Page 74 - Studio International - December 1973

ART THEORY& PRACTICE
that 'it was hard to get a painting that was situation of art inevitable in any examination intentions : 'The present approach presupposes
despicable enough so that no one would hang it— of the questions raised by Post-Object Art. presuppositions which are constitutive of the
everybody was hanging everything. It was Fundamental to John Stezaker's view of "bare" necessities for such as a "domain of
almost acceptable to hang a dripping paint rag, Theoretical Art is his recognition of the need for art" '.26 This domain of art is both limited and
everybody was accustomed to this'." Pop Art an explicit definition of art: as he says in 'Three intact, reversing the strategy of post-
having evolved rapidly out of this breakdown of Paradoxes and a Resolution' : 'A much more Duchampian art which has defined art
critical certainties meant that it had to be faced radical step is made . . . in changing the implicit implicitly by what it isn't, and precluding
somehow as occupying central ground; either it propositional form of "extensional art" to an recourse to external regulative principles.
could be minimized as an aberration in the explicit definition of the form : ART IS Whenever art is discussed or defined in terms
history of art or assimilated 'by maintaining This is in place of the prevailing implicit form other than those of its own self-referential
diversity as an ideal',14 and more importantly by manifest in the Judd dictum and characterized principles Stezaker sees something to be
extending this into a re-definition of art; if art by Stezaker as `--- IS ART'.20 Logically the avoided, as the result of a call on higher and
was what artists did, then this had to be art of artist must be possessed of some essential higher forms of external authority diminishes
some kind, hence the extreme diversity of knowledge of art prior to being involved in its the status of the art domain; it is as though he
terminology and justification which emerged in making. This view is, of course, not without has a compulsive awareness of the erosion of any
1962 and 1963 in response to the Pop precedent in Post-Object Art; it has similarities central core of recent art. He sees art as having
phenomenon.15 By 1967 the arch-defender of to Kosuth's diagnosis of the major shortcomings an independence and distinct identity which
the old order, Clement Greenberg, appeared to of formalist art, which is 'only art by virtue of its must be recognized and respected: as he says in
have submitted to an admission of the resemblance to earlier works of art. It's mindless the introduction to 'Priorities', 'recent post-
inexorable and uninfluenced operation of taste : art'.21 Writers in Art-Language have also Duchampian art has done little more than to
`By now we have all become aware that the skirted the problem of the potential arbitrariness maintain the fundamentality of other realms
far-out is what has paid off best in avant-garde of an art dependent on conventions and norms over the realm of art to the extent that the
art in the long-run — and what could be further and the difficulties of discrimination which domain of art as such is barely recognized as a
out than the arbitrary ? Newman's reputation ensue from the acceptance of Judd's dictum: distinct domain at all'.27 In this sense
has likewise benefited from this new awareness `Such dicta do not recognize that some norms of Theoretical Art is very apparently a corrective
and from a similar failure of comprehension — art, if "anything goes", may be incongruously to the tolerant inclusiveness of the art which
not to mention Reinhardt and his present arbitrary'.22 But Atkinson and Baldwin and immediately precede it. What seems to be at
flourishing:16 Recognized with regret by other writers in Art-Language have inevitably issue is the indeterminacy of definition allowed
Greenberg, this situation was welcomed by had to keep the conventional and possibly by prevailing post-Duchampian Art; this is an
others; Donald Judd, writing in 1969: 'I have a arbitrary norms of art as a foreground concern, indeterminacy brought on by the continuing
lot of complaints. Most of these are about focusing as they do so constantly on the tendency to treat art entities as real rather than
attempts to close the fairly open situation of sociological fact of art and on the constant intentional; this is the crucial distinction
contemporary art'.17 If there was a prevailing presence of change as an essential in modern art: Stezaker stresses in place of the material
radical view of art in the late 196os it lay in this `The suggestion is that . . . "the trek through object/theoretical object duality of preceding
recognition of an open situation, but necessarily materials . . ." is seen as a central and crucial art. The drawback in continuing with a
it was a low-toned advocacy founded on a direction within the modern tradition . . If definition which takes art objects as being real
tolerant catholicity and best characterized there is any certainty they admit it to stand rather than intentional is that this necessitates
perhaps by Barbara Reise in ' "Untitled outside art: 'those natural regularities beyond resort to a metalanguage account of art and
23
1969" : a footnote on art and minimal human intervention, which stand outside art'. with this comes loss of internal consistency. A
stylehood' when she made this plea:'... It is as though all of the principal post-object self-contained theoretical art is constantly
the faster the notion of "minimal style" is artists have been forced to take account of the stressed: `... presuppositions "about art" are
dropped, the better able everyone will be whole history of recent art in their work, and as not only a condition enabling the activity but a
to appreciate the art of particular men'." such have been obliged to assimilate a variety of fundamental characteristic of the activity'.2 8
The implications of what was going on seem conventions for which they are not responsible, From essay to essay Stezaker approaches the
often to have been only obscurely or intuitively yet whose validity they acknowledge; Stezaker same issues from slightly different standpoints
sensed: in the introductory acknowledgements has chosen to simplify this, primarily into the but leaves no doubt as to his fundamental
to 'Information' the policy statement behind the idea of post-Duchampian art and to have concern to make a tightly systematic art quite
exhibition refers to little more than 'the activity accorded it a surviving contemporary vitality free from loose ends : `Pi escriptions are in this
of younger artists' and this, combined with the rather than any sort of historical fixity. Where sense parts of a vertical theory and therefore
content of the show, seemed to allow for the Kosuth and Stezaker might be in basic both theoretical (prescribing theory as well as
paradoxical condition of the existence of artists agreement on the sense of this sort of statement : being theoretical prescriptions) and vertical in
not necessarily entailing the existence of art. If `All art (after Duchamp) is conceptual (in themselves. They are in short self-referential
this open situation in art was summed up by nature) because art only exists conceptually',24 prescriptions. This can be interpreted as a
anything it was by Judd's dictum: 'If someone Stezaker's view is not one which would welcome definition of theoretical art proper and serves to
calls it art, it's art'.19 Approved and debated by the totality of the claim or the adequacy of the place immediate constraints on the activity at
analytical artists its apparent invitation to assertion; it is very much an exploration.25 large'.29 It may be a strategy radically different
arbitrariness has been persistently neglected and If there is a single principal emphasis in to that of Reinhardt but it aims at a very
overlooked. Recently, John Stezaker, working Stezaker's work it is on the question of perfecting similar goal, that of clarification by exclusion,
under the terms of Theoretical Art, has chosen an answer to the art status to be accredited to and it was evolved in not dissimilar
to note the contradictions implicit in such a statements on art. Phrased in this way the issue circumstances of diverse talk about art.
statement and much of his own work within this sounds like some of the 'let's imagine' Reinhardt immediately comes to mind as an
art has been generated in an effort to replace the pioneering of Conceptualism, but Stezaker in analogous predecessor applying an unfamiliar
flawed logic of his predecessors' art whilst facing looking for an independent art domain (and he severity to 'art' but his method concealed a
the same range of questions which they gives the highest priority to this) has concluded mystery at the heart of painting; art was beyond
addressed, particularly that of the place of an that it is only in establishing an intact notion of overt order but it was within the range of
articulated theory within art. His work has art that this is likely to come about. Unlike the prescription. Control was implied, but then at
necessarily entailed a challenge to the open work of his predecessors his has strictly limited the same time so was innocence, and the two

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