Page 14 - Studio International - March April 1975

myths that have been emptied of `If serious people were to examine the I couldn't care less about that.'
whatever original meanings they might prior history of modern art in the West, `Then is Formalism a myth?'
have had, or world-views that don't since Manet on . . . their immediate `If it isn't a myth, then I wish
particularly answer to our situations. conclusion would be that it comes out of someone would clearly state what it is.
I do believe that we are in liberal society. This is all liberal Formalism is an undefined thing that
continually self-transforming situations. phenomena, the peculiar, nervous, has come to be understood through
I think that we can jettison certain neurotic, paradoxical, ironic art which usage, like slang. It is a kind of myth:
notions about the primacy of our plays with itself destructively, and with its Clem the grandaddy, like Jesus and the
particular value structure, the autonomy audience pejoratively. It could only have disciples spreading the word. It's so
of the work of art, and still have quite proceeded from a liberal, middle-class, tacky, so unreal, such a waste of time,
vital, quite freshening examples of dynamic, progressive, humanitarian, instead of just evaluating what anyone
artistic creativity before us. The problem repressive and also fundamentally very says about art on its own merits,
is to imagine their being carried out uneasy society, conscience stricken and specifically . . .
without a lot of the doctrine that has, for uneasy. That's the liberal ethos in a very `My feeling when I do criticize is that
the last ten or so years, shown itself to sketchy way. We're all emanations from I'm writing for a community. I
have gotten into further and further that sensibility. So to be an old-time appreciate someone who comes back to
difficulties . . . Marxist in trying to arrive at some me, as if we're all in it together, and
`I'll give you one example : the feeling schematic notion of this . . . implies that makes a dialogue out of it. I don't
that we really have to support hermetic one is outside the particular kinds of appreciate being called a formalist.
works of art because bourgeois society generative sources or the social values That's useless and degrading. If someone
has for the moment no means of which have produced this art. I'm not comes back and says "what you said was
assimilating them. There has always been outside any of these values, but when wrong for the following reasons", it's
an audience, if not a public, for such with great strain I try to be, and catch absolutely wonderful, but it seldom
scheduled obscurities. The mistake is to a glimpse of the complexities of modern happens, and that's a great
think such a fact automatically valorizes art, I get chewed out by decadent disappointment. The art world doesn't
advanced work. There will usually be bourgeois formalists who call themselves care about ideas, they get no pleasure
some genuine tension, some lapse or Marxists . . . from ideas, or from art, for that matter,
misunderstanding, a need to go further, `The difficulty remains for the critic it's all positions and politics. I'm always
or re-think premises in the way good art is to have some kind of a stance which is angered. Yes, I suppose I exacerbate it,
received. But innovating values are often capable of disassociating critical activity but that's not my problem, it's the
equated with political ones, which are from self-imagery on the part of the artist. problem of those who think that the art
nil, even if some groups we don't like are One of our great weaknesses in this world is run by shadowy forces pushing
antagonized by new art, or simply don't country is the relative impotence of secret buttons, when it is just a lot of
get it. That doesn't make any difference criticism to perform that disassociation. different people doing the best they can,
anyhow. What has happened is that one When, in fact, it occasionally happens like everything else.
more technical, highly specialized code that critics try to wedge themselves out 'The distinction between good art and
has entered into the professional media, from the position of being ambassadors or bad art, that's the basic function of
where it is ballyhooed as a subversion spokespeople for artists, they are looked criticism. The perfect critic could come
of some sort, but where no one requires upon as philistines, or as apostates — so on a painting and assign its ultimate level
it to have any intelligibility to outsiders. great is the thought-control and the in general estimation. You have to like art
This is bad luck for both artists and pressure to keep everyone in the bloody and want to judge it, it's more or less the
viewers, but typical of a corporate order, family.' • same thing. All the art objects that
that will not be held accountable. So there are that can be looked at, that's the
that if one really wanted to develop a body of material. Then you go at it and
critical consciousness, one would have make your judgement. Now judgements
to be anti-avant garde, because the avant Walter Darby Bannard are going to be imperfect, and clouded,
garde has become a status quo `I say from my experience, modernist and biased by personality, but you do the
phenomenon — I'm not talking necessarily criticism at its best is not theoretical. best you can, like anything else. There is
about the market aspects of this, I'm Greenberg is a good example of this, something somehow permanent
talking simply about its signifying value.' and the attacks on him are very good distinguishing good art from bad art, and
`Colour was much emphasized in examples of art-world paranoia. When quality is the word used to denote it. The
your earlier delectation, criticism — he does go over into being theoretical, fact that quality can't be verbally laid out
like in 'Renderings'. Do you still that is, saying what something should doesn't mean it can't be used, and I
believe in the purely visual power of or must be rather than what it is, he simply have no patience for semantic
colour?' always pulls back, and he always discussions about the word, or where
`Well I must admit to a prejudice about qualifies, and he always uses adjectives quality resides. It is within experience.
this . . . I believe that when we see artists and it is always very tentative. And it You get it by intuition.
willing to take on the challenge of colour, doesn't happen often enough to make it `What I like to do, my own personal
on an ambitious level, we also see a an interesting question.' bias, is to get a painting which I think is
quickening of the senses, and a `Where do you disagree with very good, and then describe the
willingness of artists to be as Greenberg?' mechanics of it. This interests me. It
comprehensively open as they can, in `This is a dangerous question, because doesn't work the other way around,
terms of their whole bodily firmament. it implies that one must agree or disagree you can't take a visual solution and
For me that bespeaks health. That means with him. You have to clear your throat stick it into a painting and make the
you're more accepting of the world, you and say "Well now, I don't agree with painting good . . .
witness a greater appetite for it, in all its him about everything", and then you are 'The idea of talking about painting
complexities and contradictions, its in it, lining up, taking sides. He's been as problem solving . . . Olitski, for
sensuous volatility, its kinetic patterns. so right about so many things for so long instance, in the way he treats the edge,
(This doesn't necessarily imply a that many critics are on the defensive how that frees the centre of his painting,
negative judgement about those who have and feel they must take a stand in that's technical, mechanical, inventive,
more attenuated tastes, or more graphic relation to Greenberg instead of to art, and in some way is part of the content of
sensibilities, at all.) However, as I say, and that's foolish. For me, he is a basic the painting, I think. But I don't see it
this is a prejudice, I would like to see this resource, a source of learning, not of who's that way. When I look at an Olitski
happen. We had it in this country in the good and who's bad as an artist so much, painting I don't say "the fact that he's
sixties, the late forties going into the or any philosophical things, but more the done that is part of the content of the
fifties, in European art around 1914, and moral or human force within art, and painting", I simply see it as a very fine
in Impressionism. We are not having it the seriousness of it. I may agree or thing that gives me pleasure. Then I
now. I'd like to see it come back.' disagree as I go along, but that's for may think, it's very interesting that he's
`How do you feel about being called myself, for my own use, and certainly done this, and done that, and that he has
a "token liberal"?' not to make up some public stance. thrown things out to the edge so he can >

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