Page 86 - Studio International - January February 1975

slightly fantastic, slightly folksy, usually small surface (never any of Latham's activity, but what is joke on the elections. In England
are of a kind you'd need to have more than about 12 x 8 in.) of the badly needed is a full presentation such wit is reserved for
known long enough to become drawing, as a temporal continuum, of his activity over the past commercial advertising - note the
really fond of before you could while making more central the twenty years to clarify the frequent Smirnoff campaign and The
tell how good they were. Two of character of the objects on which misunderstandings generated by a Times's 'Our sages know their
the sculptors I'd rather pass over his drawings are presented. piecemeal treatment of the onions'. KP Brehmer has a
in silence, but Rauni Liukko's The One Second drawings are complex inter-relations which similar background of unlimited
life-size (or natural size, as the perhaps the best exemplification knit together his creative activity. posters and postcards but he has
catalogue more precisely of Latham's general cosmology Rosetta Brooks found that the form does not
expresses it) mixed-media (the Time-Base Theorem) which reach the people in need of
figures seemed the best things in individuates and analyses things ART INTO SOCIETY: instruction. His recent work is
the show after Westerlund's in terms of their existence on SOCIETY INTO ART intentionally 'saleable' - objects
drawings. Engagingly good- different time-bases (as aspects of Seven German Artists, at the for the art collector - but still
humoured and unpretentious, events belonging to longer ICA, London containing the message. He
they record a straightforward events of differing scales). The 29 October - 24 November 1974 exhibited his proposal for altering
interest in people as individual newest One Second drawings are The German month at the ICA the colours of the German flag to
creatures of circumstance, worthy the best representations yet of in November succeeded in form a key to the distribution of
of regard, without the slightest this metaphysical view in that their drawing the crowds back to the wealth amongst the social
self-consciousness about how to status as drawings is given the Mall. Whatever qualifications one classes. Another graph represents
present them stylistically as art. physical status of event (one feels about the exhibition and the the massive wealth (ie power) of
David Thompson second duration) and their theme, it proved that the ICA's international companies. General
status as artefacts the status of the reputation is not beyond repair. Motors make £800,000,000 profit
transformation from trees each year, and their annual
JOHN LATHAM If they make a good show, the
(nature) to artefact (culture) as an turnover is more than
At the Gallery and at Art Net, support will follow.
event. The presentation at Art Net Switzerland's GNP. Hans
London The success of the month was
seemed to suffer from the Haacke's work dealt with similar
November achieved by a German
largeness of the gallery square in information within the art world.
John Latham's recent organization - the Goethe
relation to the minuteness of the In the catalogue he presented a
exhibitions at the Gallery and at Institute, their equivalent of the
One Second drawings. new work on the Guggenheim
Art Net were of very different British Council. They provided
character both in display and The exhibition at The Gallery our own Arts Council with an Museum in New York. He lists the
underlying intentions. represents Latham's political object lesson in how to co- business activities of the Board of
The work at Art Net consisted rather than metaphysical ordinate London, organizing a Trustees of the Museum: Peter 0
of Latham's continuing series of concerns, though the works still variety of events at the Serpentine, Lawson Johnston, the Director of
One Second drawings embarked represent a questioning of the the NFT, the Roundhouse and the Board, is shown as a director
upon initially in the late 1950s. identity of things - here, the the ICA. of many companies including
One Second drawings consist of questioning is in terms of human The exhibition looked rather Kennecott Copper Corporation
configurations of black spray action rather than its absence unappetizing. It suffered from and Anglo Company Ltd which
paint emitted for one second onto (as in the drawings). being cramped in what is left of have extensive interests in Chile,
various surfaces; paper, canvas or The work, Offer for Sale, is a the ICA's mutilated space. It had were nationalized by Allende and
small wooden panels. Latham has display and relates formally to a certain revolutionary flavour, are now receiving compensation
always sought to emphasize the the other display exhibitions professional and considered, from the Junta. It is interesting to
physicality of the surfaces of his mounted at the Gallery in the unlike the concurrent anarchy of see how closely the enlightened
drawings as one device (amongst past. Offer for Sale consists of a their Chilean brothers. The museum world is connected with
others) for making unified the photographic representation of a exhibition acted as a platform for the 'real' world. It was a pity that
potentiality or actuality of series of documents drawn up at the main activity which was Haacke did not have the
physical degeneration and the time of the APG exhibition at contained, theoretically, in the facilities to look at the
temporal change. The arbitrary the Hayward gallery where the catalogue and, practically, in background of the ICA.
configurations have in common artist's organization, Artist's contact and dialogue with the Dieter Hacker's work was less
their definition of time span, and Placement Group was offered for artists. This was the intention of accessible, partly because he was
considered in this (temporal) sale as the result of a coincidence the organizers. Exhibitions are unable to present a model of his
dimension appear to be minimal in the naming of APG with the irrelevant to this type of work, but Produzentengalerie in Berlin. It is
'assisted ready-mades' or 'atoms' similarly named and registered they are still the accepted form - a viable and efficient artists co-op,
of Latham's own temporal company the Allied Polymer and this was after all an official but the essence of the idea did
metaphysics. They are, in his own Group. Rather than engage in German government sponsored not emerge from his theoretical
and in Whitehead's terminology legal battles to establish priority show. banners. Albrecht D(D for Dürer)
'least events', and in his own view, of the use of the name APG, a The catalogue suggested that suffered in a similar way. His
literally products of time. They settlement was proposed which we should look at the exhibits as Xerox photographs and fluxus
seem like minute maps of the involved the sale of the name by a visual manifestation of the typography is not effective in a
infinite forces and occurrences Latham to the Allied Polymer dialogue in radical political gallery situation. It is impossible
which converge to produce Group, providing him with the circles. The artists represented a to cover the area of commitment
insignificant and often unnoticed opportunity for engaging in generalized selection of agreement his activities embrace in a semi-
events. It is with these discrete another identity problem within on the eventual Utopia but detached atmosphere. Gustave
minutiae that Latham focuses his the sphere of social activity and complex disagreement on 'how Metzger only contributed to the
attention, seeing in their its institution and one which do we get from here to there' and catalogue and the symposium. In
formalization in One Second was also directly concerned with that is the real question. As always the catalogue he published an
drawings (temporal) reifications the activity and institutions of the most viable positions were the exhaustive bibliography on art
of his time-based cosmology. if art. least radical. You can have either dealing. If anyone reads further
the configurations of the The display at the gallery a small shift acceptable to the on this topic, they will discover to
drawings are treated as temporal consists of three screens on which majority or a major shift what an extent art, like every
units, the nature of the drawings are mounted photographic acceptable to the minority. Klaus thing else, is controlled by the
as physical objects is stressed in documentation of the proposed Staeck's rationality seemed one men with the money.
order to make clear their Offer For Sale in a triangular of the more feasible models. He And so we come to 'the Frank
subjection to time. They are both format which is the insignia of works closely with trade unions Sinatra of the Art World', the
products of time in their APG and was adopted to further and other community action wonderful Joseph Beuys. In the
configurations and subject to it in confuse their identity with the groups on topical campaigns, transcript of the colloquium for
the ageing and changes which Allied Polymer Group who use an using posters, leaflets and the exhibition, Beuys declared he
occur to the surfaces of the upright pyramidal insignia. postcards. Much of the work relies would need 'no special space -
drawings. Latham's pyramid which is on Heartfield's use of just four blackboards and some
Some of the One Second printed over the screens is, photomontage but it is red and white chalk'. In the event
drawings shown at Art Net are however, a pyramid tipped on its attempting a social function he littered the entire gallery with
sprayed on to small sliding side typifying his manner of unburdened by artistic over seventy blackboards. An
panels so that the frozen 'one identifying the role of the avant- connotations. The example he admirable display of energy which
second' configuration itself is garde artist and particularly his used in the catalogue was a poster cuckooed every other artist out of
subject to change. In some of the own role in opposing a static and made for the 1972 election in the nest. Beuys would have been
newest drawings, the object- mechanical institutionalization of Germany. The posters read 'the the star attraction under any
character of the surface has been activity with one based on change rich must get richer - so vote circumstances. He behaved in a
emphasized to the extent of using and assessed on a time base. CDU' (CDU =Conservatives). way which showed how easily
sawn logs suspended by chairs The two exhibitions go some The slogan was taken up all over democratic intentions break down
from the ceiling to prevent the way to individuating the breadth the country and became an ironic even amongst seven artists. Beuys
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