Page 28 - Studio International - May 1974

The complete artist

The recent exhibition in Paris Hommage a practical considerations opposed to the reviewers, academics and the rest. They
Tériade celebrated the work of Tériade when instinctual, the failure before the ideal. Every perform at best a fungicidal service to the arts
editor of the magazines Minotaure and Verve. artist must aspire to some of these properties, but, as with civil servants, there are too many
Tériade engendered ideas in artists. He did this but is there a general manifestation of this in the of them. However the real malaise, in the West
very forcefully: he would select an idea, suggest collective effect of 'Art' ? I don't think there is. at least, remains outside the arts. It's always to
it as an inspiration to artists of his choice and Consider the concept of the 'avant garde'. do with money. And now, because of the current
place the magazine and attendant facilities at Too much art is discussed in terms of art bullmarket — however few artists, comparatively,
their disposal. From this for instance came historical time: the linear progression of it may affect — the position is worse. This must
Braque's Carnets Intimes, Matisse's jazz series. succeeding styles. In Europe this has, one serve to trivialize the aims of many aspiring and
Through the thirties, forties and fifties suspects, finally become a marketing device. It gifted visual artists, at a time when more than
Minotaure and Verve dominated all other art is to do with the concept of the 'avant garde', ever they are required to set the world straight.
publications: leading artists submitted to and that is to do with buying art before it goes As it is visual art continues to be as misguidedly
Tériade's specifications and the rest awaited up in price. This is the governing principle of over-specialized as most of the other disciplines
eagerly on the results. I don't wish to suggest `avant gardism'. It lies beyond the individual of modern times, seemingly indifferent to the
that there was anything superior in this sort of merits of those, in whatever capacity, who future appearance of the world and
editorship — obviously it suited the times and seriously attempt to explore and encourage new incomprehensible to all but fellow-travellers.
demonstratively it was inspirational (the show developments in art. Today the consumption of And so I return to the underlying motive of
at the Grand Palais). I only mention it here art has become so voracious that even the this issue: to stimulate the idea of a 'complete
because it gave me the underlying idea for this subtlest temptations of 'avant gardism' are no artist'. The 'complete artist' should be someone
issue when Peter Townsend offered it to me and longer required to induce buyers to buy. with the ability to improve the appearance of the
because I was surprised at how few people have Stockholders are urged to invest in art whether world we live in. He will never be able to do that
heard of Tériade. they like it or not. The inherent weakness of unless there is an underlying change in art
My motive then is to stimulate ideas — ideas, object art, something which has increased over education away from fine-art specialization and
and not idea, because I am trying to put across the last two hundred years of aestheticism, has the restrictions of its mystification. In spite of
one idea beyond others, not in spite of them. never been so exposed: object art is anything Duchamp the demystification of the artist
The idea is that of the 'complete artist'. It you can buy and tuck away. It's a strange remains essential. The word 'artist' even is a
derives from Izaak Walton's 'complete angler', situation. Artists can, alone in Western society, hindrance. Till there is such a change, no artist
and also from the mystical properties of the individually 'coin money'. Picasso could pay any will wield the power in society that he should.
artist as symbolized by the artist's sign of the bill with a signed doodle, and it was no doubt This issue is devoted to the presentation of a
Fish or 'Pisces'. In The Compleat Angler with some irony that Jasper Johns recently subject in accordance with what I feel the new
Walton speaks of many things : angling, of converted a bank into his studio in New York. role of the artist should be. It is presented as a
course, primarily, but also of the habits of fish; This is not a diatribe against painting, sculpture whole to underly the theme of completion, from
the songs of fishermen; the pleasure of good and their derivatives. They are both the picture in fish on the cover to (excluding the
food; the comfort of salubrious inns; the inexhaustible inventions, but I would suggest permanent features) the fortuitously
delights of the company of men and women, and that today they are too specialist to warrant the appropriate ad on the back. It dwells on the
even the moral attributes of happiness. Piscator effort of the majority of people with visual sociological, philosophical and art historical
is the counterpart of the Pilgrim in Pilgrim's talents. There will be no alteration in the aspects of fish and fishing; illustrates the work of
Progress. Well might Andrew Lang open his present deadlock, so long as money dominates certain disparate contemporary artists active
essay 'To write on Walton is, indeed, to hold a art and most especially the teaching and within the theme — Geoffrey White is very
candle to the sun.' As for the mystical properties discussion of art, however unconsciously. much an artist by Waltonian standards; and
of the artist in terms of fish, a reading of It's an insidious malady: for instance, one finishes with a brief consideration of the way in
Cara Montgomery's opening survey should expression of it is the delight of the artist who which the subject is affected by industrialization.
suffice: Alchemy's 'oculi piscium', the feels convinced of his calling because he has at The last page is on fish as a food: for
perpetually open eye of the fish, symbol, last secured a regular teaching job; or the relief nourishment from Toulouse-Lautrec, who
therefore, of perpetual attention; the Hindu with which another justifies his existence by expended much creative energy on cooking, and
marriage rite which suggests an analogy soldiering forth with a briefcase to sit on for reflection from Marcello Salvadori.
between the act of fishing and conception; the committees. This job obsession is most aptly May is a great month for freshwater fishermen
Chinese fish, symbol of abundance and illustrated — in Britain — by the self-satisfaction and one of the most beautiful of the year. The
harmony; the Buddhist fish, a being free of all of statistical analyses which can show that art issue hopes to celebrate this as well. I hope, read
restraints; the Pagan symbol of the fish as that schools are justifiable because of the high rate of on a riverbank, it will distract some member of
of the living dead (the artist's work remains the employment among their ex-students — the art world from an over preoccupation with
final declaration of the times he lived through). housewives included, of course. The his career, or reveal to an outsider the
The very ambivalence of the opposed fish in the campfollowers — the very fact that they are importance of the visual artist in society. 0
Pisces sign suggests the dilemma of the artist: campfollowers — are even more to blame: JOHN MCEWEN

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