Page 16 - Studio International - March April 1975

in themselves and certain others don't. those awful trappings, and in a certain `That's one of the things that I have
Since I am in some part of me really sense, except for certain theatre, theatre been trying to explore, by writing
reacting against the kind of prescriptive has ended as a convention for me that I autobiographically, because once you've
aesthetics that I grew up with, I really am can accept. The same thing happened put the critical act into a self-consciously
trying not to be involved with prescriptive with realistic art. It has ended for me, autobiographical space, it could come
aesthetics — preventive aesthetics or and again that is a question of across much less prescriptively, much
whatever one wants to call that. So my sensibility. I cannot find my way into the less about this authoritarian thing. It
answer would be that a new aesthetic space of realistic art that is made now, begins to have a certain diffidence — at
experience is perceived by, or felt by, or and believe it as an enterprise that can least it's open to self-doubt on some level.'
responded to, by a new sensibility. I encode the kind of meanings that I can `Can you imagine a form of
live now in 1975, I have a past, and I respond to. At certain points, certain criticism without plastic terms, that
have certain things that have shaped what forms no longer — I think this is true — did not refer to physical properties?'
I then can bring to an aesthetic retain the capacity to generate meanings. 'No . . . as long as art itself is involved
experience. So that person — the critic is As I listen to what I am saying, what with stuff that's moved around, or
simply a guinea-pig for any observer — I keep wanting to say to you, is what do images, marks on a flat surface, one has
that person is moved by certain things, you think art means — what does it mean to respond to those plastic entities with
and recognizes those things, and not for you to have an aesthetic experience ? descriptive plastic terms. No matter how
moved by other things. I think the That question arises for me over and over distanced I feel from Modernism, I don't
critical enterprise is really a description, again.' feel distanced from the methodology of a
and an attempt to characterize who this 'Why should it have to mean kind of empirical description.'
person is who is affected by what anything?' `And Conceptualism?'
someone else has to say, or who 'I think it's over . . . It's idealistic in
— because then it's just commerce, in
someone else is — the someone else being other words objects of value that get certain respects. I find it a phenomenon
the work of art. carted around . . . What I'm stuck with that is really alien from anything that
'What I'm getting at is that Modernism
really wants to see itself as the inheritor is the notion that somehow works of art do interests me. It doesn't seem in this
country that it's got very much more life
talk about experience. They do become
of an hundred-year-old pedigree, as the occasions for an experience, and also in it, and it's being supplanted, I think,
though somehow what was going on in the description of the experience for by other modes, which have more do to
the late nineteenth century, in which they are an occasion. What I find with, say, the direction Acconci is
relationship to those particular myself being able to affirm is both an going in. One thing that fascinates me at
conditions, that particular stage of experience and a set of descriptive terms the moment is the field of video, how
industrial capitalism, is somehow for that experience, which seems to me to narcissism seems built into its structure.'
appropriate to explaining what is be true of experience . . . I just don't see
happening and who we are now, as Naum Gabo as true on any level of my `Couldn't the sculptural meanings
receivers of aesthetic encodings of experience. Those perfect internalized that you describe be highly exclusive
meanings. I just don't feel connected to wholes just seem to me untrue.' social phenomena?'
those circumstances.' 'There is some notion of a heightened
'A small thing. In the 'Could you be creating a expectation that these works are going to
Rauschenberg piece you remarked sensibility as much as confirming be worth looking at, that they're going
on the decline in quality of the later one?' to repay that effort on some level. Maybe
that's elitist, I don't know . . . Although,
work — but only in a footnote.' 'Well, what I want to say is that art it really excites me when large numbers
'I feel very ambivalent about that. I creates a sensibility. Art finds some kind
mean I feel like I don't see anything of language, and makes a coherence out of people get their expectations raised
constructive about saying the late work of a lot of disparate feelings. In the act for them, and then presumably with
is lousy. On the other hand I have this of describing that, you describe the those newly raised expectations, bring
terrible conscience — I have to put it in. sensibility, and other people recognize that to bear on other experiences. For
If I could have made that footnote in themselves in it, and say "yes, I do have instance, recently I was in Grand
Rapids where Morris was doing an
invisible ink I would have done it. That's that experience".' outdoor earth-work. Three years ago
a problem.' 'What of the politics of criticism, Grand Rapids had a Calder installed in
'Why have you accepted a the game of trying to re-define and the public square. First people thought
symbology of abstraction, rather control the centre, as it were, of art this was a really weird object. But
than one of overt subject matter?' activities ?' gradually the community has accepted
'It just has to do with who one is . . . 'Unfortunately I think it is about power this object, takes tremendous pride in
When I was in college I went to a and influence . . . I've watched the this object. The Calder appears on the
performance of something called effects of that, and it's scary. What it stationery, as the letter-head of the
'All the way home'. The curtain went means is that certain commissions will mayor's office of the city. It also appears
up, I looked at the set — it was a very go to certain people, because certain on the garbage trucks. It also appears
realistic set, and I had this terrible sense people have influence. Shows will be now as a kind of completely
of dread, that I knew exactly what this mounted in relationship to what curators intelligible form of the spoken and
play was about — I hadn't read the story — are placed in what museums . . . it's all written language of Grand Rapids.
and I knew exactly what was going to about that — I find that deplorable. What When in the newspaper they want to
happen, and I could hear, before anybody I have been saying does have to do with describe a form that has an organic shape,
even came on stage, exactly what their the fact that I am attempting to be honest they say a 'Calder-like form' — this could
voices were going to sound like, and I about who I am, in the act of criticism. be a form of the river, anything.
thought "Oh shit ! I can't go through this, What is more, I am saying that who I am Somehow subliminally a large number of
this is unbearable". Sure enough they and what I feel is probably formed by people now think of this thing as a
came on, and they said in those breathy conditions that we all share — it's talking sculpture. Maybe they don't even know
voices, "John ? Where are you ?" — about who we all are as people interested what sculpture is, but anyway they think
that kind of business. I was with a friend, in art. Therefore I feel that my choices of this thing as an important experience
and the two of us were gripped by this, are not idiosyncratic, but have much more of their lives, and their space, and their
we couldn't bear it. By the end of the the weight of some larger, public, town' >
first act we both got up and just left. It's objective reality. So one gets from what
like that form had come to an absolute sounds like a subjective point of view, to
end, and all I could see was the something which purports to be much
staginess of it, all I could see was that more objective. Therefore I think the art
that I am attracted to, can respond to, and Harold Rosenberg
goddam machinery grinding on toward
meanings that had just so run out, that can make a case for, is the art that should 'You can't escape the market.
the illusionistic space of the play was get supported.' A reviewer, whether pro or con, tends to
something I couldn't get into, I 'How have you used the actual form affect the price of a work. Literary
couldn't inhabit. All I could see was all of criticism to get things across?' criticism may affect the sale of a book, ►

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