Page 13 - Studio-International-January-1974

The years from 196o to 1967 were those in man-made signs which in the absence of men Siegelaub, dates from the previous year and it
which Ad Reinhardt produced his square have become objects'.8 I could quote Lawrence represents much more of a departure.
paintings in which internal relationships of form Weiner to similar effect, 'All you can find out Statements9 is a book, not a catalogue. No
were progressively reduced to a point at which about from a painting is art'. fewer than seven of the entries relate to titles
the existence of the paintings as any sort of Square Removal from a Rug in Use of 1969 in the January 69 catalogue, but there are no
entity at all depended on the appositional differs from the canvases that preceded it only catalogue numbers and no illustrations.
contrast of their containing environment. This in the texture of the cloth. The word 'art' does The term 'statement' is a familiar one in
`minimal' art has elicited a multiplicity of labels, still carry a primary anticipation of painting, artistic usage. If I can again quote as an example,
but to a point they are mutually reinforcing. If and much of the apparently most radical art of Ad Reinhardt published 'Three Statements'
the 'purification' of art yielded a residue of recent years can best be understood as painting in Artforum in 1966. The first, 'Abstract
`primary structures', it followed not only that which has climbed down off the wall — but it Painting, Sixty by Sixty Inches Squire 196o',
there was an ABC to art but also that within would be the first time if a rug were hung on a begins:
the context of that line of reasoning A (and B gallery wall to be admired. If one feels `This painting is my painting if I paint it.
and C) stand for art without the need of further nonetheless that it would not make sense, for This painting is your painting if you paint it.
elaboration, and this goes as much for Walter de instance, to show Wolfgang Hahn's rug in an This painting is any painter's painting.
Maria's lines in the desert or for Lawrence exhibition, this is not because the square This painting is anyone's painting with few
Weiner's own Square Removal from a Rug in removal is not art, but because the gallery is not exceptions.
Use as for the rectangle he removed from his the use-context of the rug. This distinction, This painting is personal, impersonal,
canvas at the request of his patron; but then so however, is only deducible from the verbal transpersonal.
it would too for the rectangle of the canvas alone, designation of the title. Does that mean then This painting belongs to anyone who wants it.
or either of the stripes alone, or for the sprayed that actualization was a completely irrelevant This painting does not belong to anyone who
paint alone. The multiplicity of elements exercise to prove a point that should not have doesn't want it.
suggests a significance to their mode of needed to be made ? For my part, I am quite This painting is free (not a free-for-all) for
combination which stands in the way of their certain it does not. Without an actual hole in an anyone, with few exceptions.'10
literal self-identification as art. actual rug, the words could easily be sent to an From my conversations with Lawrence
The possibility of a literal reading of art- exhibition — or anywhere else — and that might Weiner, it did not seem that Ad Reinhardt
objects without expressive or referential be convenient, but without an actual hole and held any particular significance for him, and
overtones was perhaps the major aspiration of rug, or at least the distinct possibility of actual yet I think the statements of Ad Reinhardt
Minimal Art. If this was sought through holes and rugs, the ink-marks on the page, or must have a general significance in the
purification and clarification of the objects the sequence of vocal sounds, need hardly be development of linguistic forms in art. He was
themselves, one is aware that 'clarity' and words at all, or even those particular ink-marks also a major contributor to the body of
`purity' are relative to the systems within or vocal sounds, if there happened to be others Minimal Art principles from which Lawrence
which they are to be defined, which in practice that looked or sounded prettier. Weiner's mature art takes its start. There are
means to language. The clarity of Minimal Art The achievement of Square Removal from pre-echoes in this particular statement of
or of the trench in Mr Topol's driveway comes a Rug in Use is that it resolves the alternative Lawrence Weiner's concern with the problems
about through anticipation of the linguistic possibilities of target-as-art and target-for-/ of ownership and authorship that arise with the
terms in which they are to be clearly target-practice. In stipulating the use-context attainment of a definitive art-object and also of
described. The objects themselves — and we see of the rug as the context-as-art, it retains not the more basic problem of the relationship of
this in the development of Lawrence Weiner's only the meaning-as-use of the rug, but also the art to that object. For Ad Reinhardt, one thing
own art — anticipate the decisive step from design meaning-as-use of the terms of verbal is clear, his paintings embody his art and his
to designation, but one must add a rider to all designation, and this is of more general statements are statements about his art and
this: in attaining clarity the objects do not importance in Lawrence Weiner's art; that about art in general. When, however, the object
declare themselves absolutely but in relation to the words on which the art construction is is stripped down to the extent of Ad
art, and as art. placed manage to sustain their meaning of 'art' Reinhardt's paintings, and when the
Ad Reinhardt wrote in 1965: 'A colour in art from the position of their normal meaning as statements present the cryptic fascination of
is not a colour . . . dark grey in art is not dark meaning-of-words-in-use. Ad Reinhardt's copious writings, it is
grey . . . a line in art is not a line . . form in art The guidelines in the Seth Siegelaub understandable if the attention of his audience
is not form,', and even 'painting in art is not catalogue are significant not primarily for their should waiver between the two. When the art
painting'.6 They are not colours, lines, forms somewhat tortuous display of courtesy to the objects, after 1960, are all the same — in theory
and painting, because art — in contradistinction artist's patrons, but as a means of holding the rather more so than in practice — it is a moot
to the pretensions to meaning of abstract work in a state of suspension between words and point if some of the statements refer to
expressionism — is a transcendent activity within things. In all, eight works by Lawrence particular works or his oeuvre as a whole,
which terms lose whatever functional Weiner are listed, including Field cratered by but this distinction becomes important in
possibility they might have in the context of simultaneous 1/3 lb. T.N.T. charges which in that subsequent developments.
`what is not art'. If the form of Ad Reinhardt's context (and since the technique of removal had Without getting caught up in contested
exposition leaves any feeling of uncertainty, we become as standard in its art connotations terminology I should like to distinguish a type
could quote the example of Rene Magritte who as a square canvas) sounds very different from of art such as that produced by Ian Burn,
wrote under a painting of a pipe `Ce n'est pas the Mill Valley holes. It is listed as a new work Roger Cutforth and Mel Ramsden under the
une pipe' (this is not a pipe). Leo Steinberg, in of 1968. title of The Society for Theoretical Art and
his book on Jasper Johns,7 explains that it is not It is important to stress that Seth Analysis where the art consists of the
a pipe because you cannot smoke the painted Siegelaub's catalogue is just that. If as a theoretical analysis of the notion of art and the
image. He goes on to point out the contrast with catalogue it embodies the main aspects of the isolation of conditions for the existence of art
Johns whose painted targets might function works it lists in the form of verbal information, in general.11 This is a far cry from the art of
quite satisfactorily for target-practice. But art that is the result of the nature of the works and Lawrence Weiner who uses language to
and target-practice are alternative possibilities not because there is anything very unusual designate particular works of art. In our class-
in the object. In another publication, Steinberg about the publication. The earliest of Lawrence discussion, he was very careful to point out in
sums up his response, 'Only objects are left — Weiner's books, also published by Seth reply to a student's question that when he
3