Page 20 - Studio International - December 1973

The function matter of launching the new fashion. It is a certain blue and a certain brown dawning on the
matter of saying what will be the good taste of
very near horizon. We shall likewise see 'new'
tomorrow, in automatic opposition to the good
of an exhibition' taste of yesterday, which was the one preached quarrels emerge between abstract and figurative
art. For the cultured, we see the 'famous'
by, for example, the previous Prospect. epistemological rupture of Cezanne (this will
Art dealing does not lose out over what is make a change from the reference to Duchamp)
suddenly no longer in fashion. Quite the dawning once more. And Matisse and Pollock.
contrary, the art dealer raises what he presented Of course, the intention here is not to study in
the day before as being avant garde to the depth the work of the painters quoted, which
historical level.3 And where art is concerned, would be the object of quite a different text, but
what is historical has greater value. In to declare how their use moves in the direction
addition, becoming historical opens the way to of a reactionary recuperation of the dead.
new customers. The avant-garde dealers, the And painting, as seen at Prospect 73, clearly
avant-garde collectors, the avant-garde artists appears as the corpse that is brought out again
know this. But it must not be said, it would be in in desperation. A corpse which can still be
bad taste . . . . useful. Which can still be sold. A corpse,
It is therefore false to lay the blame because what is emphasized is not at any time
I have already had several opportunities to especially on an exhibition which openly a consideration of painting as a question, but
undertake the analysis of various exhibitions. proclaims itself as an art market, while at the what it represents as an exchange, a renewal, a
These different texts, or parts of texts, could be same time the latest developments of novelty, as possible avant garde while waiting
regrouped under the title 'the function of an avant-garde artists are exhibited by their for the next. The majority of painters will be at
exhibition'.2 They say what the painting itself benefactors, without those artists ever thinking ease in this cemetery, since that is where they
could not say, at the same time as the painting that the benefactors are also go-betweens for come from. Three or four exceptions will serve,
makes and unmakes, creates and frustrates 'its the exhibition in question. as always, as an alibi.
own' exhibition and, as the case may be, the So what has this Prospect 73 selected for us Did Prospect 73 have to demonstrate this to
exhibition in which it is found. Today I want to as the new model ? So how must we dress next the point of paradox ? In any case, the 'painters'
discuss 'Prospect 73'. winter to avoid looking ridiculous ? whose works Prospect (prospecting, what is
From the beginning (1968) Prospect presented We shall have to dress as painters. going to develop) offered us, include among
itself as an exhibition where a certain number of As what ? their number people who have ceased to
galleries with an 'avant-garde' reputation could As painters. represent the avant garde for at least ten years,
offer their new products or their prospective But there are painters and painters ? and others who have already ceased to be
products. Subsequently, Prospect concentrated Exactly, they will all be there. `painters' for several year. It is difficult to
more on the artists than on the galleries backing The abstractionists ? The figurative artists ? create a new fashion every year (or every two
them, and even, in 1969, certain artists were The miniaturists ? The conceptualists ? years). Ask the dress designers who have to
shown 'without a gallery', even though there The realists ? The . . . present two or four new collections each year.
were some among them whose links with a All of them, I tell you, except the house In short, Prospect 73 is only one prospectus
certain gallery or galleries were well-known painters. among others.
anyway. But it was necessary for Prospect to Prospect has chosen as its mission (we have As for my painting, it may be found at
separate itself as quickly as possible from the seen above the commercial motivations for this Prospect or not, as at Documenta, at the Berne
variousKunstmarkt to which it tended to be mission) to present what should be the fashion Kunsthalle, as in the Guggenheim in New
compared in 1968. of the coming season. York, invited or rejected, admitted or censured,
Now what was Prospect, if not precisely, as Obviously the customers (of the avant garde) for although it is fundamentally mundane, no
its name indicates, the place where the result of were going to tire of purchasing works which more than an attempt can be made to exclude it
the 'prospecting' of 'good' galleries was to be did not particularly 'furnish' their homes, and from the present, since it also reveals present
shown, in order to create tomorrow's market ? that which is vulgarly called conceptual art was ideology.0
So it is surprising that so much energy has been becoming academic (which it was from the DANIEL BUREN, August 1973
expended by certain artists and galleries beginning). Body art, films of artists were not
against, for example, the Cologne Kunstmarkt, filling the gap either. Something more solid had
whilst the future of the market there and to be found (more solid physically and a Published brie Fischer, Düsseldorf, in Es Malt,
elsewhere was being organized about 3o miles culturally), something more concrete. September 1973.
away. Could it be that they are rebelling against Something to hang on the walls, which does not 2 'Interruption' notes to an exhibition by Yvon
the fact that an art exhibition is called 'market', make one look like a practical joker, had to be Lambert, May 1969. He deals with the way in which a
Parisian avant-garde gallery functions. `Mise en
while the art-dealing is carried out elsewhere, discovered. Something obviously recognizable Garde' (Katalog Conception, Leverkusen, October
while speculation is born elsewhere, in as art. In short what was needed was painting. 1969) deals in the first place with concept art apart
precisely the place where they conceal the fact Well, here are 'the painters'. from the way in which such exhibitions function, and
with how a new work of art or a new school is
that art is a product to be sold behind the I shall not insist on the similarity between the marketed.
misleading pretext that all that is being done sub-title of Prospect 73 and slogans such as 'the `Around and About' (see Studio International, July
1971) deals with the way he put together his work in
is an attempt to discover ideally what the art of kings of the accordion' or 'the guru who will the Guggenheim, his principles and practices.
tomorrow will be ? make you rediscover faith in God and his `Paris Biennale' 1971, the function and political
But it is well-known that art would perish by creation'. What is important is that from the contradictions. 'Speculation from yesterday and
today', an open letter in Contact, dated 4 November
itself, if it were not continually supported and ideological point of view what such a 1971, deals with public sales.
revived by new products, new contributions, resurrection implies is in no way a questioning `An exemplary exhibition' (Flash Art, September
anything new. That is indeed the economic of painting itself, but the reactionary return of 1972) ... 'Pompidou his ceremonies, his displays, his
cops .
function of the invention of the avant garde. the morbid aesthetizing discourse on the art and `Exhibition of an exhibition' (Catalogue,
That is indeed the economic function of a huge the manner of placing paint suitably on a given Documenta 5) deals with the exhibition in Kassel and
majority of 'non-commercial' exhibitions, and surface. We can see the old debates on the the meaning of groups of exhibitions.
3 Those of yesterday who are not raised to the
Prospect is a blinding example of this. It is a `miraculous' harmony or discord between a `historical level' will be destined to disappear.
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