consequence is
theoretical art; it may be both. But whatever the in the exhibitions. This goes some way towards that any relations purely determined in the
outcome I suspect that we are witnessing the accounting for the current interest in the realm of art are supplanted for simple
end of the avant garde, whose paradoxical medium of film. David Lamelas uses film and historically-causal relations, promoting the
`tradition' has permeated interpretative sometimes photographs in both temporal and sceptical view that 'all is permitted in art'. Keith
criticism during most of this century, some spatial succession in order to develop a purely Arnatt's self-critically introspective assessments
critics even suggesting that the revolutionary temporal unity for his works. The content of his of what he can and can't do, or intends to do,
succession of modes is what fundamentally work is primarily an abstract of temporal express the paralysing paradoxes confronted at
characterizes art, thus distinguishing it from aspects which determine the apprehension of his every point of a purely rational approach to art
other fields of activity — a 'unity in variety' art works (as temporal units). The apprehension activity within this inherited conceptual
approach which is self-contradictory. There is of content thus provides a formal framework for framework. The same order of internal
an obvious correspondence between the apprehending the work itself in a purely confusion is reflected in the good-humoured
concepts of the 'avant garde' and of 'novelty' and temporal perspective. Rather literal and banal activity of Gilbert and George, who have from
of the resultant historicisms of interpretative analogues of the 'paradigm case' are available in time to time been sculpture, sculptors and,
theses developed on the basis of these notions. abundance in the repetitious works of David finally, in the 'New Art' exhibition, sculptors
There is probably no better exemplification of Dye, but at least this indicates the paradigmatic of paintings. If Arnatt's approach can be called
these issues and their interrelations than in the status of Burgin's and Lamelas's 'case'. `rationalist' then Gilbert and George's might be
work of Marcel Duchamp. The self-evident It is noticeable that this 'case', with suitable called 'normal'. Evaluative judgements like
historical ambience that Duchamp assumed for modifications, extends over a significant `above average', which they have applied to their
his own work has led Anne d'Harnoncourt and proportion of the work in the exhibitions. own paintings at a time when evaluative criteria
Walter Hopps to the view that 'Duchamp's Making the apprehension framework for the are notoriously difficult to come by serve only
finest work was his use of time'. He himself art work a part of its content has become a norm to stress this deficiency and to reveal the gap
insisted on novelty : 'If someone brings me which occasionally verges on mannerism, when between existing art activity and any 'normal'
something absolutely new I all but burst with the purpose of the action is forgotten (Dye and activity. Thus for art activity to make advances
gratitude.' At the same time Jack Burnham's others). That purpose must be to maintain as in a purely rational approach, the obvious
interpretation of Duchamp's Boxing Match comprehensible the framework within which art imperative is towards changing the conceptual
suggests that Duchamp predicted that 'the works are confined and derive their meaning, framework. Analytical art (Art & Language
historical myth of avant-garde art is completed given the existing predominance of the Group, the Newport based group: Peter Berry,
. . . (in) about 1968'. The precision in the dating historical commentator. The paradox is Paul Wood, Kevin Wright) and theoretical art
may be attributable more to Burnham than to perhaps in the persistence of the artifact in the (John Stezaker, David Holmscroft, Jon Bird)

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