Page 85 - Studio International - November December 1975

inflation. (Making a total of £80m.) These sums help to a Julio Le Parc ? Hulten appears to be a man of vision
embody a dream on a truly lavish scale through whose moments of genuine insight are peppered with
employing comparatively cheap structural principles. the almost incomprehensible blots of a capricious
And the financial generosity of it cannot be appreciated spontaneity. He has a courageous inclination to take
unless one relates these figures to the fact that France chances, even if they commemorate almost
has no complete national health service, or that the inexcusable errors of judgement (was a Jean Fautrier
Pasteur Institute (which is the counterpart of the British exhibition really necessary in 1963 ? How could anyone
Medical Research Council) has no state support at all — find respect for Karel Appel's work in 1966 ?)
indeed, its very existence has been in danger. In Political considerations brought about Pontus
France priorities are differently arranged and matters of Hulten's appointment, and the foreigner's role in an
national pride come before questions of social need. intensely chauvinistic society creates obvious
For once it is essential to quote some statistics to difficulties. Delayed political accidents connected with
illustrate the grandiose volumes of the scheme. the revolt of May 1968 disqualified François Mathey,
103,305 square metres are involved in the whole who was and remains the only credible French
complex. Over 15,000 have been allocated to a new candidate for this post, and Hulten has good reason to
library to document the contemporary arts and this will publicize his views in the often rather hostile setting in
be equipped with a cinemathèque, video archive, which he finds himself simply through being an outsider.
information centre, photographic collections as well as The Centre distributes a book-length collection of
the usual library services ; its 1,200 seats are to cater interviews and declarations on his behalf, in order to
for 4,000 visitors a day between 10.00 and 22 .00 — regulate a flood-tide of prejudice with sluice-like
and without restrictions of any kind, including age. safety-valves. This self-portrayal introduces a man of
Over 17,000 square metres are allocated to exhibition undoubted goodwill who is committed to
areas (the New York Museum of Modern Art has 7,600, experimentation ; someone with a crusading although at
the Guggenheim 2,500, the Stedelijk 7,200 and the times naive faith in modernity. He envisages an annual
Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art a mere 1,800). programme of about half-a-dozen classic shows and
These floor areas will absorb the collections at present ten exhibitions 'addressed to the more restricted
in the Musée d'Art Moderne, leaving an area of over audience that wants immediate information on artistic
3,600 square metres for temporary exhibitions and a issues of the present'. Rightly, he thinks that a new
1,150 square metres hall for events of an unspecified approach must inspire museums 'which were
kind (happenings? ?) — which may involve 650 persons. established as mere stores of conservation, no longer
In addition 28,000 square metres are available for fit to perform their individual, social, religious or public
ancillary services, eg performances, meetings, children's function', but his plans to replace traditions are
entertainment, restaurants etc ; nearly 4,000 for a Design nebulous, to say the least. He builds hopes on the
Centre and nearly 21,000 for a car park. A staff of some 'encounter between the artist and his public' and expects
800 people will be employed and the cost of running the that this confrontation will provide a meeting ground
Centre will account for 1 5% of the national budget for the 'where the public itself will become creator' (this desire
arts. conveys a dangerous view of the fine arts and their role
The backbone of this complex will be the Museum of in society). But it is unjust to dwell on inconsistencies
Modern Art—and it will provide a strangely inadequate of this kind. Hulten is primarily a practical museum man
support for a tenable view of contemporary art. and his technique-oriented innovations will, surely,
Constructivism, Futurism and German Expressionism have a beneficial influence. For instance, he is
have, so far, found little sympathy in the official determined to replace warders with 'monitors, ie with
collections ; Klee and Mondrian are among the giants specialist personnel to act as gallery guides whose duties
whose work is ignored in the permanent galleries. transcend mere surveillance.
Substantial donations compensate for these gaps, but in There is, of course, no conclusion. The Centre has yet
the main they represent only the Paris School, and they to complete the collections it inherits from the Musée
tend to commemorate established artists whose widows d'Art Moderne. A compromise must still be reached
made these gifts to enshrine their memory. In the between the rather provincial standards of the rue
circumstances it is almost impossible to predict policies Berryer and the interests which shelter behind the name
or restrictive practices, which have yet to be decided. of Pontus Hulten ; a compromise between a locally
There are two easily separable pointers. Pontus Hulten inspired aestheticism and the expert showmanship of
gave up his directorship at the Stockholm Moderna avant-gardism ; a truce, in fact, of a rather belligerent
Museet to assume responsibility for the Department of and expansive intent, which is to recover the territories
Visual Arts, and this section will incorporate the Centre of creativity Paris has lost since the war. But it remains
National d'Art Contemporain which is to give up its rue to be seen whether the arts of the present are capable of
Berryer premises, bringing its own traditions to the place nourishing the hopes raised by the building. After all,
Beaubourg. even a museum of the future cannot flourish without the
An alliance of possibly incompatible ingredients. The future's own active cooperation. To put it plainly, the
CNAC is a 'national institute of contemporary arts' ; its success of the Centre depends to a very large extent on
London equivalent is named ICA and not British the art of the next decade or two — in addition to all the
Institute of Contemporary Arts ... and, with three imponderables which the present so generously
important exceptions, the CNAC has, naturally enough, provides.
pursued only local aims. The accolades given to Daniel This involvement in the future justifies a comparison
Spoerri and to George Segal were remarkable — and good between the Centre and the Israel Museum —although it
excuses could be found for mounting the 'Hyperréalistes is differently motivated and more comprehensively
americains/réalistes européens' show — but the Paris interpreted in the Middle East. The political pragmatism
School provided the staple and often rather dull diet is also the same ; but its causes are not the same in
served in the rue Berryer. Hulten's love for the arts is, on Jerusalem and, consequently, traditionalism acquires a
the other hand, utterly exogamous. He has promoted the communal purposiveness which endows the Israel
case of Jasper Johns and Rauschenberg (in 1962) ; of Museum's activities with a genuine, classless social
Jackson Pollock (in 1963) ; Oldenburg (in 1966) ; significance. Archaeology is both the past and the myth
Meret Oppenheim, Fontana and Magritte (in 1967) ; to unite a quasi-artificial nation of many and near-
Warhol and Tatlin (in 1968) ; and his sympathies for the exclusive cultural backgrounds. The arts of Europe help
Paris School appear to have played second fiddle to modernize and to westernize tribes without a unifying
throughout his time in Stockholm. He has supported style of expression — and style is, in fact, the code or the
Tinguely and Niki de St. Phalle with remarkable shorthand which helps to record and to communicate
fidelity, but one is bound to ask whether they deserved it the experience of the mind. The decorative and the ritual
(say, at the expense of Dubuffet and Soulages ?) He has arts testify on behalf of the shared aesthetic need, which
recognized that Fernand Léger belongs to the asks for its resolution in the syntactic structures of
companionship of the elect — but how is one to reconcile organized composition.
that fact with the ill-deserved homage he has paid to, say, This tripartite programme is, basically, didactic—and it
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