Page 42 - Studio International - October1973

Louis Cane editorial board of the review Peinture. During
Peinture 1972 1972, the first two resigned in political
300 x 244 cm. (wall)
274 x 192 cm. (floor) disagreement. It was about this time that we
Coll: M. et Mine Sicard, separated from the revisionist French
Paris. `communist' party and began to support and
Photo: André Morain
apply the thought of Mao-Tse Tung in our
political and ideological struggle in the field of
painting. Therefore, the group is
composed of four members : Arnal, Pincemin,
Devade and Cane; while the review Peintures,
Cahiers Théoriques is edited by Devade and
Cane. In our particular struggle, on the level of
the ideology of pictorial practice, all our current
efforts are concentrated on the development of
the review, the current strategy of which is
illustrated by the phrase: 'Support the left in
order to rally the centre and isolate the right'.
We lean heavily on the results produced by the
review Tel Quel (of which Marc Devade is one
of the editors) because it is the only really new
work being produced in France today. The
work of Marcelin Pleynet, poet and secretary
of Tel Quel, appeared there, including several
essays, among which was `L'Enseignment de la
peinture'. It was the first to emphasize painting
as a social practice integrated within the system
of capitalist production (as saleable
merchandise), as a dialectical practice
producing the effects of a historically-based
rational knowledge, and as a practice of a
biographical subject having a subconscious and
instincts that manifest themselves in his
painting; a subconscious and instincts that the
The strong ideological shocks of May 68 that added that within the group exists a struggle painter must work up in order to avoid archaic
touched all aspects of society and the between two types of pictorial practice. The infantilism, narcissism, fetishism, and repression.
transformations and novel effects brought into first, with all its imitators, we call the In the face of this 'novelty', product of a
the pictorial field by the Supports/Surfaces `materialism of materials' (a mechanistic difficult situation, the survivors of all the
group, have aged and thrown the sad, repetitive materialism: taking the material means of avant gardisms form an obstructive block,
and neurotic manifestations of certain already painting: canvas, stretcher, wood, cord, etc.. . hanging their mottled pseudo-critical hats on
mentioned avant gardisms into the academic as the complex substance of painting: plan, our rack, when they don't purely and simply
waste bin. The Supports/Surfaces group is colour, form, depth, etc. . . and working with provoke the censors. It's obvious that when one
concerned, therefore, with a return to history in them by means of the materials, a dialectic cannot or doesn't know how to renew oneself,
general and the specific history of painting in producing pictorial effects that are the effects of the best way of surviving is to criticize the new.
particular. This historical return is knowledge). The second, dialectically But it appears that the more and more
inconceivable without a historical analysis materialist, founded a review in order to defend inexorably the new imposes itself, whether its
having as its base historical materialism and and make known its point of view, in the face of source be recognized or no in the midst of the
dialectical materialism; and Marxism as the the deformations utilized by our adversaries, general ideological decay that characterizes the
science of class struggle and a theory of and to advance and develop its theory. bourgeoisie in France and elsewhere, that which
knowledge allows us in this respect to think of From the first exhibition of the is new originated and was developed in the
formal transformations in relation to social Supports/Surfaces group at the Musée d'art review Peintures, Cahiers Théoriques and the
transformations. It is within these limits that Moderne de la Ville de Paris (ARC: Art, results stemming from its influence.
linguistics or psychoanalysis can be utilized in a Research, Confrontation) in September 1970, This, in the general fogginess of artistic
materialistic and non-idealistic manner. The where the first number of the review Peintures, practices, our emphasis on gesture and colour
members of the group who carried on and Cahiers Théoriques was presented, up to its last for appropriate reasons : pictorial dialectic, and
continue to carry on an intense ideological appearance at the Biennale de Paris in for psychoanalytical reasons (sexuality, the work
struggle based on these concepts were September 1971, the resignations and of the instincts), introduces unheard-of
immediately hindered and continue to be exclusions have succeeded one another. The transformations regarding the subject-painter
hindered by strong obstructive reactions and first was Claude Viallat who, despite a and painting in the pictorial field, that goes
censorship. There is the external opposition of noteworthy pictorial practice, was in political against everything 'established' in this field,
the critics and established artists, but also the disagreement with other members of the group. and that is the preparation for political and
internal opposition on a political level between He was followed by Saytour and Valensi who ideological upheavals and the foundation of a
those who pretend to be apolitical and find developed a manner of working based on a new world-view for all that concerns painting,
themselves allied with the forces of reaction mechanistic-materialist conception, which led `clear' to those not blinded by self-interest.
within the field of painting (cf. `L'exposition to their also leaving the group for political This is the sense of a real avant garde today,
Pompidou' in Peintures, 4/5), and those who reasons. These three artists were joined by two in which we participate in our own particular
carried on the political struggle and a struggle others, Arnal and Pincemin, while Bioules, field: painting.
on the level of pictorial practice. It may be Dezeuze, Devade and Cane formed the MARC DEVADE, LOUIS CANE. March, 1973

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