Page 81 - Studio International - November December 1975

orientated activity represented by Atkinson and Stezaker Jugendstil, suitable for an arts and crafts museum if the
or whether it is a return to the big metal sculptures of the quality had risen above that of a random publicity
sixties (Nigel Hall and Jeffrey Lowe and also to a degree handout about the city of Vienna ; an exhibition of
perhaps reflected in the choice of Tim Mapston's formal amateur artists, suitable for hardly anything at all ; an
sculptures which have more contemporary connections exhibition of contemporary small-scale sculpture,
with body art). Apart from these the other British artists, suitable for a modern art gallery; an exhibition of theatre
Michael Craig-Martin, David Dye, Bob Evans, Barry photographs, suitable for the corridors of a theatre ; and
Flanagan, Darcy Lange and Ronald Michaelson all finally an exhibition on the history of public transport in
represent such divergent tendencies as to prevent Amsterdam, quite suitable for a tramcar and automobile
anything but individual discussion. museum.
All in all the sad thing about Mr. Meyer's policy is not so
much the exhibitions themselves, however bad they
usually are, as the fact that Van Gogh will do for any
purpose, and that his museum has become a last resort
HOLLAND for anything that cannot find accommodation elsewhere,
or is simply refused.
No doubt Mr. Meyer, as former staff member of the
Educational Department of the Rijksmuseum, is wholly
The Amsterdam Van Gogh preoccupied with the ideal of bridging the gap between
art and the public at large. But if the motto is to be
Museum. A modern "something for everyone', and 'anything goes as long as it
attracts visitors', then it is time something was done to
building, a modern policy protect Van Gogh and his art against the whims of a
museum director. For the time being Mr. Meyer is still
Reviewed by Marcel Vos reaping the benefits of the thousands of visitors who are
attracted by the drama of Van Gogh's life, but when
Van Gogh has gone out of fashion —and may God grant
The curse that rested on Van Gogh's life now appears to him this favour as soon as possible—then Mr. Meyer and
rest on his Museum. Since the opening of the Museum in his policy will have no leg to stand on at all, because
1973, Director Emile Meyer has conducted a policy that without Van Gogh of course no-one will bother to visit
fills every civilized person with irritation if not with the museum. Until that happens we are waiting with
disgust. Based on the modern idea that a museum should bated breath for the day when the infantility of his policy
be not a necropolis but a socially functioning and living will have proceeded so far that Women's Institute
organism, that it must welcome and appeal to all members can have their photographs taken free of charge
sections of the population and all age groups alike in the in front of the Potato Eaters, newly-weds may pose in
light of education permanente, the Van Gogh Museum front of the Sunflowers, psychiatrists in front of the
has become like a noisy chicken run in which pecking Cornfield with Crows, and the insane in front of the
orders and other scatterbrained notions determine the Asylum at St. Remy.
vacuous routine. There is no earthly reason for elaborating the memorial
The current policy appears to have been darkly presaged service for Van Gogh still further by perpetuating the
in the casual chopping and changing of decisions legend of his life like that of a saint, but there is even less
concerning the construction and equipment of the justification for abusing Van Gogh as now, making him
building for Van Gogh's work. One does not need to be an fall victim to an inane museum policy. Surely Van Gogh,
admirer of Van Gogh to see that his paintings are very who worked himself to death for ten years to provide the
badly presented in this museum, which was, after all, director of his museum with a comfortable salary and the
especially built for this purpose. Exactly what the security of a State pension, deserves better treatment.
architects Rietveld and Van Dillen had in mind is unclear, Translated by lna Rike
in view of the alterations that were introduced after the
death of both architects by their successor, architect
Van Tricht. The result is at all events that the exhibition
halls as we see them today are of such an unstable and
slight but nonetheless annoying form of weightlessness. NEW YORK
peripheral nature that everything in them suffers from a
The open spaces which connect in an optically elusive
way, lacking direction, measure and definition, distract
our perception and make it extremely difficult to pay more 'Projects in Nature', Merriewold West,
attention to Van Gogh than to the visitors, the potted New Jersey
plants or the colour of the carpets. Worse still, the James Collins, John Gibson Gallery
paintings themselves —displayed on too-long walls which Richard Tuttle, Whitney Museum
stand at a distance we cannot relate to — drown in the
excess space : they are robbed of their scale, and thus
their modest size is transformed into a predominantly Reviewed by Margaret Sheffield
negative characteristic.
And if all that is not lethal, then the final blow is dealt by A good deal of the art-as-idea or idea art shown in
the uniform, unvarnished, do-it-yourself wooden frames, New York galleries over the last eight years has been a
which give the impression that it is not the original works potpourri of objects with intellectual or 'conceptual'
that we have before us, but cheaply framed reproductions. labels and explanations attached. The explanation or
The lack of respect for Van Gogh is amplified in an 'idea' is often imperfectly related to the object. There are
exhibition policy that is not aimed at quality, but at superb exceptions by On Kawara, Oldenburg, Kosuth,
diversity. Besides snobbish peripheral activities such as Dibbets, LeWitt, Hutchinson : here the idea and the art
receptions, cocktail parties and fashion shows, Mr. event, as Lucy Lippard says, were 'both tangible and
Meyer has played host to a series of exhibitions which, intangible, simple and complex. They open up art to the
with very few exceptions, were entirely out of place (not intellect."' At its best, the conceptual movement has
to mention their average quality). A small selection from engaged man's whole sensibility. At its worst, however,
the exhibition programme of the past two years will this tradition has brought us pot holders with buttons
illustrate my point : a photograph exhibition about sewn on, six-foot-tall blown-up details of a horse's belly,
Indonesia, suitable for an ethnological museum ; an or a pole-skeleton with coloured circles attached —
exhibition on the life and work of Arnold Schonberg, expressing no values and provoking no thought, their
suitable for a lounge in a concert hall ; a world press impact simply a fleeting sensory response. To such
photograph exhibition, suitable only for commercial works the terms "art as idea' or "idea as art' are
distribution in book form ; an exhibition of Viennese inapplicable. They are really art (or non-art) about art, the
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