Page 60 - Studio International - April 1973

MC: The trustee system makes it very difficult to galleries and saying, we're going to do something to development of landscape art between 1750 and
involve oneself with works of art that need almost to demonstrate this, or that this is what we believe. So 1850 —which we will be putting on towards the end
be commissioned before they're done, which is I personally wouldn.t take refuge behind that excuse. of this year—then we're automatically putting it in its
common nowadays. And also with works of art RA: This has been done to some extent in one or two art-historical context. This is what distinguishes us
which can never be physically incorporated in the of Michael.s exhibitions. from the Arts Council, for example, whose
collection, like some of those of Heizer and so on. NR : Yes. And the most impressive one to my mind exhibitions in the Hayward Gallery are divorced from
I would like to draw a small red herring across, and was the Los Angeles exhibition in 1970, which was a any context except those wind-swept plateaux. And
say that I do believe that the complexity of our complete revelation to me, and I think to a lot of therefore if we put on, for example, a show of Léger
purchasing system makes it, not absolutely but other people. and Purist Paris, which concentrated on Léger but
statistically over a long period, more difficult to cope RC: But this is a great problem, isn.t it, between the included his immediate environment in the form of
with modern art as it happens. Because the artists idea of permanency, and museum values, and the Ozenfant, Corbusier and so on, then we have of
and dealers know that the person who comes to visit idea of nowness or whatever you like to call it. course the Tate Gallery permanent collection, with
them in the studio and the gallery is not likely to say RM : We.ve got to look at what is important now in a its Cubists, Mondrian. etc. But if you consider the
.Right, now I.ll have it,' arid talk about the price in a historical context, because we've got to make the general social and political context of the work of any
plenipotentiary fashion. They know that more often purchases fairly soon after the work has been artist as manifested in an exhibition, then I think you
than not it has to go through a rigmarole. And produced. Otherwise, we buy less of the work of have a vastly more difficult problem. Because if we
I wouldn't like to quantify this effect, but I think that this type later on because of this ghastly price spiral. consider that particular show, which focused on
over a long period it must slightly put the brakes on which takes effect very soon. Léger in the Twenties, can you imagine an
the thing, that the person who visits the artist in his RA: And this is something which didn.t really worry exhibition which adequately deals with the Great
studio can't say :'This is great, we'll have it now.' our predecessors. War, the economic, political. personal obsessions
I don't think that it's a director blockage or a RM : Absolutely, and so we've got to cope with two and so on which produced that war, the economic
trustee blockage as such, it's just the knowledge things simultaneously. We've got to cope with this and political and personal obsessions which
that there are always so many stages between cup problem about the art that's being produced now, produced the post-war boom. the revolution in
and lip. and we've simultaneously got these grave gaps in Russia, the political events, the shortening of the
NR : You mean it.s like a sort of House of Lords. early 20th-century art which our predecessors. for skirt, the Charleston. all these things which were
MC: Yes. Buying works of art is a highly personal one reason or another, didn't fill and which still need contemporaneous with this exhibition ? We could
relationship, and knowing that one has always to filling. do—and I say this with a deliberate show of
pass it up the ladder... I mean. imagine if it was like AS: I don't think we should regard what we.re doing prejudice— a flashy display which would project
this in relation to sex, or drink, or food or something. at the moment in the way of bringing up 25 young these things ; but it would be so insanely short of the
There.s an extent to which art is like that, obviously. artists' work—or middle-aged artists, or whatever real context of these things that I personally don't
NR: Go on. they are by now— as anything of a one-off situation. think it worth while. In that particular show, we
RC: You mean it.s like having to get permission to go I imagine it will continue indefinitely. started with the ambition to do a large context show,
to bed with somebody. RM : Absolutely. The list we're concentrating on at of photographs of the kind of machinery, the kind of
MC: That.s right. It does mean that every time one the moment is far from exhaustive : it's just to make a home utensils and so on that Léger and Corbusier
looks at a work of art, one is not so much seeing the big impact in this field. used. But as the show went along, the total banality
work of art as seeing the arguments by which one and inadequacy of this part of it, rightly or wrongly,
would put it forward to the higher resort. filled our minds. And this issue arises from the fact
NR: I don.t think this is an entirely damaging thing. that the Tate preaches to a great extent to a
As Anne has said, it makes you run over the total converted audience. Not necessarily to an audience
reasons which lead you to this conclusion. This is not which is converted on every specific issue, but to an
a bad thing, provided it doesn.t in the end inhibit the audience which is aware of art, an audience which
purchase altogether. has some historical awareness particularly. Now if
AS: In terms of inhibiting the purchase, the problem EXHIBITIONS you consider the degree of awareness which is
in the present situation is that we have left it too long, necessary to relate the specific design of an aeroplane
and we've got landed with having to deal with 25 propeller or some specific political move to a work of
people at once, rather than taking them one at a time RC: Any discussion of acquisitions inevitably leads art, you must realize that this is a very high degree of
as they came up. on to the question of special EXHIBITIONS, and awareness. In spite of what people constantly tell
RA: Yes, it's more than it should be, really. I was I would therefore like to talk about this aspect of the us— namely that. in order to make your exhibitions
hoping that as Anne and Richard are taking a Tate's function now. much more alive, you should display the trade
tremendous amount of trouble over this, and So far as older British art is concerned, the union history of the period — it's exactly the public to
preparing a list of works and so on, that if after exhibitions staged recently have either been which they wish us to extend our impact who would
consultation with you, Norman. we got your wide-ranging surveys of a whole era. like the not be able, unfortunately, to give value to that
blessing, the key works on this list might be bought Elizabethan show, or else one-man retrospectives, particular kind of comparison. The historical
as a block by the trustees, instead of being discussed like the Hogarth show. Are these two formats the awareness is one of the last, curiously enough, which
individually. only ones you will accept, or are you prepared to is available to people : the background of information
NR: I think this is perfectly fair. If we have to consider other perhaps more adventurous ideas that is necessary to relate some social event or some
convince the trustees, you're much more likely to do which would cut across these approaches ? It event in the history of costume, shall we say, or the
it if you present the whole story to them, rather than would, for instance, be rewarding to set a man like design of machinery, to a work of art is precisely
arguing the case each time. You see, one of the Hogarth more firmly in his own time, explore the what is missing. And I think this goes back to the
problems is that with almost every work. except the political and social background to the Age of particular character of education in this country,
most obvious and generally accepted work. you've Charles I, trace one line of thought through several which is not only incredibly lacking in any
got to present the trustees with a case. In other generations of British artists or even prove a point information whatever about art, but also very
words, you've got to explain to them why. And if you about continuity by mixing in older pictures with deficient in any ...
are presenting something new, then it makes more more contemporary works which are in some way RC: It.s very compartmentalized.
logic to them if they see it as part of a whole. related. The Tate's dual role would seem ideally MC: Yes. exactly : in any way of relating a social
Obviously, they.re not unintelligent people, neither suited to such cross-fertilization. event to an event in science, to an event in art and so
in fairness to them are they obstructive; but many NR: I think Michael should answer this in general, on. I agree that we might undertake this in order to
things made now call for much explanation. but in particular I've always had it in mind to bring prod the educational authorities into incorporating
RC: I would have thought there was a basic clash, work by artists like. say, Wyndham Lewis and this into the curriculum, but as a matter of fact it
here, between the Tate as a place where people go to Signorelli together. I'm sure there are these echoes would do very little good now this minute. It would
see works of permanent value. and the Tate as a place across the ages which are extremely illuminating. not be readable.
where people go to see what is happening in modern Michael has done quite a number of adventurous MB: Can I put this the other way round, still on the
art now. And it's the latter which I think a lot of things, but perhaps they are spots in what you older exhibitions ? I'm the person who's always
people feel is missing from the Tate's collection at the regard as rather a dull programme. asked should we lend to exhibitions. and the reverse
moment. MC: I'm inclined to give a rather bureaucratic of that is : should we put on shows which we would
RA: It's partly been bound up with our desperate answer to this particular question. The main not ourselves lend to ? The Welsh Arts Council puts
shortage of space. argument we have for putting exhibitions on in the on what I imagine are very stimulating exhibitions on
NR : No, if you'll forgive me for saying so, I think Tate at all is that we have this permanent collection themes like Work. Love. War — I can't remember the
that's begging the question. There's nothing to here. And therefore if we put on an exhibition of exact titles. We do not lend to those, largely because
prevent us if we wanted to from clearing four Hogarth or of some period or of some theme like the we feel that it.s the sort of exhibition that can be

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