Page 60 - Studio International - March April 1975

Conversation with

John Stezaker

Peter Smith

P.S. The works we're discussing, your new attempting to overcome the avant-garde impetus kind of way, but does this rule out
works could be called 'Post-Mundus'. If we distaste for popular ideology and social reason as a basic or ordinary premise ? This
use this epithet can it be taken to suggest determination, I hope to pursue the reminds me of Kant's cautionary remark to
more than a personal historical juncture ? a-contextual or transcendental as social those sceptics who cannot come to terms
J.S. 'Mundus' was certainly quite an meanings — transcending utilitarian rhetoric with the concept of freedom: "Reason would
important juncture for me in my work in or propaganda by the existence of certain overstep all its limits if it pretended to
marking my first practical attempt at the cultural directives which manifestly (if you explain how freedom is possible or, in other
theory-practice conjunction which I had like in their form) evince the imprint of their words, to explain how pure reason can be
previously entertained only theoretically. own direction (if you like their content). practical . . .. we obviously cannot explain
But `Mundus' was conceived only in P.S. So can we ascertain from this that the free action by pointing out its cause, and this
conjunction with a work Ipse' (which was work has an autonomous meaning which is means we cannot explain it at all. All we can
not completed at the same time) and which is independent of context in the same way that do is to defend freedom against the attacks of
perhaps more in line with what I'm involved a text-book or a dictionary or an algebraic those who claim to know that freedom is
with currently. Since 'Mundus' (the world) formula might be considered ? If this were impossible."
and 'Ipse' (the self), object and subject, the case, would you agree that there is a
were conceived of as interdependent, I don't problem of ideological neutrality with regard J.S. It's a part of the Kantian heritage to
think that my new work could represent to the 'news items' contained in some of the divorce the good from the rational, value
what is implied in your question — a move recent pieces ? from fact, to see reason as a means and values,
from objectivity to subjectivity, even though like freedom, as ends and thus to delimit
my newer works are more explicitly J.S. I suppose we have to specify an reason to operation within an ideology. I'm
concerned with the identity of the ego or autonomous meaning by which we identify trying within the Kantian or Post-Kantian
ipse. works, but like meanings none are strictures to operate ideologically without
unchangeable or transcultural. Dictionaries condemnation. If I have to specify a premise
P.S. We could say then that 'Mundus' is the have to be revised — the same goes even in the on which to work, it is a belief in a
beginning of your effort to scramble former case of algebra. My treatment of stories in collectivity — in a totality for social
`conceptual art' interests and affiliations. In the style of women's magazine romances consciousness which happens to have been
terms of my understanding of `Mundus', and from news reportage are only neutral to fragmented in Western society. Philosophers
`Ipse' and the more recent works like the ideological content of these rhetorical and artists are treated as professional men
`Imprint' and 'Look on the Bright Side', it forms in constituting a different rhetoric concerned with their autonomously related
looks as if you've reached a point when you which uses rather than promotes the problems. I'm attempting to use differently
felt it necessary to make works that could ideological content of ready-made rhetorical treated (and separated) aspects of a social
operate independently of context. That is forms. In other words I'm using it for ideology, rhetorically in their latent
these works are not self-referential in the alternative ideological ends. collective interrelations by a breach of their
way so much conceptual-modernism has conventional handling. If the breach or the
been after the early sixties. Broadly speaking, P.S. In this way, then, your employment of cultural directive is valuable, it will emerge as
would it make sense to suggest that you're popular narrative (in 'Look on the Bright revelatory within a collective ideology. For
interested in subject-matter in a 'real' Side') and your 'loaded statements' of example, in manipulating a conventional
sense ? I mean `subject-matter' amidst imagistic and textual kinds are positive narrative form in 'Four Touchstones for
other considerations such as those of formal rhetorical devices towards a definition of Ipse', the content of the narratives is aimed
or presentational problems or necessities. ulterior objectives or could we say ulterior at revealing their underlying structure or
ideological desirata, with this being your form of representation in terms of its
own rationalized directive towards an relations with other cultural artefacts.
J.S. I've never felt myself affiliated with acceptable or desirable state of affairs ?
conceptual art, but I have been by others by P.S. It's evident that any effort to pare away
virtue of the theoretical emphasis in my J.S. I'm uncertain about the idea of a this tardy concern with 'style' in so much
preceding work, though what I've said in my rationalized directive. If I may quote from conceptual art and all that this entails will, in
writings has always been antithetical to one of my own questions in 'WHO?, turn, be regarded as a 'new' departure —
conceptual art inasmuch as I've tried to WHAT ?, WHY "If reason is ideological, that is, it will again be construed to be
oppose modernism. The only support I've then how can the ends towards which somehow 'ahead of the game'. I suppose that
expressed for conceptual art has been in ideology is directed, themselves, be you must recognize this as inevitable. Can
regarding it as the demise of modernism . . . . certified as reasonable ?". The motivation of you see a way out of this diachronic and
I'm involved in presentational-formal my new works is towards a direct involvement historical tedium ? Does the implicit
problems only as secondary issues to the with rhetoric as a means of articulating strategy of works like 'Imprint', 'Ipse' etc,
primary cultural functions of the works. I ideology on this very realization — that this offer solutions or undermine the obsession
wouldn't express it exactly as an inversion means the articulation of the ends towards for novelty ?
of the modernist belief in the determinacy of which reason and political activity is
content by form, though there is certainly directed. The "ends" cannot be articulated J.S. The structure of my works is
something of this involved . . I see my in the systematized codes of a well-ordered deliberately antithetical to the underlying
newer works as cultural and ideological logical syntax. So I'm not rhetorically structure of modernism from which the
directives in contradistinction to the articulating a pre-subscribed ideology; I'm exclusive emphasis on novelty emanates,
modernist attempt to constitute art-works as using certain rhetorical devices to establish though, I would say that my work is
separate from ideology and cultural and express an ideology. indifferent to the emphasis on novelty itself,
direction, by the paring away of cliché and except indirectly. But I take your point
stereotype, because I believe that the end of P.S. Does this mean that an ideology will that it may place my work in danger of having
this process is not in purity of vision but in somehow emerge as an upshot of the work's its antagonism, in these terms, depleted by
silent inaction. Instead, by attempting a internal logic ? treatment within such a framework. I do,
critical articulation of the cultural J.S. Ideology will emerge by a connotative however, think that the danger is lessened by
directives to which we are subject in our articulation of its conventionally separated the observably growing dissatisfaction with
grasp of "objective reality" and in accepting rhetorical forms and reveal and establish the just this cognitive framework for art and
the status of the products as cultural ideology immanent in cultural relations. from the weariness with which the latest
directives, I've been attempting to go beyond banalities produced for such a framework
context, as you put it, by pursuing the P.S. I can understand your apprehension are developed and received. In other words if
transcendental in a different dimension about pre-subscribed ideology and the my work seems ambitious in demanding a
from the modernist pursuit which is propagandistic zero which would obviously change in our cognitive framework it now
motivated by "going outside" as a removal threaten your enterprise — or any enterprise — seems less hopeless by the imminence of the
from cultural relations, whereas by if it became paramount in a zealous or change.
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