Page 50 - Studio International - September 1972

car, television, education, art works, etc., we misplaced idolatry. I would claim,
shall have arrived at the state of perfect outrageously enough, that the relationship
democracy. The logic of the equation is thus : between one artist and one object actually does
buying power =political power. have value, that it is not simply a microcosm
Now we all know (I hope) what has gone so of the private property syndrome, that what it
horrendously wrong with that particular vision. symbolizes is of crucial importance to our
A glance at the great consumer democracy conception of the worth of human expression
across the Atlantic is sufficient to reveal that and individual conscience. If one man making
whatever the mass production of cultural one statement (and fashioning it in symbolic or
artefacts does guarantee it certainly is not artistic form) which might be intelligible or
either revolutionary egalitarianism or justice. interesting to only one other man (and not to
Mass marketing of what the jargon-pushers hundreds or thousands of other men) is not
call cultural software, results not in freedom regarded as worthwhile then, I think, the whole
for the population but in economic tyranny basis of personal art (that is, art not dictated by
over the minority who create, and commercial manipulative institutions of church or state) is
manipulation of the majority who consume. abolished and a fundamental freedom has been
Freedom of choice for the individual in creative lost. It is difficult, as well, to maintain at one
expression and in consumption is ruled out and the same time that the expressions and
more efficiently and comprehensively than in satisfactions of individual people do not matter
any crudely repressive dictatorship. True while the expressions and satisfactions of the
(which is to say individual) artistic statements masses do. If the individual man has no moral
are precluded because the idiosyncratic, the or artistic significance then no great number of
uniquely personal and the non-conforming individual men has any either. Only by
sensibility are not commercially viable. Art on acknowledging the importance of the individual
this model becomes one more accoutrement can one maintain the importance of the crowd
of homogenized, predigested supermarket (for what is a crowd but a collection of
culture and whatever your favourite definition of individuals and if they do not matter singly
such a controversial notion as 'democracy' may then they cannot matter en masse).
be, mindless conformity surely cannot be There have of late been some attacks on
consistent with it. unique art objects (paintings specifically)
This sort of exposition would probably have which have been peculiarly lacking in
my more heavy-breathing comrades muttering intellectual scruples. John Berger, in his recent
that my conception of what is worthwhile in series of intensely annoying television
artistic activity is rooted in post-Renaissance, broadcasts put forward a more than usually
even capitalist, prejudice. That my insistence hysterical version of the paintings-are-only-
on the integrity of personal sensibility smacks private-property-gone-holy thesis in which he
of 'bourgeois individualism'. I would retort, managed to commit, among other things, a
of course, that their denigration of number of egregious historical errors (which
individualism and intellectual non-conformity would have bordered on the libellous had the
smacks of fascism. But sniping aside, I find this persons in question been living). But Berger
particular school of thought perplexing in the was not so much a victim of his own
extreme. What attracts one toward a propaganda as not to admit that every great
revolutionary socialist position, in my painting in history transcended his objections
experience, is a repugnance with the degrading to the medium; that, in other words, painting
tyranny which capitalism imposes on most was a decadent, bourgeois, corrupting
people's lives. A desire, in other words, to discipline unless it was good. Now it seems to
liberate human beings from the role of factory me that if one has a thesis about the validity of
fodder and enable them to lead the kind of rich, painting as an art form and that thesis, in order
fulfilled life which is their birthright. Now it not to be proved flatly wrong, must be confined
seems to me that an essential presupposition in only to bad painting, then it is a thesis which is
this position is that the individual human not, to put it bluntly, worth expounding. The
personality is what matters : that political and painting-as-mere-property argument, I should
economic systems must be judged in terms of claim, is either wrong or trivial. I attack this
the extent to which they allow the human sort of position with such vehemence because
potential to flourish in dignity and moral I am convinced that the road to fascism is paved
(Top)
S. T. Coffin worth. The valid basis of Marxism, in other with theories that the individual personality
Puzzles 1972 words, can only be humanist. If human beings ought to be subjugated to the anonymous mass
Polystyrene, unlimited (and their expressions and views and will, and that, furthermore, the arrogant,
Small Wonders Inc.
statements) are, in some sense, trivial or nihilistic destruction of culture is enslaving
(Centre) dispensable, what possible attraction or use rather than liberating.
Snowflake
A six-inch base and ten in. thick could there be in liberating them ? Which, of The multiples mythology is one front of an
polyester pieces. Edition unlimited. course, brings us back to the multiples issue: anti-art war being waged by neo-barbarian
Small Wonders Inc. a repeated refrain not only in the technological `revolutionary' forces in the art world, others
(Above) art damp but in a number of other neo-futurist being conceptual and 'event' art. We must
Chic Taylor movements, is that the value of the one-off defend the revolutionary cause of art despite
Sand Box 1 1971
Acrylic and sand, edition unlimited production of an individual artist is spurious—an them and even against them.q
Alecto International elitist concept steeped in mystification and JANET DALEY
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