Page 42 - Studio International - March 1973

this view is to be found in a book by Daniel mention the metaphor that has often and
Lerner, quoted by Denny, where the word misleadingly been used. On the other hand a
`participation' is applied to it: 'A truly picture can be (however simple its
participant society is one where people go to configuration) the complete manifestation of the
school, read newspapers, have jobs, vote in state of being of the artist at the time of
elections and are expected to have opinions on creation.
public matters. The participant style of life Denny's paintings present many
involves simultaneous engagement in all these distinguishable elements which are reflective
fields. For a truly participant society there must (in the sense suggested above), but they are also
be money-handling, literate, opinion-forming, inseparable. Some are more in the control of the
media-consuming, urban people.' artist than others. The first is the physical
Denny and his friends associated this relationship that Denny creates between the
concept with the theory of games which picture and the viewer, a relationship which is
proposed models of participants reacting essential to the experience of all art but which
mutually in patterns of responses meaningful in had become etiolated when perspective had
specific situations (strategies and rules). This declined to the status of a mere convention and,
theory was formulated at a level of generality above all, as a result of the evolution of pictures
that seemed to make it available to painters. into freely negotiable commodities. However,
Associated in another way were the notions of Denny found, on one side, in Byzantine or
professionalism and responsibility. Denny and mediaeval art, an example of painting in which a
his friends held an elevated, perhaps exaggerated, specific physical relationship to the worshipper
view of the degree to which they (and other made a liturgical statement and, on the other, a
people concerned in the sub-culture of art) modern world in which images are massed
could and should understand and control their around the viewer, each one implying an
medium. It was this that led Denny to break entirely separate relationship, independent of
with the Gimpel Fils Gallery in 1959, to write the distance, angle of view, etc., and requiring a
about art and involve himself in the organization more or less separate response. Robert
of exhibitions. However optimistic the group Kudielka, in his catalogue introduction to the
may have been, this concern demonstrates their Tate Gallery retrospective, presents a very
clear awareness that the presentation, public detailed analysis of Denny's ideas of space and
criticism, mode of sale etc., of art is an essential place which are based on an awareness of this
part of it. Out of this belief, in turn, arises the kind of polarity, but only a much abridged
notion of responsibility : knowing what one is account is given here as an example of the way in
doing, why one is doing it, to whom and with which, as I understand it, Denny's painting
whom, and what its results will be. The works.
responsibility of the artist must have its The exhibition 'Place' (1958), although a
counterparts in the responsibilities of the collaborative effort in which Richard Smith,
dealer, gallery official, critic, and collector. It is Ralph Rumney and Roger Coleman also took
not hard to find the descendant of this part, epitomizes the position from which
preoccupation (manifested in the 1958 and 196o Robyn Denny started and acts to some extent as
exhibitions 'Place' and 'Situation') in the efforts a point of reference for all his succeeding work.
of younger artists, like Richard Long, to control The exhibition was not simply a group show of
their own medium. pictures but also a combined work including
It does not seem necessary for me to attempt three painters and the writer of the catalogue
to redefine, for example, 'participation' and (Coleman). This collaboration was both an
`information' in current terms, but it is clear actual element of the enterprise and a symbol of
that the elements of skill and understanding are a public art. The catalogue was a necessary
no longer the central ones. An optimism in the element in the show, both as a means of
possibility of understanding and controlling communicating the ideas which underlay the
effectively has to some extent been replaced by exhibition — the appropriate mental (cultural)
an optimism in radical action. I do believe, set — and also, since one of these was games
however, that the notion of participation theory as a model of social transactions, to set
partially defined above, in spite of its references out the rules. Two sets of rules were involved:
to money and consuming, implies a respect for one, that certain colours, certain dimensions,
the members of society (in many contexts, certain orientations should be used, was an
particularly the working-class members) that analog of the 'rules' which govern the studio
many more fashionable, radical manifestations situation, the painter in front of his canvas; the
have lacked and that there is every reason for a other, less explicit, dealt with the relationship of
revival of such a consideration, although the viewer to the paintings. This was partly
naturally modified by our subsequent physical — the viewer had to explore the
experience. exhibition like a maze; partly instructed — by
For Denny (as for most artists) a picture arrows which gave the orientation of the viewer
should not fully reveal itself all at once. Its necessary to find the pictures by any one
effect or meaning will naturally depend on what painter; and partly mental — the viewer's
the viewer brings to it, the 'questions' he asks it, awareness of what the artists were trying to do.
his emotional state at the time and so on. It is The arrows were a simple analog of the way a
therefore more like a mirror than a door, to viewer chooses and confronts art. Within both
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