Page 16 - Studio-International-January-1974

culture rather than as science. Whereas in expectations of art's primary morphology. equivalents on the back of the cover, but the
Causality: Affected and/or Effected words were A triangular removal from a tree despite its contrast between the written English and the
made to approximate to the quantitative negative form is a sculpture in (presumably) written French becomes more marked when it
regularity of numbers, A Primer omits even the living wood. also involves the transposition from a male to a
numbers indicating different works, but the There is a certain ambiguity in the word 'art' female voice.
book divides naturally into four parts. Fire, which in one sense implies the visual arts and in The seven pieces deal with the seven notes of
Earth, Air and Water are each first 'engulfed', another a wider range of activities including the musical scale and the basic concern of the
then 'crammed' and then 'glutted', but architecture, music, literature, theatre, cinema record is that a single sound may be designated
qualifying terms in parenthesis explain that and dance. Lawrence Weiner's context until as a 'sharpened C' or a 'flattened D' according
Fire in engulfment is 'diminished', earth is now has been that of the former sense. His to its musical context (and may, as sound,
`soaked', air is 'smothered' and water 'pushed'. works are included in art exhibitions, function differently within that context), while
Fire, when it is 'embraced' is `(smothered) by reviewed in art magazines and bought the same verbal designation 'C' may refer to a
water (hissing)'; Air is 'embraced (diminished) (even in their immaterial condition) by art note in high, low or middle register. It is
by earth (sighing)'. Similarly in glutting with collectors. His books are produced and centrally a matter of the operation of alternative
wood the elements respond by 'crackling', marketed by commercial art galleries who systems of designation. The presentation is
`clunking', 'swishing' and 'whooshing' might at other times exhibit paintings and unusual in Lawrence Weiner's work, among
respectively. Fire is 'extinguished by means sculpture. As long as they refer in their contents other things, for the inclusion of editorial
other than Water', Earth in the equivalent to what is understood by art in that context comments at the end of each piece which make
position is 'wet by means other than Water', this is perfectly proper and logical, but it has the didactic point explicit. The key statement,
while Air and Water are both 'pushed by means been a feature of the cultural condition of our repeated in each piece is:
other than Earth'. Fire is Ted by other than time that art periodically tends to expand to `If in a context a flattened E can as a sharpened
wood', while Earth, Air and Water are include activities outside its normal domain, D pass
`enriched' — and Water not by wood but by and particularly to absorb the larger meaning When albeit even in a cultural context does
Earth. The final phrases in parenthesis of art within the smaller. Videotape is the most designation
qualify 'Another log on the Fire', 'One more notable recent example, but the 'happenings' of Slip from convenience into relegation ?'
shove' (for both Earth and Air) and 'Shoved a few years ago may point a moral in the way The question is certainly apposite. It is
once more' (for Water). they seem now to have moved over to the consistent with the artist's general approach
The distinction between 'pushed' and context of theatre. A certain linguistic and that the record should be, in format, just a
`shoved' and between 'one more shove' and institutional inertia has a way of reasserting standard record like any other record produced
`shoved once more' may not make the task of itself, if not in identical form, then at least in a in France in 1972, but this would seem just one
fabrication easier if anyone were conscientiously way that slows down the revision of categories. more reason to prefer the musical category. But
to set about it, but they do suggest the subtle Causality: Affected and/or Effected marks a would that be relegation ? I'm not at all sure.
complexity of actual situations. It might be more radical break, in that 'art' even in the To most people, music implies a structure of
difficult to assure that water would 'whoosh' extended meanings of painting and sculpture pure sound, in a way that art, in spite of over
when it is glutted with wood and that air normally implies 'affected and/or effected as to fifty years of modernism, has not come to imply
would 'swish', but such terms are highly visual appearance', not 'vacuum', 'cold', 'pull', pure visibility — and perhaps never can
evocative when one simply reads them. The `silence' or 'noise'. The final instance is because of the different nature of the sense of
book as a whole evokes a primeval environment particularly significant as it encroaches on a sight. I noticed in our class discussion that
of elemental forces and substances, devoid only domain already demarcated by a distinct Lawrence Weiner said the flautist translated
of human presence — and even that is implied as linguistic category 'music'. The same goes for the spoken words into musical 'notation', and
the agent of the passive processes of past the stipulations as to sound in A Primer. the alternation of spoken musical suggestions
participles and verbal nouns. With this Lawrence Weiner's record 7 of 1972 was and the performance of the flautist does cause
inclusion, the book covers not only the four produced by the Yvon Lambert Gallery24 who the musical sounds to take on the character of
elements, but also the three natural kingdoms, also did 10 Works, but that fact alone does not representations of their own verbal designations.
animal, vegetable, and mineral. The first prevent its raising the question in a more acute If this implies much the sort of equivalence
section on Fire reads through ten pages with form. between actualized musical structure and verbal
German on the back: The front cover reads very much like the language as existed between the actualized
`Fire engulfed (diminished) books, with short numbered verbal phrases material art structures and descriptive titles in
Embraced (smothered) specifying a musical structure within the limits the Seth Siegelaub catalogue, there is a
By Water (hissing) of an empty parenthesis, an ellipsis, and the difference in that the language of the titles
Fire crammed (engorged) word 'perhaps' which takes the work out of the readily evokes a material structure through a
Glutted (overindulged) impositional mode which the artist considers common understanding not only of the terms
With wood (crackling) fascistic. There is a translation into French, but also of the materials and processes involved.
Fire extinguished by means other than Water just like 10 Works, and on the back a further No such common understanding can be assumed
(Fire and Water mixed) elaboration in both languages. However, in the case of music. The codification of music
Fire fed by other than wood phrases like 'in not the sequence stated' still through the systems of its notation has long
(Another Log on the Fire).' leave a good deal to the discretion of flautist given to music a degree of clarity unknown in
From the beginning, Lawrence Weiner's Pierre-Yves Artaud, who provides musical most phases of the visual arts, but even where
work extends the materials of art beyond the exemplifications of the extended statements of that notation is further translated into the
conventional media of painting and sculpture, the back of the cover as first spoken in 'Side I' alphabetic designations of Lawrence Weiner's
but as long as it refers even in verbal designation by Lawrence Weiner and then on 'Cote II' by record, it requires expertise to conjure up a
to visible material structures it validates its the translator Beatrice Conrad-Eybesfeld. The musical image on the basis of the description.
categorization as art in the extended sense of its record has a certain kinship with A translation A professional musician may come to a
traditional morphologies. Often in the earlier from one language to another. The performance of substantial appreciation of a musical composition
works like A wall stained by water or A removal the flautist represents a translation of the through reading a score, but his reading is
to the lathing or support wall of plaster or wall spoken dialogue and the spoken words read referred to an understanding in terms of sound.
board from a wall there is a subtle play on the in turn as a translation of their written 7 makes language primary, but it would need a
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