Page 46 - Studio International - November 1973

PROSPECT not pervade beyond the community of 1971, after five years, an alternative
art-dealers and magazine owners.
fair was set up (by Kümmel) in
The result in this year's 'Prospect' is Düsseldorf to eliminate what was
Ruhrberg, former director of the good painting from the 'masters' of termed the 'elitism' of the Cologne
Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, in his the American-dominated sixties and a Kunstmarkt. The Düsseldorf fair
inaugural speech at the Düsseldorf smattering of imitative work from offers its floor space to anyone with
'Prospect' exhibition 1973, said that younger artists—the 'new names'. 90 DM to pay per square metre. The
the selection and organization of the Cologne fair thus contains 100 stalls
exhibition was based on the simple This is only half the truth. People are and is housed in the contemplative
premise that 'man paints'. He went on genuinely bored of Gilbert and ambience of the Kunsthalle, while at
to consistently avoid the logical George, and of artists walking around Düsseldorf there are 300 stalls in the
sequitur 'man ought to paint'. He with cameras in the outback, and of busy Messe Stadion, and it is thought
expressed, and the exhibition reflects tired Dada gesturing by post-minimal likely to overtake its competitor in
this, an indifference to evaluative artists. Video-tapes of self-inflicted turnover this year, having doubled its
criteria concerning what is good wounds or of artists masturbating number of stalls and having sold
painting, though he seemed beneath gallery floor boards lost their 14,000,000 DM's worth of paintings
convinced that what constitutes curiosity value long ago. The public in a single week last year.
good painting at one time is different is tired of the game of 'spot the art
at any other time. Good painting one work' which is played by amused In the past few years the Rhine-Ruhr
year is not necessarily so the next. The Sigmar Polke directors of apparently empty district of Germany has offered a week
organizers seem to have a different The Most Wanted Pictures 1973 galleries. Conceptual art has its of international exhibitions of
opinion. The good painters at this absurdities certainly, but if there is no enormous proportions. Unfortunately
year's 'Prospect' were the good material revision. Dealers hope to worthwhile art being produced, why in the process the art itself has
painters of the early and mid-sixties— preclude further forays beyond the organize exhibitions willy-nilly? somehow become superfluous.
Lichtenstein, Kelly, Olitski, Poons, parameter of conceptual art and its Institutions operate on the assumption Rosetta Brooks
Mangold and Ryman, and if goodness off-shoots. that art is forever forthcoming and the
is to be equated with innovation, as museums of modern art operate on
the apologetic nature of Ruhrberg's In 'Things and Theories' by James the premise that novel art is forever
address would seem to suggest, the Collins, published recently in forthcoming. If not the museums will NEW AT
majority of the remainder must be Artforum, the author asserts that create a 'new art' themselves. Dealers
considered to be bad. It seems wrong painting is preferable to 'theoretical comfort themselves with the figures
for Ruhrberg to refer (as he did) to a conceptual' art (he associates with of last year's sales. The Minister of THE TATE
new wave of painting, when what he this art Joseph Kosuth, Victor Burgin, Justice in his opening address to the
is referring to is clearly indistinct from John Stezaker, Art-Language and Düsseldorf Kunstmarkt cited a The Tate's recent modern acquisitions
previous painting — what is exhibited Keith Arnatt), mainly on the basis of 400,000,000 DM turnover in the — those on view at the time of writing
merely reflects a renewed interest in the 'difficulty' of the latter. He Rhine-Ruhr district last year. With —range in quality through good
minimal painting. satirizes the mounted photostat and figures like this who is going to worry (Judd, Stella) ; middling (Bell,
written format of the work and states about whether art serves a societal Lewitt, Noland) ; and mediocre (the
Ruhrberg is at pains to explain the his preference for paintings on walls. function or not ? After all there is British purchases).
absence of conceptual art in Prospect He reflects many people's doubts evidence of some sort of use, even if
'73 ; apparently it is a heightened concerning recent developments in it is only of art-works as economic Don Judd is represented by a copper
sense of the avant garde which has art, though he mistakenly assumes that units which retain their value in the wall-piece from 1972 —a deep
excluded such work, possibly on the the written tracts are to be face of inflation. horizontal beam, 14½ x 76½ inches,
grounds that it was last year's apprehended in the same way as canted 25½ inches from the wall.
movement. The return to painting is painting—something reinforced by The link between art and economics There are three shallow indentations
not a surprising move for dealers' the gallery format of presentation. is less manifest in Britain than in many on its obverse side— which is convex —
exhibitions like 'Prospect' and Written tracts function in a different other countries. This is perhaps why and these recessions create four semi-
'Kunstmarkt' though the way. Some of the cited artists do it is predominantly British art which cylindrical protrusions which widen
'justification'— a pretence of expect their works to be considered as has severed all links with conventional progressively to the right ; the
radicalism associated with this such, though the more extreme aesthetic forms. The Kunstmarkt in indentations or intervals extend to
interest in minimal painting — is advocates of this development are Cologne was started as an annual the left. The plain power of the
tiresome. Talk of new-wave post- aiming at something beyond normal trade fair to celebrate the proximity sculpture was diminished in part by
conceptual painting is a blatant aesthetic expectancy. What is of art and money. As at all trade fairs its location —the piece was roped off
absurdity faced with the examples of intended is a new categorial the turnover is massive and for this in a corner alongside Bell's cubes—
this development. Conceptual art has framework or a new paradigm for art. reason the selectivity of the Cologne and this permitted a clear view only
been bothersome economically and Initially the new framework is bound Kunstmarkt has been the butt of from the left side. A future installation
when New Realism failed to convince to be articulated purely theoretically, criticism and demonstrations, rarely has to be less indifferently
as its replacement, more conservative but eventually something more from artists, but more often from considered. Larry Bell's three
dealers fostered new 'talent' in the universally accessible will be dealers like Kümmel, excluded from diminutive glass boxes date
field of minimal painting — hitherto forthcoming (from my own the annual event. Consequently in variously from the 60s. The glass
subordinated to minimal sculpture knowledge of what is going on in surfaces are coated and etched —
because the minimalist 'object of art' as London now this is definitely so). registering subtle shifts of hue and
a thing for consideration in itself tends Faced with the prospect of mounting configuration : one cube is surfaced
to erode any independent concept of textual passages of dense theory on with irregular ellipses in mauve, blue,
painting. This is a straightforward walls dealers are bound to shy away, and gold, another displays a black
reaction to and against conceptual for economic reasons. Those with and white checkboard pattern. The
art, which finally dissolved the economic commitments cannot go perceptual effect is somewhat
independent forms of painting and into theoretical hibernation as easily packaged, literally boxed, and
sculpture. The reintroduction of as artists, so the search for a new adversely becomes something of a
'sculpture' as an important idea in art movement is on and the result is a well demonstration. Bell's later work is
would be futile in the face of post- consolidated group of latter-day much better. There are five Sol
minimalist revisions of sculpture as minimalists and post-painterly LeWitt screen-prints : each work
the 'object of art' and would simply abstract painters, many from Paris and portraying the artist's familiar scheme
invite a repetition of the whole a scattering from other countries, of cross-hatched sub-divisions.
process of disintegration. The including England, Italy, America This purchase, like many of the Tate's
introduction of 'painting' as an (though Americans seem more acquisitions, appears to be no more
important concept in art is another cautious—there are no new names, than a token gesture. LeWitt should
matter. This concept has sufficient merely a renewed interest in old have a more credible representation.
formal constraint to make the 'step ones). Everyone wants to ignore Apparently the Tate has commissioned
back' genuine, or at least apparently conceptual art and hope it will go Norbert Tadeusz a wall-drawing. Frank Stella's 1960
so. It precludes any radical formal or away. Fortunately this attitude does Sakralraum 1973 Six Mile Bottom is an important
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