Page 17 - Studio International - July August 1973

t. Through London as it always might be became more theatrical: involved in shows and What is that clicking tongue ? 'Just because it's
A dry look at London throws up a profile of happenings and things-that-went-bang-in-the- different' ?
those situations: strange, heady, sacrificial, etc. night. Have the visual arts (always sickly in the My crony, Cedric Price (one of the most
Familiarity must not dull us to the fact that it is face of our much stronger literary tradition) innovatory thinkers in London), regards his
a city with a tremendous reputation for ideas. It once more been sacrificed to a more articulate frequent appearances in the Private Eye
is well infiltrated with refugees : from Hitler's verbal activity ? The sixties are, however, over. `Pseuds' Corner' with positive relish : 'Fingers to
Europe, the West Indies and the equally Can I communicate with them ? the lowest common denominator', he shouts.
cloying Eastern Universities of the United Certainly not by recreating Dover Street
States. It has a reputation for art in its pop (which as I remember was beginning to feel 3. Between shyness and assertion
music and gregariousness in its art music. Once pretty seedy by the late 1960's). My own Coming from a world of over-articulate
it had a reputation for political tolerance. But discipline (architecture) is essentially visual - architectural students, and that architect's old
most relevant: it has a penchant for curious, whatever current prejudices night lead you to mandate to work as 'a member of the team', I
durable institutions that are neither definably believe. My own reactions - as an outsider - face the attitude of many would-be exhibitors
Establishment nor Underground: that ride the have always been in terms of the physical, visual, with fascination. I had not realized that the old
waves of cultural history : much to the irritation iconographic, inventive - call it what you will - romance of the artist as alienated from society,
of a few pedants and the confusion of all (which, experience : at the ICA or elsewhere. Is the misunderstood, screwed, thwarted, had
to me, is no bad thing). `Environment Game' more meaningful than the survived so well. Yet my busy, pushy, perhaps
To the optimist (and the opportunist) this `New Art' or the 'Photorealists' ? My yardstick opportunistic side has to suppress itself: despite
adds up to a potentially mobile and is that of the world, that they communicate in my conviction that we have no time to waste.
cosmopolitan culture - if we want it to be. To imagery. Atmosphere emerges from a sense of Beneath the indulgence of the romantic role
this can be infused an element of our native place, then of theatre, then of messages. But in there is often a real shyness. Too little has been
tradition of eccentricity - which gives it bite. that order. Visual manifestations cut many done by the so-called educators in the art schools
If we had no ICA we should have to invent it. corners when it comes to communicating belief. (reluctant though I am to knock them just now)
We should need a place in the centre of London Visualization of dreams - though only a hint - where the problem of public communication is
(since our community is cosmopolitan) where come nearer than descriptive passages. To cut a concerned. So we use both personal grapevines
we can sniff out the currency of ideas on a wide long story short: I myself want to see so much and a formal committee so that we can search
front. Where we can jostle on the same day with more in the ICA that I am consciously clearing out the hopes and fears and enthusiasms of
spotty architects who want to make art, and as many decks as possible in order that marks artists - as well as discriminate between the good
introspective art students who have just written and manifestations can again be made. and the bad.
a manifesto on the open-endedness of art (but The ICA mustn't show work just because it is
want it placed exactly 3 feet 2 inches up from the 2. Innovation well-meaning or supporting a good cause. It has
floor - and not too near those posters, please): Somehow, we are going to persuade as many done so from time to time. Diffidence all-round
all slightly suspicious of each other. We should exhibitors as possible to make something new has sometimes been an opportunity for the third-
need to invent a place where we could exhibit for the ICA, to create or re-create their personal rate bandwaggoners. 'You ought to show it -
work that has no kind of pedigree - if we think position. Make statements that are not he's ever such a sweet man, and all the work
fit. Where the erratic is as tolerable as the predictable. Pose questions. However difficult it reflects the struggle of the Chinese - and he
consistent. Where an unformed idea can be may be for the English to tolerate and handle the makes such socially relevant statements.'
observed in the process of catalysis : without existence of an avant-garde, this they must do - It is time for excellence. To hell with the
being prematurely forced into a particular else they are throwing away this potential 1, have labels. Photojournalists are more effective.
discipline or tradition. Where we can stage an already described. It would be better to show powerful work that
exhibition with less than two years' planning. There are two strong arguments in favour of is reactionary - even if a secondary motive
Organized in such a way that you are very likely innovation: the creative and the academic. would be the expected reaction to the reaction.
to catch sight of something out of the corner of Though they seem obvious, it would seem that
your eye that is more exciting than the thing they cannot too often be restated. 4. Through architecture being art - or art
that you came to see. Realistically : a radical In terms of one's own creative development, being architecture.
alternative to the Sunday Times or the pub for the incentive of originality forces one to tug and In the last ten years there has been a complete
that purgatorial first twenty years out of college. pull and extemporize upon one's previous cycle: both synthetic and expressionistic. In
Even this is not enough. interpretations of an idea - this is at the lowest architecture, of course, it takes longer for it to
The ICA must be a place where you are upset, level. Beyond this, it forces one to reconsider get built, but in experimental and academic
you are incensed by the opposition, and your total concepts and motivations. It may force one circles the full cycle has been lived out. The
whole value-system, your art, your linguistic beyond a disciplinary or contextual boundary. early sixties were a formalist joy-ride that just
props are being flayed and raked-over. So one cannot always come up with something had to fragment into concepts of the non-
Where you can be inspired. new. But one can sometimes come up with building, the anti-building and the peripatetic
I am bored and annoyed by the silly, scared something strange: the implications of which caravans, homes-in-domes and cushicles. In
London scene: where nobody admits to liking you cannot grasp at first. And the existence of a 1965 my most cussed student was describing his
anything : to finding stimulus : to finding platform is a necessary extension of the test- design for an apartment block as 'a specification
something great: to being inspired. bed/drawing board/circle of friends/ for the terms of reference by which certain
Yet we all know characters who are scratching mathematical equation/studio floor. conditions for the drawing up of a list of
away somewhere past the Balls Pond Road, only The academic advantages of conspicuous (non-designed) alternative elements could be
telling their closest friends, only admitting to innovation are to the observer - who sees the made' : conceptual architecture, in fact. This
their inspiration when drunk. It is the ICA's job best of the game. It is he who can take up where was later to develop into a series of conversations
to force them out of the woodwork. you left off - exhausted and perplexed. He can concerning the stripping away of preferential
In the London as might be as can be, I am see your efforts in a context, maybe. Reject (and vestigious) aesthetic habits from the
aware that I have to regain the trust of many them. Or, more likely, graft them on to his business of designing.
artists who have felt that the ICA is no longer eclectic growth. London at this moment is a The parallel effort in the 'visual' arts is the
for them since it has moved to the Mall from somewhat shy academy of ideas. So the ICA has better known story: and since there did not
Dover Street : and have felt neglected as it another task. have to be the 'functional' or pragmatic filter