Page 41 - Studio International - June 1974

We are quite inured to the possibility that meaning, it is meaning in the most normal sense, symbolized meaning through those materials ,
The little tear gland that went tic-tac may turn the denotative signification of the words of but it finds its point of departure both above
out to be a piece of wallpaper with a wheel common speech. That this meaning is and below the level of craft — that is above and
drawn on it, but if the catalogue entry went on contingent on grasping the system of its below the system of conventions which makes it
to specify 'bronze cast from plaster original', symbolization is no more than can be said of any possible to work within the medium, as opposed
then I suggest we might be very worried indeed. written text. There is a clear distinction to be to working about the medium.
The art of Pollock, stripped of the accretions of drawn between the cryptic innuendo of romantic When students ask, as they persistently do, in
critical indiscretion, tells us no more than that a stereotype and the specific cryptographic painting or drawing classes to be taught 'the
particular material substance, paint, has been codification of Jeffrey Spalding's videotape. basics' first, the dangers of their request are
used in a particular way. It declares itself in the Effectively the 'message' closes the option on implicit in the language they use. Crafts
way it responds to the laws of gravity and with disreputable possibilities. undoubtedly have their place, and one would
its own viscosity as the artist discharges it As a technique, television is just another rather that the works one admires (Pollock's for
from a stick towards a canvas lying flat on the technique; and I see no inherent quality in it as instance) would last forever. But in asking for
ground. The video camera too may be used so as technique to make it preferable on any `the basics' they are asking that a base line should
to declare no more than its own presence — and permanent basis to snow sculpture or crochet. be drawn on which they can confidently make
that as incontrovertible fact. It is simply that the strategy of a particular their mark as artists. Such confidence is
Jeffrey Spalding, a senior student working situation makes it possible, in an art context, to achieved at the expense of conceding to a level of
independently under my supervision in 1972, advance through television the meaning of being certainty beyond which questions need not be
took a somewhat different approach, essentially art; and in a teaching context, provides a more asked, and yet one knows that it is the questions
transferring the problem from the camera to viable occasion to raise the central issues of beyond that point that have consistently
the monitor. He divided the screen into three art as art than do courses using other materials. resulted in the best art of our time.

horizontal bands, just like an old-fashioned I find myself somewhat surprised that this (Left) Eric Cameron Contact S: Window-pane 1973
abstract painting. Black and white (as the should be so. Television apparatus is extremely in. black and white video tape
alternate neutral baselines of painting and the sophisticated; the important art of our century (Right) Jeffrey Spalding The Intention of this Video
Tape 1972. I in. black and white video tape
extreme tonal possibilities of black and white has till now employed simple materials at a
television) provided two colour possibilities. technically rudimentary level. The important What makes television different is certainly
A third emerged as a by-product of the artists, where they have been craftsmen at all, not any lack of technical difficulties in the
mechanism itself. The tabula rasa of videotape have been significant precisely through their medium, but perhaps rather that the technique
is not a carte blanche but a carte neigeuse; the ability to forget the conventions of their art's of television is a technique of television, and not
`snow' represents the kinetic negative of the craft basis. The very best artists, Picasso and as yet a technique of art. As video courses have
video medium and provides effective contrast Pollock, have often been at their best as artists been taught at Guelph by Allyn Lite, Noel
with both black and white. By coincidence, the when their craftsmanship was at its very worst. Harding and myself, students from the start
three colours allow a permutation of One wonders before some paintings by have been given to understand that they would
twenty-seven combinations, one for each letter Pollock, not so much whether his art will last not receive full instruction in the medium, but
of the alphabet plus a space between words. as art, but whether the canvas will fall apart only such guidance as would permit the
In successive images of a few seconds duration, before or after the last vestiges of paint flake off. realization of specific projects. The crucial
the tape spells out an explanation of the It would be wrong to imply any necessary factor is probably not what Allyn or Noel or I
principles of its own encoding. The message in connection between the quality of art and the decide is the proper way to structure a course,
no way calls into question the competence of art poverty of craftsmanship; and yet the inverse but the presuppositions that students bring to it.
to comment beyond its own boundaries. It relationship in Pollock's and Picasso's work is If the cathode ray tube does replace the canvas,
declares no more in fact than the key to its own not altogether accidental. It is not that art in our the demand for basics will undoubtedly grow,
encapsulation, referring back endlessly to itself century has been disdainful of art's material and the issue of art as a structure of human
and endlessly nullifying the achievement of its basis : quite the contrary. The vastly greater understanding will no doubt have to look
decipherment as it confirms the validity of the part of significant twentieth-century art, even elsewhere for material support in the university
attempt. It is a moot point if it contains of the so-called conceptual type, takes its basis art programme. q
meaning or by-passes it, but in so far as there is in the materials of art and the possibilities of ERIC CAMERON
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