Page 41 - Studio International - January February 1975

exhibition, he is prepared in advance by
what he has read and, moreover, the
organizers of these exhibitions go half way
to meet him by selecting and arranging
the shows along journalistic lines.
Harold Rosenberg has called this
`novelty art', and it is this novelty,
rather than the art itself, that attracts the
new viewer.
Here we have come to a dangerous
point. Where is the artist — perhaps in
vain — making a genuine sacrifice, and
where is he merely indulging in
exhibitionism ? Where is he seeking —
desperately and perhaps unsuccessfully —
a place for his art in our history, and
where is he simply succumbing to his
own naivety ? Where are the limits, where
is the measure, where is the meaning of all
this ? We need a criticism that would
reject sensational generalization and
genuinely deal with the artist, his
concrete situation in concrete history and
his reaction to the times in which he lives.
Perhaps there is nothing to be done but
abandon theories and return in art
criticism to that investigation in situ that
Leach and his British colleagues
advocate in anthropology; instead of
theorizing, to return to the works
themselves. For today we are witnessing
an increasing tendency to escape from
facts, the advent of a new Alexandrian age.
It is no longer the censor, but rather the
theorizing journalist or the theoretician
who is becoming the artist's most
dangerous enemy.

2. One of the most striking examples of
this tendency is the fate of Marcel
Duchamp's work. As long as Dada Cover of the Green Box' 1932
remained a living force, Duchamp was
considered a fringe phenomenon, if not
an artistic clown. When Dada was
allotted a dignified place in the history of
art, however, Duchamp's work began to
be interpreted as the result of historical
forces. Look, for example, at the opinion
of Gregoire Muller :
There has not appeared a single
critical analysis of his work that has
succeeded in pinpointing its basic
orientation, simply because there is no
basic orientation other than refusal to
have an orientation. Duchamp is an
alchemist. Duchamp is an optical
artist. Duchamp is a Futurist.
Duchamp is a chess player. Duchamp is
a Dadaist. Duchamp is an erotic poet.
. He negated everything and
opened the way for new directions in
art.'
The contradictions in this statement
are clear: how could anyone with no
basic orientation 'open the way for new
directions in art' ? According to Muller,
Duchamp was nothing more than an
epiphenomenon in the history of art: a
futurist, a dadaist, and opartist. The man
and the artist are absolutely separated.
While the man necessarily retains his
identity throughout his life, the modern Rem Doxfud.
artist lacks this identity. He no longer Two bachelors regarding a fresh widow in the style of Andy Warhol (1973)
makes his art from his life; it seems that to the critic, for the modern critic is not, Burnham. According to his latest
he could be an artist without living a or should no longer be, a personality. He interpretation (the latest of several, each
human life at all. He remains content is an observer, a documenter, a of them different) Duchamp's La Mari&
with 'negating everything' and through journalist. He is no longer committed to mise a nu 'liberates Duchamp because it
this consistent nihilism, he opens up new anything: in short, he too is a nihilist. symbolically foretells the evolutionary
perspectives for art. It is interesting that This nihilistic historicism appears in an pattern of future art" and is 'a coherent
in this regard, the modern artist is similar even more distorted form in Jack allegory of the devolution of modern art>

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