Page 21 - Studio International - November 1973

Pioneers of Modern Sculpture equivocation too far. A comprehensive exhibition of earlier modern
The exhibition 'Pioneers of Modern Sculpture' Unfortunately equivocation was the hallmark sculpture was very much needed. It is very
at the Hayward Gallery, London, was such a of the exhibition in other respects as well. With unfortunate that 'Pioneers of Modern
strange beast that students of sculpture (or of sculpture of this period there is still a need for Sculpture' was not the exhibition that was
exhibitions) may well have been puzzled by its old-fashioned connoisseurship. Multiple wanted.
taxonomy. To begin with the title. Would it editions and posthumous casts abound, DOUGLAS HALL
have been possible for a major gallery today to including bronzes taken from works that were Edinburgh
have called an exhibition Pioneers of Modern never intended for the medium, But apart from
Painting ? Titles like this belong to an earlier, occasionally noting a very recent cast, the Towards nihilism
possibly more heroic and certainly more catalogue is almost completely silent on these There are some inconsistencies in Suzi Gablik's
evolutionary, phase of art-history as applied to points. This carelessness extended into the article 'On the logic of Artistic Discovery'
the 20th century. The conception of modern art actual choice of casts, for example 'Csaky, and, (September issue, p. 65), which seem to be
as a series of steps forward, or at least outward, more importantly, Rosso. The Rosso section inherent in much contemporary aesthetic and
has probably outlived its general usefulness, and of the exhibition, however interesting it may critical enquiry. It is Miss Gablik's thesis that
because sculpture studies are backward seems have been, was displayed with total disregard Gombrich's historical application of Popper's
inadequate reason for retaining it. All the same, not only of connoisseurship, but of Rosso's `logic of scientific discovery' to the explanation
there are many questions of the 'who did what expressed ideas on display. of art is inadequate when taken beyond the
first ?' variety that have not been settled in Few if any sculptors can have had such strict confines of representationalism: Without
respect of sculpture,. and if the exhibition had definite ideas about display as Rosso, but none for the moment engaging in direct confrontation
set out to settle some of them, there could have deserve the sort of display they got in this of our doubtlessly different concepts of
been no complaint about an evolutionary exhibition. The amorphous spaces of the adequacy in art-theory, I should say that I, too,
approach. Unfortunately, the exhibition was so Hayward were cut up by crude screens, while a in a different sense, would regard the Popperian
designed as to make detailed comparison narrow range of standardized pedestals were scheme for scientific theory irrelevant to art-
between the work of different sculptors at the grouped drearily about them, enhanced by theory and the tendency represented by
same period impossible. This would not have inappropriate shades of a earn and Cambridge Gombrich highly inadequate. However, in
mattered so much if there had been instead a blue. Often a pedestal was placed at the end of a terms strictly of explanation"I would have
sense of period, uniting works that seem screen in a fashion worthy of a provincial thought that it is precisely at the outset of a
superficially very dissimilar. But except possibly museum of twenty years ago. Besides the Rosso predominant formalist aesthetic where the
in the dubious and perfunctory 'period setting' example, there were many other examples of Popperian positivism gains a great deal of
of the so-called Salon sculpture, there was no thoughtless, inappropriate placing. To list a few, import in determining the conduct of both art-
attempt to convey this sense or flavour. the large Gabo was disruptively out of scale, the theory and art-practice. Moreover I would
Not that the exhibition was presented as an Boccioni Development of a Bottle in Space was maintain that the vanguardism of this century's
undifferentiated mass. A misguided decision to impossible to walk round, the Brancusi Sleeping art can be accounted for only in terms of a
classify reliefs separately resulted in their Muse was placed in an inferior position, many framework for art-practice which derives from
relegation to a little appendix to the exhibition, pieces were overcrowded on shared bases Popper's (and others') concepts of objectivity.
so that after looking at the highly coloured (particularly grotesque were the two large To illustrate I would like to take up a quote
Medrano II and other works by Archipenko the Gaudier busts, placed back to back on a base made by Miss Gablik from Richard Wollheim's
visitor was suddenly confronted by a large scarcely big enough for one). The lighting of essay 'Minimal Art' by quoting a section of the
marble slab by the academician Bartholemé, this abysmal display was everywhere essay which preceded the part quoted in 'On
with other strange juxtapositions. The decision unsatisfactory. Bronzes in particular, both The Logic Of Artistic Discovery' :
to include a large section of sculpture reflective and light-absorbing, became almost . the production of an art-object consists,
classified as Salon was much more important unintelligible. The catalogue follows the type first of all, in a phase that might be called,
but in my opinion equally wrong. Whatever laid down years ago by the Museum of Modern perhaps oversimply, 'work' tout court: that is to
intention lay behind it was nOt wholeheartedly Art in New York, by being not so much a say, putting the paint on the canvas, the
carried out. Was the intention the old fashioned catalogue but a book published on the occasion hacking of stone, the welding of metal
one of showing up the pioneering activities of of an exhibition. The text of the book is a 900 materials . . . But in the second phase of
the pioneers by the shock of contrast with all page essay by Professor Albert Elsen. artistic productivity consists in decision that the
they had to react against ? Or was it a gesture to Professor Elsen's name assures that it is a solid work has gone far enough'.
the revival of interest in nineteenth-century contribution to the subject, but in order not to . . .Now in Duchamp's "ready-mades", or
conventional and decorative art ? It would be be historicist, he divides the subject into many in any form of art which is directly dependent
nice to think it was neither, but a demonstration small facets, which are not treated by historical upon pre-existent material for ifs composition,
of faith in art as art without the benefit of or stylistic evolution. The result is discursive it is this second phase in the total process of
categorization; brit the heterogeneous selection and slightly at odds with what seems to be the production that is picked out and celebrated in
of works, the specially contrived setting, and general evolutionary didactic purpose of the isolation.'
finally Professor Elsen's catalogue essay itself, exhibition. This type of catalogue, with all the This seems an adequate description of the
were all equivocal on the subject. The material assembled in a text and none under the experimental method in post-Duchampian art.
organizers could not really be surprised that individual works, is usually justified as having a Decision-making is a posteriori, involving the
the visitors were eagerly poring over the wider use after the exhibition. This seems to me judgement of whether or not 'the work has gone
ingenious chryselephantine or maiolica fancies a doubtful proposition, especially when every far enough'. It, without reservations, is the
of the Salon section, whatever the motive work in an exhibition can be reproduced, as is manner of post-Duchainpian judgement in
behind their exhibition. After all, these objects often the case. The present catalogue reproduces art-practice, and post-Duchampian
can rarely be seen in any museum. But a many works not in the exhibition, as well as reductionism has consistently understressed the
classification that split the work of Rodin, many supporting photographs that were also deliberate aspects of the first category of work
included immature works of Archipenko, shown enlarged in the exhibition. These were a stressing the pre-existing materiality of the
Brancusi, and Duchamp-Villon, and mature useful pail of it, and often provided a visual elected object, and of its natural determination.
works by Meunier and Mestrovic but not commentary on certain exhibits, that one had However, the post-Duchampian a posteriori
by Maillol or Minne, was carrying to search a long time for in the catalogue. judgement certainly seems to be theoretically
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