Page 59 - Studio International - May 1973

Art information

Feedback agencies, never being quite sure when or if a Bauhaus-Archiv, West Berlin; Documentation
connection will be made. Is the answer not a Centre for Modern Swedish Art, Lund; and
(Items for review in the 'Feedback', 'Graphics' British National Bibliographic Commission for Archives of American Art, Washington. It is not
and 'Vision' columns should be sent to Clive Modern Art Documentation, at the very least ? appropriate to duplicate here the information
Phillpot, Bud Shark and Malcolm Le Grice That the establishment of a National given in ARIS, however a sampling of their
respectively, all c/o Studio International, Documentation Centre for Modern Art (or, publications will present extra information.
14 West Central Street, London WCI.) less usefully, for Modern British Art) is not just
a fanciful idea is emphasized by current activities CNAC has been issuing the new series of
In June 1969 Her Majesty's Stationery Office in other countries; in the United Kingdom a cnacarchives since 1972, each number of which
published the Report of the National Libraries centre could be based upon one of the existing serves also to complement an exhibition. The
Committee (Cmnd. 4028). This committee's institutions that partially fulfils the role. first six documented the work of Bellmer,
terms of reference were to examine the functions Spoerri, Segal & Takis among others, with
and organization of certain institutions in One stimulus for the reflections above was the photos and texts, biographical notes, detailed
providing national library facilities, and to 1971 issue of ARIS (Art Research in exhibition chronologies and bibliographies,
consider whether in the interests of efficiency Scandinavia), an attractively designed plus other information as appropriate. They are
and economy such facilities should be brought publication, now annual, which costs 20 sw. useful rather than outstanding publications,
into a unified framework. This aim was also in crowns and is available from the Institute of and do not really reflect the important work
line with long standing Unesco Art History, University of Lund, Box 1135, being carried out by the documentation centre
recommendations for the establishment of S-221 04 Lund, Sweden. The 1971 issue, which (18F each, or 95F for 6 numbers).
National Bibliographic Commissions to ensure appeared in 1972, contains three articles, each
bibliographical coordination within countries. in English. The first is by Sven Sandstrom, the The Bauhaus-Archiv has, understandably, a
The recommendations of the Committee led editor; its title would better indicate more clearly defined publishing programme.
eventually to the publication of a White Paper the content of the article if it read There are three categories of material currently
in January 1971 (Cmnd. 4572) which proposed `Documentation of art must free itself from available: published lectures, exhibition
that five institutions — the British Museum nineteenth-century thinking'. To quote Mr catalogues and a few commemorative
Library, the National Central Library, the Sandstrom : 'When we put questions which are publications. Apart from a single co-publication
National Lending Library for Science and normal to our situation in relation to art of this none of the booklets costs more than DM6.50
Technology, the National Reference Library century, the traditional documentation systems which is very good value; as one would expect
of Science and Invention, and the British no longer help us'. He also states that 'there are the design of the publications is immaculate.
National Bibliography — should join to form the few centres which have been systematically Licht-Visionen, ein Experiment von Moholy-
British Library. (In passing it is worth collecting documentation material on modern Nagy by Hannah Weitemeier was published in
mentioning that the 'British Library of Art at art . . . . Behind every major study with fresh 1972 at DM6.50, is 78 pages long and contains
the Victoria and Albert Museum' was not information there is normally a research work many drawings, diagrams and archival photos.
included in the proposals for the new unified which has been as costly and exhaustive as an
framework, any consideration of such archaeological expedition'. Contemporary art The work of the Documentation Centre for
incorporation has been deferred indefinitely.) sources 'are overflowingly rich not least in Modern Swedish Art is discussed in the third
temporary publications, pamphlets and article in ARIS 1971, but specifically in
My purpose in outlining the origins of the mimeographed sheets, which are not yet connection with its system of indexing 'press
British Library is to draw a possible parallel systematically collected by any major institute, material', and the transfer of this data on to
between the unsatisfactory overall national and which also vanish rapidly'. He finally makes punched cards to allow for retrieval by
situation which led to its conception, and an appeal: 'It should be brought to the notice computer. A press cutting, for example, 'is
the present position in the comparative of young art historians and theorists of human classified under all those viewpoints actualized
microcosm of library facilities for modern art in sciences that the possibilities of achieving, in the by its content'. The entire 'systematics' — the
this country. We have no National future, a complex, thorough and trustworthy thesaurus — is printed after the article, and is
Documentation Centre for Modern Art; the description and analysis of the art phenomena `presented in a sequence which is related to a
likely functions of such a centre are distributed of our time are entirely dependent upon the normal classification of matter in a hierarchical
between several independent institutions whose extent to which we can construct a system for organization'.
functions often overlap and as frequently fail to documentation which is comparable with, or
fit together. They include : components of the even superior to, what was . . . built up by the The Archives of American Art, now
British Library, the Victoria and Albert scientific libraries, archives and museums affiliated with the Smithsonian Institution,
Museum Library, the Tate Gallery Library and during the nineteenth century.' publishes the quarterly Archives of American Art
Archive, AIR — the Art Information Registry — The second article in ARIS 1971 is a 'Report Journal. Volume 12 number 2 of 1972 is
and ARLIS — the Art Libraries Society; as from on the actual state concerning the concerned with 'Oral history and the arts'
this year, we will also have an annual documentation of modern art', which was the and after a brief introduction presents the
bibliography, Art Design Photo, from consequence of a resolution of the congress of transcripts of two taped interviews from the
the compiler of LOMA — Literature on Modern the International Association of Art Critics held Archive which have been edited to provide a
Art — Alexander Davis. Possibly some of the in Toronto in 1970. The Report was compiled reasonably clear flow of language, the artists
activities of the Arts Council, the Institute of from answers to a questionnaire which was interviewed are Jack Youngerman and
Contemporary Arts and the Courtauld returned from institutions in 46 countries. Fairfield Porter. Also in this issue is a detailed
Institute of Art Library are also relevant in this Preliminary results from 152 listed institutions list of acquisitions of documents relating to
context. Anyone concerned with the are tabulated, and there are descriptions of the artists and art institutions; some of the
documentation of, or research into, modern art, origins and work of 55 institutions, of these the photographs included in these acquisitions are
will have experienced the frustration of having work of four stands out. They are CNAC: reproduced. q
to play Russian roulette with the above Centre National d'Art Contemporain, Paris; CLIVE PHILLPOT
241