Page 30 - Studio International - March 1973

artistic creation. I would go so far as to say that power, which is surely found in the art world of all
the upheaval of May 1968 had played a part in Western countries). Letter from Paris
this direction . . . . All official art is henceforth In short, each contributor appears with his
condemned to mediocrity streamlined packaging, his cosy little shell,
Remarks like these show that to knowingly even his ideological endeavour, and is then seen
agree to being represented in an exhibition about as signing up his future (his present) in the flux I had an appointment to meet Caderé in a café
France today, financed wholly or in part by the of the dominant ideology. and I had been told that I would know him
French Government, is not only to use tainted This taste for labelling cannot be separated because he would have his work with him. 'He
money but also to accept the surety of its from anxiety to reach the top. And all power, the will have a stick.' In fact it was a column made
foremost representative, and in doing so, to seizing, exercising and above all maintaining of up of round sections as long as they were wide,
agree to stand surety for him. Why not ? It is it, requires order. This is the basic requirement each section coloured one of three colours and
what one might call a natural alliance . . . . This of the representatives of culture generally permutated so that the total length was
is why the 'French Month' being organized by invited to take part in an information determined by the width of the section and the
the ICA in London comes at such a good time. programme, especially with a national basis. system of permutation. The one that he had with
It fits in well with the French government's This need for order evidently coincides with
policy of cultural expansion, although this is not and satisfies an identical concern on the part of
the most important aspect. Under the the organizers. In this context the ICA
circumstances is any sort of manifestation of programme is typical. In the interests of order,
this nature really necessary ? It is routine. The the number of contributors has been cut to a
concern to impart information is highly strict minimum. Might it not be that the ideal,
ambiguous; it stems from the principle that the the most orderly exhibition would in the end be
public is insufficiently informed, but it means the exhibition without exhibitors ? Here already
equally that that same public shall be informed the representatives of order are to the fore.
in any way the informer thinks fit. The concern The cultural concern of an organization
to impart information is not an objective predetermines every choice that is to be made.
criterion, it would be more honest to say that Wherever the system or organization chooses as
the desire to impart information is first and a criterion the propagation of culture (in other
foremost the concern to make a personal words, cultural propaganda), we find the same
showing. order.
This French event is no doubt part They never stray from the beaten path. him was about three feet long. It rested
(coincidentally or not) of a campaign to open up They make choices on the basis of a network of conveniently on the café table and didn't knock
Britain to the European barbarian, as required references established through the continuity of glasses over when we got up to go. The one he
by entry into the Common Market. Ironically, it recognized civilization, so that individuals and took during the evening on his way to a couple of
serves to demonstrate still further how work which do not tie in with what they openings was a more substantial affair and would
grotesque the very principle of a national already know, or think they know, are just go into a taxi. For visiting museums or in
exhibition is. eliminated. They would only create disorder. situations where official objections might cramp
Let us return to the principle of the This is why, in their eagerness for culture, they his style, he had smaller pieces, easily palmed.
organization in general of what we have already never present more than the remoter areas of Caderé's enterprise rests on two points : the
referred to as a routine exhibition. The present culture and not even the approximation of the works themselves, and his own personal display
ICA programme is one example, but there are idea. of them, a display that includes any space where
countless others. The mission of the cultural powers that be is people might be, whether the Musée d'Art
The range of products presented in this type to bring together people whose common Moderne or the Metro, a prestigious vernissage
of ordinary event is always called a interest is a desire to be admitted to the ranks. or a local pastry shop. Like a creature that
comprehensive survey of the work and thought The dominant ideological system would survives by some extra capacity for adaptation,
of a country and/or epoch, and the organizers sometimes appear to be recognizable only by the he has found a way of slipping through the mesh
make a big point of the precision and coherence impressive strength of its inertia; it is this force of any institution. His own dealer, his own
which the imparter of information must display. that enables it to engulf anything attempting to spokesman, his gallery is wherever he happens
Naturally, it will be said that the exhibition is escape it. However, in actual fact the various to be. He couldn't understand why more artists
only partially representative, but this is actors in the intellectual world by their very in Paris didn't drop their interminable wrangles
inevitable, etc. . . . acts show themselves to be continuously about the politics of galleries and salons and
It is not so much the concern for classification `renewing' (perpetuating) a system they go government, and do as he did.
in cultural information programmes that is so through the motions of fighting against. Out of I was interested in him not because his work
striking, as the fact that the programme only simple inertia, colossal though it may be, they had any great weight but because his stance
includes already classified products and make a show of action. They want to preserve seems to epitomize in a particularly elegant and
producers. It is not that everything is already the system which is their only means of high-spirited way what seems to me to be the
well known; the reputation or lack of it of the survival; they really are the driving force behind area of maximum attention in Paris at the
people or ideas is immaterial. it. What one does not know is whether or not moment. Just as one of the prime aims of French
In contrast, the routine described earlier is to they are aware of what they are doing. intellectuals in the last few years has been the
be found in the very detail and composition of To return more specifically to the French definition of literature within the context of
the programme; it never holds any surprises. programme at the ICA, the question remains : language as a whole, so artists are putting an
Either people and their works are featured who how can one take part in an event of this sort ? equivalent effort into the consideration of the
have already been catalogued or we get people When all is said and done, it is probably a different frameworks within which the social
and their works who have arranged and pernicious question since the answer is supplied definition of art takes place. In this effort the
classified themselves, made their own history, by the event in progress. Or rather, pernicious practical and theoretical work of Daniel Buren
mapped out their own future (anxious to have a because the odds are that the current show is a has been of seminal importance. I'm not just
distinctive image which should be tied up with clear indication that no-one has asked himself. q thinking of his political commitment : 'If it is
what has been said on the subject of quest for MICHEL CLAURA true, and we believe it to be so, that every act is a

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