Page 38 - Studio International - January February 1975

Wonderland, he will be led to pass
through the looking-glass of the retina, to
reach a more profound expression.
I am only too well aware that among
the 'isms' which I have mentioned,
Surrealism introduced the exploration of
the subconscious and reduced the role of
the retina to that of an open window on
the phenomena of the brain.
The young artist of tomorrow will, I
believe, have to go still further in this
same direction, to bring to light startling
new values which are and will always be
the basis of artistic revolutions.
If we now envisage the more technical
side of a possible future, it is very likely
that the artist, tired of the cult for oils in
painting, will find himself completely
abandoning this five-hundred-year-old
process, which restricts his freedom of
expression by its academic ties.
Other techniques have already
appeared recently and we can foresee that
just as the invention of new musical
instruments changes the whole
sensibility of an era, the phenomenon of
light can, due to current scientific
progress, among other things, become
the new tool for the new artist.
In the present state of relations
between artists and the public, we can
see an enormous output which the public
moreover supports and encourages.
Through their close connection with the
law of supply and demand the visual arts
have become a 'commodity' ; the work of
art is now a commonplace product like
soap and securities.
So we can perfectly well imagine the
creation of a union which would deal with
all the economic questions concerning the
artist . . . we can imagine this union
deciding on the selling price of works of
Where do we go art, just as the plumbers' union
determines the salary of each worker . . .
from here? we can even imagine this union forcing
the artist to abandon his identity, even to
the point of no longer having the right to
Marcel Duchamp sign his works. Would the total artistic
output controlled by a union of this kind
Symposium at Philadelphia Museum College of Art, March 1961
form a sort of monument to a given era
comparable to the anonymous
To imagine the future, we should Scarcely twenty years ago the public cathedrals ?
perhaps start from the more or less recent still demanded of the work of art some These various aspects of art today bring
past, which seems to us today to begin representative detail to justify its interest us to look at it as a whole, in terms of an
with the realism of Courbet and Manet. and admiration. over-developed exoteric. By that I mean
It does seem in fact that realism is at the Today, the opposite is almost true . . . that the general public accepts and
heart of the liberation of the artist as an the general public is aware of the existence demands a lot from art, far too much
individual, whose work, to which the of abstraction, understands it and even from art; that the general public today
viewer or collector adapts himself, demands it of the artists. seeks aesthetic satisfaction wrapped up in
sometimes with difficulty, has an I am not talking about the collectors a set of material and speculative values
independent existence. who for fifty years have supported this and is drawing artistic output towards an
This period of liberation rapidly gave progression towards a total abandon of enormous dilution.
birth to all the 'isms' which have followed representation in the visual arts; like the This enormous dilution, losing in
one another during the last century, at artists, they have been swept along by the quality what it gains in quantity, is
the rate of one new 'ism' about every current. The fact that the problem of the accompanied by a levelling down of
fifteen years. last hundred years boils down almost present taste and its immediate result will
I believe that to try and guess what will entirely to the single dilemma of the be to shroud the near future in
happen tomorrow, we must group the `representative and the non- mediocrity.
`isms' together through their common representative' seems to me to reinforce In conclusion, I hope that this
factor, instead of differentiating them. the importance I gave a moment ago to mediocrity, conditioned by too many
Considered in the framework of a the entirely retinal aspect of the total factors foreign to art per se, will this time
century of modern art, the very recent output of the different 'isms'. bring a revolution on the ascetic level,
examples of Abstract Expressionism Therefore I am inclined, after this of which the general public will not even
clearly show the ultimate in the retinal examination of the past, to believe that be aware and which only a few initiates
approach begun by Impressionism. By the young artist of tomorrow will refuse will develop on the fringe of a world
`retinal' I mean that the aesthetic to base his work on a philosophy as over- blinded by economic fireworks.
pleasure depends almost entirely on the simplified as that of the 'representative or The great artist of tomorrow will go
impression on the retina, without non-representative' dilemma. underground.
appealing to any auxiliary interpretation. I am convinced that, like Alice in (Translated by Helen Meakins)
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