Page 49 - Studio International - September 1972

specialists in the cultural field. There millions of probably be made, and these could be sold at
marks are handled and manipulated, not even DM6o. Moreover, as in the book or record
for the purpose of serving the general weal, but trade, best-sellers (multiples in large editions, or
to foster a private image and communal conceit in several editions) could subsidize the
at the expense of general progressive production of the work of younger artists. A
development. Any purchase of DM 100,000 or prophetic example is provided by the production
more for a work of contemporary art should of Vice-Versand. Each of the objects it publishes
result in the disqualification of the man in unlimited editions is priced at DM12, and
responsible, on grounds of incompetence! while sales of Joseph Beuys's wooden chest
Intuition are already into the four-thousands,
Multiples must go into the schools
many younger artists' products have not yet
In the extract quoted above Werner Rhode calls
reached the one hundred mark. It is imperative
for the democratization of art for the consumer.
that new ways of selling multiple art be found in
This remains a pipe-dream (shared by
future. Before multiple-shops can be established
publishers and artists) so long as no fundamental
in every town, of whatever size, bookshops
alteration of aesthetic consciousness, from the
should avail themselves of the chance to sell
lower school onwards, is undertaken. What is
these original works of art alongside their
needed is a school museum or, better still, a
reproductions of Old Masters. The individual
pupils' gallery to go with the school library. The
multiple-publishers should get together to
pupils should have the opportunity to trace the
organize a force of travellers to sell their wares. q
development of modern art (for example
RENÉ BLOCK
through multiples housed in cases in the
(Translated from the German by John Wheelwright)
corridors); new aesthetic developments should
be shown and explained to them in the same Reprinted in edited form from the Catalogue of the
matter-of-fact way as new physical or chemical Berlin Art Fair of Multiplied Art, April 197 2.
discoveries are taught. Pupils should have the
opportunity to borrow art objects from their
gallery. They will begin to collect works of art,
as well as books and gramophone records. The Democracy as
process of democratization will begin, and commercialization
familiarity with art will become second nature.
The multiple and the trade When I first began attacking the multiples
It is the first law of any economic system that movement some years ago, my arguments were
production should be tailored to current based essentially on the charge that multiples,
demands (only the art trade is still expected to qua solution to the radical artist's dilemma, were
function in an uneconomic and idealistic a pernicious red herring : that not only did they
fashion). The price is calculated on the fail to subvert the art-as-saleable-commodity
production-run in relation to development and system but that they, in effect, represented a
production costs. In the case of a work of art deadlier (because more monolithic) version of
these development costs are partly identical with the commercial trap in which we now find
the artist's origination fee. Let us take an ourselves. Since those earlier days multiples
example. An artist demands a DM20,000 fee have been propagandized rather less for their
for the idea for an object to be made in plastic. spurious democratizing function and have
The mould needed for its manufacture costs subsided into a more frank extension of gallery
DM10,000, whether i or 100,000 originals are entrepreneurial activity. The ideological
made from it. The sculpture would in the end mistake which underpinned the original
probably cost something in the region of multiples lobby, however, still refuses to
DM5o,000, if only one were made. Assuming a lie down and occasionally rises up again in
well-known artist to be involved one could, slightly altered guise. It is for that reason
under current conditions, reckon on an edition something more than an academic exercise to
of 100 examples over about two years. If the examine the ramifications of what I shall call
artist and mould-maker demand immediate the Democracy as Commercialization Myth.
payment of their fees, the producer (publisher) The notion that some sort of genuine
must arrange a long-term bank loan (at interest), political and social freedom can be achieved by
and as manufacturer he must allow discounts to the general availability of all commercial
his distributors; so he will set a price of DM600. products; by, in other words, the transforming (Top)
Robert Morris
If only 500 museums and schools were also to of minority commodities into mass ones (by, Untitled 1972
buy the sculpture (I am presupposing that, as a in fact, the discouragement or prohibition of Cast aluminium ,3 x 3 x 12 in.
result of the necessary restructuring of museum minority commodities) and in particular, by Edition 17, Leo Castelli
purchases, some of the money now used would creating the possibility for a universal (Centre)
be freed for the setting up of small documentary acquisition of cultural (in the broadest sense) Ellsworth Kelly
Mirrored Concorde 1972
collections in schools), the price could be paraphernalia is not, historically, a left-wing Chromed steel, oak wood base, 22 3/4 x 26 1/2 x 1 in.
reduced to DM100, while maintaining the same position at all. It is most unambiguously Edition 12, Gemini G.E.L.
profit margin. As a result another 200 right-wing. It is, in fact, the mainstay of (Above)
enthusiasts could acquire the work—which in classical Henry Ford utopian capitalism. In Carel Visser
turn would mean that, with an expected sale of more primitive American dream vocabulary : Untitled 1972
Steel, 20 x 20 x 10 cm. edition 5
800 in mind, a first edition of 1000 would when everyone can afford to buy his own house, Seriaal
99