Page 16 - Studio International - February 1973

Bickerbickerbicker contribution that artists and historians have to News and notes
The continuing and heated correspondence in make is that their activities are formidable
Studio International concerning 'British disciplines about which it is essential to think
Sculptors '72' indicates that the Royal Academy clearly. In a precise sense we must know what
succeeded in providing much food for thought we are doing, or we have no business teaching.
by mounting this ambitious exhibition at the We can only teach what is teachable.
beginning of 1972. For this we must surely feel Questions of shape, form, colour
glad, and one hopes that the Academy will again (`morphological') lead straight to taste - which is
make its uniquely spacious galleries available for unteachable. But we can teach methods of work,
similar projects in the not-too-distant future. systems for ordering information (leading to the
Unfortunately the correspondence demonstrates habit of clear thought and speech), and a sound
a second less attractive point : the petty- understanding of the techniques of scholarship. Hertford College, Oxford, is holding an
mindedness of much current art criticism. I The foundation of this must be laid very outdoor sculpture exhibition in May. Any
believe that the kind of attitude adopted by Mr early; students who take sciences and the sculptor interested in exhibiting should contact
Martin and the considerable amount of space he humanities have several years experience of Maxim Lesser, the Art Committee President, at
is given to express his rather uninteresting views, basic methods. Art education should begin very Hertford College, Oxford OXI 3BW.
serve only to aggravate the relations between young, along with our education in number and
artist and critic and (more seriously) between word : is there an equivalent conscientiousness Europe Prize of Ostend for Painting 1973:
artist and public. Mr Martin's attempts to in the teaching of art in schools ? this is a prize open to all European (residents or
out-do Mr Dalwood in the November issue The question of what's to be done about the nationals of EEC countries) painters aged 25-45.
scarcely exceed the level of schoolboy bickering polytechnics is secondary. If students arrived Applications should be addressed to the
and the decision to publish this latest 'reply' was with a sufficient grounding they would not Cultural Centre of Ostend, Feest-en
ill advised and distasteful. q stand for `laissez faire' - itself a cause and an Cultuurpaleis, Wapenplein, B-8400- Ostend,
SUSAN Y. LEGOUIX, London NW1 effect of a lack of nerve in the staff and system. Belgium. Entry forms will be sent to the
We could begin with a hard look at the 'basic applicant which must be returned, duly
No laissez-faire' design' course (perhaps as suggested by Peter completed, before 15 April 1973. All participants
We have been reading 'Aspects of Art Lloyd-Jones in Leonardo, Vol 2, No. 2. 'The are to send in three works before 29 April.
Education' with interest. failure of basic design'). Then we might begin to Admission fee too BF. First prize 200,00o BF.
The piece by Berry, Wright, and Wood compile a catalogue of methods whose results
(November 1972), despite its ugly and can be assessed in terms other than those of taste. Jack Hyams, 77 Slough Lane, London NW9,
obscurantist style, contains a good argument : BARBARA FREEMAN, DAVID BRETT a plastics specialist, is very willing to give free
that colleges of art are run on laissez-faire Guiseley, nr Leeds advice to artists about plastic materials and
principles; techniques. Mr Hyams writes : 'I have
that such principles are the result of a particular The menace of factory farming accumulated a substantial body of information
(`morphological') theory of art; Mr Yeoman, of the Council for Preservation of regarding the applications of materials, in
that such a theory is unable to provide a Rural England, in your September issue, particular, plastics, and also production
coherent educational language; deplores factory farming as presenting a very processes. Moreover, I am a collector of physical
that this leads to pedagogical gibberish and that serious threat to the landscape. It is a pity that and chemical and mathematical laws and effects.
no good art education can exist without a the CPRE takes such a narrow view. The I feel I could be of use to artists and others as a
coherent and communicable theory; if we want menace of factory farming applies to a very reference source and as an idea unstopper and
good education we must sort out our theory. much wider field. It has been shown to be: provoker.'
This ought not to be controversial: if it is, Detrimental to the health of livestock and a
that is because it requires us to carry out a source of fires and breakdown of automation Irma
hurtful self-examination, which may underline which result in the death of thousands of In conjunction with his exhibition at Hatton
the fat livings that some of us get from the creatures. Gallery, the University, Newcastle on Tyne,
educational gravy-train; those of us that don't Demoralizing to those who work in it and are 14-28 February, there is to be the world
get fat livings are trying to get them. required to treat sentient creatures as machines. premiere of Tom Phillips's opera Irma,
Next, we are struck by the insistence that art Attractive to business interests which are not produced for Ceolfrith Art Centre by David
education is to do with colleges rather than involved with the plant-animal-man Pinder. Tom Phillips wrote Irma in 1969 and
schools; this seems to us very inappropriate, for relationship intrinsic to good husbandry. made it one aspect of a work in progress : A
students arrive at colleges with very varying A source of smells, flies, rats, noise, dust, Humument, a treated version of A Human
standards of art education and frequently go out extra roads and traffic; and an effluent problem Document by the Victorian novelist,
to teach again in schools, taking with them the of national dimensions. W. H. Mallock. Irma consists of 93 fragments of
amalgam of basic design and free expression Productive of poor quality food, which may the novel, 24 of which suggest a libretto, 33 of
with which they started. well be dangerous, and of embarrassing which suggest sounds, the remaining 36 the
This bias toward the college is natural in a surpluses which are not related to world hunger. mise en scene.
trade journal, and of course college methods and A threat to the very existence of the real Any such performance relies on the creative
concepts have much influence on what takes farmer, who is gradually being squeezed out by intervention of the players at a composing level.
place in schools. But in respect of the educational big business. Apart from a small group of instrumentalists,
system as a whole, the most significant area in The visual blight of the buildings is certainly this performance will involve visual elements
art education at college level may be the ATD one aspect of this great agricultural blunder, but (action, slides, etc.) and a sound projection
course. In our limited experience of ATD and should not be singled out. The whole subject system by the artist, Janis Indrans.
B.Ed students we have found a powerful demand urgently needs re-assessment in the light of our Performances will take place at the Hatton
for coherent theory. total environment, material and moral - dare Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne, on 14 February,
The redefinition of fine-art studies is a one in these days add spiritual ? the Municipal Art Gallery, Sunderland, on I5
philosophical activity and ought to be conducted J. BOWER February, and at Durham University, 16
as such, in a well formed language. The Hon. Secretary, The Farm and Food Society February.

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