Page 18 - Studio International - February 1974

terms simply cannot suggest themselves with clearly defined. The value, I think, of a member of the International Commission
any clarity or relevance in the context of our semiological activity is merely as a mode of which this year took over the shaping and
particular discussion.' (Foreword in 'Three intellectual work (research) which parallels selection of the Biennale, I may perhaps be
Letters', letter no. 2 to Peter Gidal, p 8, certain structural film activity and therefore allowed to comment on these two points. As to
Artforum, September 1971 film issue). It helps permeate the culture with a possibly more the first, the 'correspondents' were appointed on
seems to me that connections are obvious : to acute direction and context for viewing and the widest possible basis to provide the volume
theories of structural linguistics (post- analysis of the material at hand (whatever and variety of information needed. if the
Chomskian as well as of course Saussurean and material that may be). International Commission were to function at
Malmbergian), French schools of structural Perhaps the clearest definition of structural all effectively. Given that national
anthropology, Roland Barthes's work film as such still remains that of an art of commissioners and national sections had been
(especially Writing Degree Zero of twenty years relations, of structuring, in which the shape of abolished, this seemed the only way of making
ago), and even the misguided work of the the material is primary to any internal content sure we spread our net wide enough, but it was
cine-semioticisms. An in-depth explication (and the feeling of that shape is primary to any not by any means our only source and
needs more space than is allowed at present. specifically decipherable or simple construct. information about artists reached us in many
Suffice it to say: Lévi-Strauss stresses that it is By 'feeling' I mean an inculcated attempt at other ways. On the second point, members of
not by studying the object but by studying the annexation of the event and the failures the Salons and various French artists' societies
shifting relationship of subject and object that inherent). of other persuasions were invited to sit in on our
we discover the nature of a social or cultural The determination is to make a broad yet meetings, simply to counter any possible
structure, and the relations form the structure. precise overriding definition hold for these criticism that we were operating in a secretive
The child psychologist Piaget refers to films. Such a definition facilitates for the or autocratic manner. They had no voice in the
Structuralism in part as a system of reflective viewer possibilities of understanding of context. selection. Their presence seemed to me, as a
abstraction, which 'derives properties not from This is important all the more so as by 'viewer' foreign member of the Commission, somewhat
things but from the ways of acting on them, and I mean viewer/critic, for the viewing of these pointless, but I accepted that the intricacies and
from relations between acts, placing in films is at the same time a critical act within a virulence of French art politics — with which
correspondence of one thing to another'. The given context, utilizing specific criteria. Such Monsieur Cadéré is no doubt very familiar —
French phenomenologist Merleau-Ponty climate of response is one which each film were beyond the comprehension of an outsider
found meaning in the lateral relations of sign to automatically inculcates and reiterates in the and though not relevant to the actual content
sign, in the interstices or spaces between words, `viewer' through its very materialist praxis and of the exhibition, they most certainly were so to
rather than in the words themselves. function. Also, the making of these films, as of the practical problems on the French side of
`Language is the system of differentiations all art, is implicit and explicit art — critical act. financing and running it in Paris.
through which the individual articulates his One creates a work. One also creates, in varying I am surprised that Monsieur Cadéré has
relation to the world and the writer's (artist's ?) degrees, a negation of past work, of historically made so little effort to understand the aims and
task is to produce a system of signs whose set bases for tradition. methods of the Biennale, since although it
internal articulation reproduces the contours of PETER GIDAL received little coverage in the British press, it
experience. Phenomenology is thus the study was very adequately covered in France where a
of relations.' Roland Barthes in Writing Degree number of serious critical articles, by no means
Zero states that 'structure is the residual deposit all favourable, discussed its form and content
of duration'. In essence this kind of analysis and in some detail. In addition, I myself wrote a
that of semiology is of some interest because it long article in L'Art Vivant specifically on its
can have certain coincidences. When film work organization and Jean-Christoffe Amman, from
merely attempts to illustrate theses from other Correspondence Switzerland, another foreign member of the
disciplines, or to translate them, it becomes Commission, in an interview in Le Monde, went
shallow, and in the most dangerous sense the Paris Biennale in great detail into the thinking behind the
opposite of its true function. The same holds I read with some disappointment the article on selection and the presentation.
for criticism, which is why traditional modes of the Paris Biennale in your December issue. I I am not complaining because the article is
the latter are an interim stage towards an as yet had expected that a journal of such standing critical, but because it is obscure and
unrealized body of critical/theoretical work would give it reasonably full coverage, uninformative. The public here could reasonably
which does not merely transcribe or translate particularly as it was this year organized expect some balanced assessment of the
(and pull meaningful nuggets from) the (film-) experimentally on an entirely new basis, in an exhibition's form and content, and the public
work at hand. Julia Kristeva has worked in this attempt to eliminate some of the weaknesses abroad should be able to look to Studio
direction. But mainly negative is the work of inherent in the traditional Biennale system — in International to find how it appears through
most cine-semiologists because of insensitivity particular those arising from dependence on English eyes. As far as the members of the
to film and the guise of a scientific method. national sections. Instead we have an article, by International Commission are concerned, we
A pseudo-science is set up which does no a French artist, which is almost wholly ourselves are critical of many things about the
more than rephrase the retrograde manner of concerned with the in-fighting of French art Biennale of 1973, and are already considering
dealing with work; ultimately a reinterpretation politics and scarcely at all with what the what changes should be made before 1975. We
and reinvigoration of the corpse of reactionary exhibition actually contained, or what it set out would value informed comment, whether
art. (Such as Barthes's lamentable study of Stills to achieve. favourable or unfavourable to help us in this
from an Eisentein film which would be better My objection is to the whole tone of the task. If there had been an article of the kind I
forgotten, as would most of the writings of article, which is embittered and unconstructive, had in mind, then Monsieur Cadéré's views
Metz and all of his protégé Bellour.) Attempted quite apart from errors of fact, such as the would have made an interesting supplement.
translation from one area (e.g. writing) to statement that artists in order to be considered, Perhaps it is still not too late to repair the
another (e.g. film) denies the basis of structural had to have been proposed by one or other of the omission and let us have an article by one of the
art: what can be shown cannot be said correspondents nominated in different British critics who were in Paris at the time.
(Wittgenstein). The area of differentiation (to countries, or the assertion that members of the G. M. FORTY
raise another problem) between structural art various reactionary Paris Salons were consulted The British Council
and structural modes of analysis remains to be with regard to the selection of artists' works. As London NWI

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