Page 65 - Studio International - March 1974

of his Non-Tautological System. He postulates Elizabeth Glazebrook. Latimer New Dimensions
that experience contains two elements : vehicle are publishers involved with, among other
and subject. The vehicle is a non-static ground things, the relatively unexplored region of
which remains the same whatever subject artists' writings and works — an area of
matter is carried, while the subject stands for publishing which is bound to develop greatly,
. everything that can enter the awareness as particularly in England where the involvements
an object of sense, or knowledge'. It is the of conceptual art demand this. 'Work and
energetic co-existence of these two elements Commentary' fills a more immediate gap,
that explains why things are never merely what however. It is the first complete publication of
they are and why they require for their Victor Burgin's works, which have previously
description the apparently contradictory only been individually issued in small limited
combination of the Tautological and Non- editions. The book contains all of Burgin's
Tautological Systems, synthesized in what principal works from 1969 to 1973, including a
Melhuish calls the Paradoxically Energetic new work entitled V/ which was first shown at
State. His logic of change is completed by a the Nigel Greenwood Gallery, London, at the
similar analysis of time into the Particular Time time of the publication of the book. The works
of sequence and the Basic Time of the primordial are anteceded by an essay by Burgin in two
flux. parts entitled 'Commentary' in which he
On the basis of this paradoxical logic, and attempts to clarify the motivations of his text
supported by the indeterminism of sub-atomic pieces, in contrast to those of theoretical art
physics, he establishes a dual cosmology in and other developments which have been linked
which the selective universe governed by under the covering and sometimes ambiguous
orthodox logic is complemented by a non- term 'conceptual art'. He criticizes the tradition
selective universe governed by his new system. of vanguardism and modernism, adopting ideas
He applies this duality to problems of infinity from Karl Popper for the purpose of criticizing
and non-existence and concludes that . there naturalistic and historicistic views of art and in
is no respect in which the universe is not proposing his relativistic stance. Nevertheless
infinite' and . . we can never arrive at a position Burgin remains to a very large extent a formalist,
where there is only nothing.' In a later section though his forms are not the real or physical
dreams and hallucinatory states are considered forms of the modernist artifact, but cognitive
as phenomena of the non-selective universe forms isolated for consideration in themselves.
and finally an original concept of immortality is He has referred to his works as 'apprehension
outlined on the basis of a dissolution of the matrices'. In reality they consist of lists of
dogmatically unambiguous view of personal phrases, the content of which are related to one
identity. another as descriptions of temporally succeeding
Without denying his originality, it is strange sense data. The works consist of successions of
that although in relation to current British temporally locateable sense-data specifications
philosophy Melhuish seems to be an outsider, or of indeterminate classes of apprehensible
in relation to twentieth-century art, even to things. Their interrelations are often temporal
British art of the post-war period, his viewpoint (in content as well as in form). Because of the
appears much less unorthodox, since paradox deliberate indeterminacy of the content of the
and ambiguity are commonplace in the art and lists of phrases the works are identifiable as
literature of the modern movement. He does not cognitive forms. An early work like Any Moment
mention art here, but his earlier book of 1959 specifies a form of cognition for a variety of
did include a brief section on art and non-art possible individual perceptions and for a variety
which, while it pointed out such paradoxes as of different temporal locations specified in the
the fact that works of abstract art are more likely second phrase 'THE PRESENT MOMENT AND ONLY
to be discovered in replica in nature than THE PRESENT MOMENT'.
figurative art-works, maintained on the whole a Looking at his subsequent works formally there
conventionally historical view of the are clearly two regularities. Firstly the content
development of art forms. The present work remains more or less indeterminate and variable
acknowledges the enthusiasm of Patrick Hughes in accordance with either the conditions of
for the ideas expressed, and the hard-edged apprehension or other less obviously specific
ambiguities of that painter's work parallel variables connected with the epistemological
Melhuish's attempt to define the indeterminate locution of the percipient. However in Any
in logical terms. q Moment, when Burgin refers to 'ALL APPARENTLY
JOHN WALKER INDIVIDUAL OBJECTS DIRECTLY EXPERIENCED AT
(THE PRESENT MOMENT)', for the work to be
taken as a direct sign complex and therefore
Apprehension matrices temporally coincident with the perception
Work and Commentary by Victor Burgin. specified, the objects experienced are bound to
Latimer New Dimensions Ltd. be the phrases of his work. It seems to be for
£4.00 this reason that his works take on a self-
referential character. The works become in a
`Work and Commentary' is an anthology of sense cognitive forms for their own
Victor Burgin's works recently published by apprehension. It may be something connected
Latimer New Dimensions and edited by with an inherent dilemma in this state of affairs
Is I