Page 56 - Studio International - September 1973

ONE see, what do you feel, what is the that of a man in this society. The art workable ratio between art-about-art
effect?
has to be different if art does indeed
and communication beyond the
come from 'inside'. How is it overwrought, overeducated art
Has art historically worked itself into Political art is not art with political different ? What makes it different? audience ?
a position where it is relatively subject matter but art with political
meaningless to most people, and are effect. Did the Art Workers Coalition and Should art live out its real life in
artists unable or unwilling to deal similar groups change anything ? galleries and museums?
with this? Why are so many artists, especially
conceptual and performance Is there a system of patronage Is art made outside the galleries and
American Indians and Oriental artists, dealing with narrative and possible in a capitalist society that museums not art but social work?
artists respond to nature autobiographical material ?Why are would allow art activity to be
schematically. What is the others dealing with nostalgia for the pursued outside the confines of an The so-called primitive arts have been
relationship of this impulse to the distant past, archaeological imagery? elitist private sector and an the source of much of the most
schematic depiction of nature in And others with fetishes, absurdity, ideologically unsympathetic successful contemporary fine art.
contemporary art ? Has the once-removed religious content? government sector? Why do these arts themselves
photographic depiction of nature, remain the domain of specialists,
except as satire (c.f. 'radical How do you tell if a work of art is How many art worlds are there ? anthropologists and sociologists?
realism) been possible since accessible to anyone else ? How often Aren't they as satisfying per fine art as
Impressionism ? are you right when you tell someone Interior space is literary. Exterior the fine art derived from them ? More
'You'll like it' or say 'They won't know space is sculptural. so ?
Formal analysis or descriptive what it's all about'.
information is a necessary but Is there such a thing as a theory that Why are artists so scared ?
subsidiary armature for writing on A woman's experience socially and embraces all kinds of art, that doesn't
content and effect in art; what do you biologically is entirely different from confine, but expands to develop a Why do successful artists identify

A monthly column — actually a fallen clouds ; the sky, bright and dark 'Principles of Physical Oceanography', has also nourished ideas and people
column, more horizontal than vertical. nebulosities near Mount Palomar. Stephen Riggs' 'Mary and I : Forty and works and aims I have intensely
I'm hoping for a looser and more The Laurentian Staircase, a sand dune Years with the Sioux' (he was a admired. Because of this admiration,
continuous network of cross- that resembles it, and a green wave congregational missionary), scotch my dilemma seems more acute. I
references than is possible in breaking in Argentina. The dwelling tape, a green and growing iguana, don't want to stop looking at art and
articles. I wonder how often I'll be places and ritual spaces of a a deer's skull, a basket, a boat model, writing about it; the elusive area
able to avoid art as the overt subject. miniature migratory civilization. A some shells, a birdcage, yarrow and between the visual and verbal
The things that interest me vitally at Michelangelo drawing of mirrors and meadowsweet and sea peas, pine tantalizes me and has done so for a
the moment are the art of a very few masks. A pitted wall from Frijoles trees, the ocean (windless today), long time. But I find it more difficult
people, photography, nature, Canyon, three photographs of the and the distance. What does all this each year to live by the double
American Indians, geology and limestone formations at Soda Springs, have to do with art criticism ? standard imposed by habit,
oceanography, and fiction — my own, New Mexico. A body turned into a commitment, environment. No matter
but hardly anyone else's. On a landscape. Clams without their I am an art critic, and therefore a cog how many compromises I make or
secondary level, there is a lot more shells. a piece of rusty metal rotted in an intricate system which is how many lines I draw, how many
art that interests me, gives me into lacework, a thistle (real), a incestuous socially, politically, things I do or refuse to do on principle,
pleasure, but provokes mostly golden paper fish sent me by Ray sexually, professionally, intellectually I am implicated. Maybe I can't find an
internal issues, leading me back into Johnson, drawings by Eva Hesse and and esthetically. I write about art I alternative, either for myself or for
comparisons with other art rather Ethan Ryman, a photo-montage of a 'like', which is stylistically varied, artists in general, because I am,
than leading me out into new areas of park on the Lower East Side by because I am too self-indulgent to finally, too deeply immersed in the
considered experience. Charles Simonds, a facsimile spend time writing about things I values from which I am trying to
reproduction of a Delaunay goauche, don't believe in. I write about this art escape.
Around me : A crab that hides behind letters to answer, volcanoes, a chart and its ramifications within the
a mollusk shell, a meteorite, and the of the coast of Maine, a coffee cup, confines of an art world which is I take photographs of rocks. I print
crusty jar-like nests of the trapdoor notes on female imagery, Arnold superficial, narrow, often malicious them small — 5 x 7 in. Each
spider as photographed by Frank W. Hanser's 'The Philosophy of Art and dishonest, isolated from most negative yields innumerable images.
!sham in 1919. The sky, blue, with History', Neuman and Pearson's people and most of life, but which I print a corner and discover four
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