Gateway to ideas; 12; Are The Arts Becoming Incomprehensible?

Two ideas. Or. Two ideas. A new series of conversations in which ideas are discussed in relation to reading. Today's program. All the arts becoming in comprehensible is moderated by and Fremantle noted author and critic. It's becoming comprehensible. That's the subject for our discussion today and today's guests and Lord mocks Harold Rosenberg is a noted critic who's contributed widely to America's leading literary and author of his most recent book The anxious object is a study of contemporary art and artists. Mr Mock's a painter and stage designer that shows off at the Metropolitan Museum in New York. His book on the middle based on his very successful series of lectures at the

Metropolitan will be published shortly. Mr. Howard Rosenberg Mr. Lord Mox agreed to discuss the arts becoming in comprehensible and I think is the biggest concern with the visual arts would be missed in discussing the Vizio knots. My mistress back o the arts becoming comprehensible in comprehensible to whom it is questionable how hard people try to understand the Contemporary Arts. If if if we assured they already and that rhetorical bad are really interested people I would say that the arts have become less comprehensible over the past 20 30 years. It's certainly become more popular and they just mock. Yes in fact I would say that the main problem now is not one of incomprehensibility but. Whether both

artists and public the public who flocked to the galleries in such quantities are now becoming too easily satisfied and too uncritical. So that's this matter of the search for a really important statement and some feeling of growth and development is often absent. I feel that one of the main dangers today is is what I could call instance would you agree. Well I think there is a problem here. I just think shouldn't have thought to be led between the popularity of comprehensibility it quite possible if they are to become popular without being better and good. If we're talking about people going to galleries and having a pleasant time it doesn't necessarily follow that a works are being company handed if they were I think they could dispense with a good deal of criticism.

I guess I feel that sometimes it's not criticism it's becoming in comprehensible not the arts but human Basco Wilde said that in the best days of out there were no hot critics and this is the reason back in your book you make a great point. Most interesting book and one of the points you make I think is that art is becoming so international that there's really very little difference between the art in Brazil and they ought to know. I think you cite an ad a botanist who might just as well be a disciple of one of the well actually I was struck by an Arab artist who is playing politics from the other side of the room when I first saw this work was practically indistinguishable from a poet but when you got closer to it and actually looked at it it turned out to be entirely different from Pollack in spirit now I think that's very important. That is to say if we're going to talk about comprehensibility we should be allies that the mere with

semblance and style that is surface resemblance would indicate the complete lack of comprehension in this case. Quite understandable on the part of this anonymous Arab who probably had never seen a public in his life but had seen reproductions of Pollock and from a reproduction would be practically impossible to. You gain an intuition or insight into what Park was actually up to. That's been the sew in your free period hasn't it in a particularly when you think of the 16th century mannerism which was a period very much like our own in lots of ways. Look at the little Michelangelo's a little to read says that you write I'm not opposed to a let's say a lack of comprehension on the part of the artist however brought about the cause to misunderstanding of ideas in the not brought by a very great art quite frequently that people get Iranian side they have stayed to pile

their feelings into that Iranian side and then it becomes evident that there is no such a thing as in the erroneous idea in the art. One could very easily write a history of painting and in the West in terms of two things one bad ideas which are produced good awed and misunderstood ideas which have produced good art. I think one could easily see many examples of a misunderstanding or perspective let us say quite remarkable work. I wonder if we can get back for a moment to this idea which does bother me a great deal about instants art about the terrific emphasis that there is that seems to be in this book and in society generally now novelty at all costs. So there's a thing becomes it calls into question the whole matter of values. I'm not saying that you can apply absolute standards Renaissance or 19th century idealistic or anything else to art which is after all a dynamic and

changing thing. But isn't there a danger now of these works becoming products. What I feel lacking in the discussions that take place in this book and in much else that I read is a feeling or a concern for the total development of the Artist as a human being. So they are the artists themselves become people that you're interested in. You know I've heard it said that at the end of an artist's Korea you know one speaks about putting the paintings in frames if they are framed. That's the artist himself who should be put in the frame. He should be the final work of art and. Only rarely does that happen. Because of this terrific stress on youth this to reflect stress on novelty and the immediate when you bang noting impact and surely there is something else to living and to creation than that. Is it your thought that this problem is not taken up in my book. Well Mr. President your book is called the anxious object not the anxious human being that's all the interest I'm interested in the searching human I think your friend at least four

chapters in my book that deal with the problem that you're discussing. That is what you call instant OT that is thing and with all the artist has a chance to develop himself to develop and you know this is a central problem with doubt whether in this book that is the fact that the artist has gotten under pressure what I call the Vanguard already and we're used to it I think it's a guy or a vanguard of artists who are without a public that is way out regarded see their way out front or at any rate segregated you might say from the public. We never have something new without it the band God already and compactly you might say the etiology of the written God Audie is traced in that book in the chapter on armor a shout another word for 50 years we have had the development in the United States other than Vanguard or audience which has separated itself more and more. Yeah.

The idea that there is some particular kind of art that it likes it is Yadi In other words to be Vanguard as such and that's what you call instant art and the possible to be one step ahead of a lot of us just being a little bit not of a vanguard audience has now definitely gotten ahead of the artist that is the vanguard artist is dragging along behind the Vanguard audience and being constantly whipped done to produce a new work which will keep this audience in a state of stimulation. This is one of the reasons I'm happy with that stage of a fast not a NO ARE YOU HAPPY WITH Well you know it as a matter of fact that I say I take that up again and again to show that there's a different pace involved in creation from the pace at which various organ distribution would like to see art go in other words curators editors of

Arius kinds of publishers you need art to be produced at a much more rapid right now. Brother Hy-Vee it possible for an artist who can't set a pace for himself on the basis of novelty but can only be involved in the process of development so that we have a new kind of problem developed in the art world where we used to have the problem of the relation between the vanguard of August and the lagging. Yes we're not the other way around. Dynamic groups such big who are operating at a different pace and of course we're not really I would say I'm not altogether interested in sociological possibilities of the Vanguard or any info though I do think it's very important cause they say or some place if you object to the state of affairs then you have to criticize society generally.

Well I think you're interesting I would have liked to see that carried a little further. I mean what is it that creates this very neurotic the storie artificial state of affairs. And that's Isn't it time for those who are trying to see clearly and to think clearly to withdraw from this in the way it would just mean turning your back on the century but then you get into Mr. Huntington hot for not necessarily so you have a lot of I don't know. Now you see. That I think is a false distinction. You know it's I was interested it when Mr. Rosenberg describes the Samuel pollo exhibition when he discusses the Soviet exhibits and quite rightly points to this Robert saccharin optimism and idealization. And then he speaks as if the one choice was between shapely nudes and smashed and has it well that to me is like saying the either read or did surely. Well I am tempted to say you can have a shapely fenders and smash nudes which we have had.

But seriously I mean I think that I think I picked up a darker problem in that chapter that you're referring to. There is this acceleration on the part of the public that's what you're looking for. Right. Where do you think the public is perhaps it was sponsible there's a there's a new book out by William Snape the irresponsible arts perhaps it isn't the rods that sponsors the public it's irresponsible. You think it should be more committed. Well I think this idea of commitment that's why I mean such is one of my great great admirations that he has constantly grown as a human being. He has come from obscurity through clarity without making any compromises whatever. That's why he is very much admired. Now you see I was terribly depressed when I saw in The New York Times you know about who do people who are now were getting into literature for a moment and there was a picture of Norman Mailer and Jack Kerouac and said Well you know it's you they're passe. Well no I mean I think comprehensible we have I mean opium is what. Well some

people some people whatever it was you know I'm talking about the changing. Yes change and growth. And I think that there's something seriously wrong in that you know the fickleness of the public which throws over its former Idols or something which has prevented them developing something in our society that's wild must Sarge because he has withstood those pressures and I feel that many painters many people in the creative arts could take a cue from that could try really and expand and get a grip on it. You know I'm a total spectacle of man this. Well what you said about commitment I think is terribly important because I didn't say I asked because I very much wanted I want to. Well I mean the very fact that you both have to look at commitment because I think it's central but I think an artist is committed to his office and I think you know you meet 3st you're talking about our days you know talking about started an individual you're talking about public now I doubt if you can let the public follow him I mean he hasn't been dictated to by the public.

Well I'm I've done is create a you have a. Responsibility or commitment on the part of an abstraction like the public. In other words the public I think can be quieted morally with an individual if they like start now as far as art is concerned American artists I know quite a number who are just devoted to their own rhythm of development. Sorry I don't think that the artists in this country have or been stampeded by the public. You might get this impression if you went around the galleries and noticed that there was always some kind of new thing being shown. But these are. The dealers and some curators are trying to keep up with the press and other are trying to keep up with an audience in a box office sense I don't know that I'd quite a good deal but that's not good.

Well you are a number of artists so it's a terrific narcissism that comes in that that's what I say about being too easy. Not as I would not generalize I would not say that's applied to all of them. That's a Having found a certain little fragments a little aspect which has been much publicized and which you know is stimulating and for Voc. AS far as it goes. Then suddenly this is made to acquire universal significance. I'd like to download. Dog and criticism at this point and is one should always talk about good audits and not about bad audit. Bad critics talk about bad art its good critics talk about good OT it is let's talk about good August and that they have not been stampeded by the Vanguard public but you think that leading the pack. I think no I don't I think the public is being led by the leaders of the public this is always the case. They are just another word that once more saw it. We said that is way of being outside as a change to used to be ahead

and was outside that way. Now he's outside because he has to follow in their own rhythm of development the Vanguard public has its own leaders and its own pace and consequently we have a new conflict between the artist and the public. Let's take a good office an excellent artist let's teach a committee. Well that's someone I don't think he said the song at all and I know all right let's take a few more Americans hugs Hoffman hadn't changed at all in relation to the demand of the public. In fact I brought out that when he had his retrospective last year there was a picket line of the young artist. Parading in front of the Museum of Modern Art backing Hans Hofmann for his slow and natural and necessary development as against They too are trying to speed up the bandwagon

valise. Yes now here we have not only an old artist who was not yielded to this precious Yast but we have the example of a group of young artists supporting this idea of not yielding No I think that's what you said a sing that talks about and how let's say scores of artists have jumped on the bandwagon. We can expect them to vanish as the bandwagon goes over the hill. Human talent also Mach's out to the people on the ship out honest fun of them. Yes yes. I must leave but I'll work with I see all the stress on the novel at all costs Never mind that very amusing joke in The New Yorker. Of the two little children playing in the snow there's the snowman of the little girl who's put a carrot on the snow man's to make the nose and the little boy very blasé looks at us and says it's been done. Well now I'm fraid I've encountered that attitude among some of my artistic

colleagues and again I. There is I think what has happened. It's so easy to lose one's one's perspective one feeling of how important any particular innovation that one has made may be in the scheme of things now. I think some of the things that pop art has done are extremely stimulating but I feel that they're more effective in some contexts than others. I mean how long can you go on looking at Alicia and Stein ice cream soda now. I saw very recently a short movie 15 minutes. Buy a stan Vanderbeck called breath and death. And I thought it was absolutely brilliant. It made use of surrealistic Meeks of pop art. It suggested something of the horrors of our time. The income grew it is the absurd that is. And yet you felt a profound commitment in that concern. It wasn't like some of old guard movies and I'm afraid I have to talk about or at least

refer directly to some bad things in order to emphasize the good. A gimmick and indulging in a certain sensation the idea of monotony an idea of absurdity for its own sake. This really has a tremendous impact and I feel that possibly in the movies and in the theater which are time outs some of these devices can be more effective than painting. Do you think that there is a possibility that future historians may consider Look the movies perhaps these. More complex arts and beat the movies which is an entirely new art about time may be more expressive of what the sage has to well I don't know that I'm worried about a future story Rob Brown It means that there are many future historians are already taking that position. I have yet to hear a convincing proof that great movies have been produced in a dead movie to been produced which rank with the

great works of literature are pranking What about the opposite story ends of our day you're just so much writing of books on this this Christmas has to do is no trick on Toulouse Lautrec is the new Picasso book explaining because so by Francois as you know my little and his a museum without words. That's right and I want the books popularizing like clocks landscaping to walk all these books to try to make us understand that the public is it one of the reasons that it's way ahead you are saying that the public is in the vanguard and the artist is trying to keep up with the public using perhaps the fort all the other reason of this would be this plethora of OT books. You mean overexposure. Yes sort of underexposure. God art history is one of four when it deals with the past what bothers me about god history and it deals with the future and we do have a good deal of effort along those lines I think speculation read it actually it's I'm tempted

to set up some kind of deterministic pattern which are what will presumably follow the odd historian. Has I would say it's been a septic task that is to elucidate. They aren't the Republicans but many young art historians don't feel satisfied with the role of scholarship they wish to be art critics and in many cases directed Humoresque didn't Ruskin try to do that and that he was a terrific full swell on the other hand Ruskin was more than an art historian he was also a writer and an art and that Washington also has a lot of what he wanted of Contemporary Art should have a concept of what he would like to see develop in art not attempt to be the expression of some objective force which he has deep from history we have in monthly art historian critics

them talking about a tremendous tendency toward kind of. Well let's say Look into an assistant. It's an inherited it. It's a it's a distorted heritage of the determinism of 1930s politics. I've seen that drift in their art history people are developing the idea that it is quite possible to predict. All right I think I'm going to sort of the things that are kind of clockwork topical all the blocks on the diagram which was awfully provocative. It was a good article yes. So I mean that he was using the past rather intelligently not to say well this therefore justifies it but to show that the sun has very few enriched connections then there's doubt that history study is you. That's what he says. Only Connect Only Connect. There's a wonderful words and I would say that's almost a motto isn't it.

I think you're right that the public has become sophisticated about art through reading books but also not always and sometimes time says I just wanted to ask Mr. Rosenberg went on because I think it's quite interesting. These are two story ins of the future. I know you don't want to mention the bad ones but could you mention any of the goodwill that can be a good workout be a good thing I would mention why we should mention any of them perhaps. Subject has been exhausted already. Well I don't think either the artist should produce or the critic could write with a view to what posterity is going to think but I don't think that we should become so in must in the for in the intoxication of the presence of the novelty of the here and now that we should sort of lose a broad aspect of things. Look ere you are interested in the creative act of the artist. Yes start with being laws by definition and the enjoyments of the case that if the creative act is to take place it can't be anticipated if it can be anticipated it's not a creative act. So what we're talking about is the transformation of the artist from a creator into someone who carries out the will of history when we talk about a historian of the

future no numbness of who fulfills his he has his full possibilities. You can tell or not as you know you should look in the sweat was what Ruskin sometimes did Nanking artists about what they should or shouldn't do he got a lot of that today. Not only. But you have the right to feel dissatisfied with a lot of things if you care about what the human being is capable of doing and see how easy this easily how easily you are satisfied with joyless fragmentary and unresolved statements just denouncing the artist has to be joyless. If that's the way he is and he is I can't see that not necessarily I mean I would not live joyfully joyless. I mean that was fully aware of the best reality of man on the horror as Francis Bacon is. But he didn't stick to one note all his life and indulge in to exploit that. When I say exploitation I don't mean it's conscious with a view to the money market. I think it's the whole tends and the pressures of our time which it's very hard to resist and

each generation gets the art it does I mean that you can't separate the generation from its art that we are for good or evil. I mean the whole situation produces the artist. Well that's a mysterious subject. So we have to be completely fatalistic about it then and say Well here we are you know the. Well it seems to me that a man like Mark to be is is is trying to show all the invisible things I mean you know as of the fact that the invisible matter is more than the visible you think the West Coast. Mark Toby. While I think it's rather lucky to get him. No because now that I'm deserving and sometimes sometimes people sometimes people get more than they deserve I think and that those are occasions for rejoicing. But you see in clay an artist like clay or someone whose

antennae were extremely sensitive to the conflicts the contradictions of his time. And yet he was always growing he was searching he was concerned with the human predicament. Now please don't think I think the most horrible thing a critic or a commentator can do is use the past as a stick to beat the president. I'm not concerned with sticks but I am concerned with some kind of a yardstick something that's still a stick isn't it Mr. Rosenberg I think that's OK. Did I say that I could easily mention Doesn't the American artist diligently search into both art and Clay speaking with the highest respect for Clyde This is not this is not to reduce crime but that elevates these people the only way that I don't list them is that if I did less them. Yeah that would imply that the elimination of a great many other artists I know are off

sow doing that but I think Steve deserves a conclusion anyway. Is that the arts not becoming uncomprehensible. If anything it's the public who is dictating to the artist or not dictating to him but anyway leading him down the garden pop just always she's not so sure of its own instincts and it sounds appealing doesn't show when she grabs a guy. I think art is always in comprehensible if it were not we would not have a constant attempt to understand both right as and by other artists they imperfectly hence ability of art it's simply another way of saying that it has to be brought back to life again by successive acts of creation. Yes thank you very much Mr. Rosenberg. I think that sums it up very well. We've been talking today about all the arts becoming in comprehensible and the guests were Mr. Howard Rosenberg whose new book The anxious object is just a study of contemporary art and Mr Mock's whose book on the middle based on his lectures at the

Metropolitan Museum of Art will be published shortly. Thank you very much indeed Mr. Rosenberg and Mr. Marx. You've been listening to gateway to ideas a new series of conversations in which ideas are discussed in relation to reading today's program. Are the arts becoming in comprehensible as presented. Claude mocks lecturer on art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Harold Rosenberg often literary critic and author of the anxious object. The moderator was in Fremantle noted author and critic. To extend the dimensions of today's program for you a list of the books mentioned in the discussion as well as others relevant to the subject has been prepared. You can obtain a copy from your local library or by writing to gateway to ideas post office box 6 for 1 Time Square Station New York. And please enclose a stamped self-addressed envelope write a box 6 for 1 Time Square

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