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Inside

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the
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TheIdeology
of the GallerySpace
Brian O'Doherty
Introduction by Thomas McEvilley

TheLapisPress
SantaMonica

San Francisco

C o p y r i g h t@1 9 7 6 ,1 9 8 6b y B r i a n O ' D o h e r t y
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for the public press),without written permissionfrom the
publishers.
The essaysin this book originally appearedin Artforum
magazinein 1976in a somewhatdifferentform.
F i r s tb o o k e d i t i o n 1 9 8 6
9 0 8 9 8 8 8 7 8 65 4 J 2 r
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Contents
Acknowledgements
Introductionby ThomasMcEvilley
I. Noteson the GalierySpace
A F a b l eo f H o r i z o n t a l a n d V e r t i c a l . . . M o d e r n i s m . . . T h e P r o p e r t i e so f t h e
l d e a l G a l l e r y . . . T h e S a l o n . . . T h e E a s e lP i c t u r e . . . T h e F r a m e a s
E d i t o r . . . P h o t o g r a p h y . . . l m p r e s s i o n i s m . . . T h e M y tohf t h e P i c t u r e
Plane . . . Matisse. . . Hanging . . .Th PicturePlane as Simile . . .The Wall
as Battlegroundand'Art" . . .The Installation shot . . . .

II.The Eye and the Spectator

A n o t h e r F a b l e . . . F i v e B l a n k C a n v a s s e s. . . P a i n t , P i c t u r e P l a n e ,
O b j e c t s . .. C u b i s m a n d C o l l a g e... S p a c e . . . T h e S p e c t a l o r . . . T h e
Eye . . . Schwitters's Merzbau . . . Schwitters's Performances . . . Happenings
a n d E n v i r o n m e n t s . . . K i e n h o l z , S e g a l .K a p r o w . . . H a n s o n , d e A n d r e a . . .
E y e , S p e c t a t o r ,a n d M i n i m a l i s m . . . P a r a d o x e so f E x p e r i e n c e . .
Conceptuaa
l nd BodyAr[ . . . .

III. ContextasContent
T h e K n o c k a t t h e D o o r . . . D u c h a n ] p ' s K n o c k . C e i l i n g s . . 1 . 2 0 0B a g s0 f
C r a l . . . G e s t u r e s a n d P r o j e c r s. . . T h e M i l e o f S t i n g . . . D u c h a m p ' s
"Body" . . . Hostility ro the Audience . . .The Arrist and the Audience . .
T h e E x c l u s i v e S p a c e . . . T h e S e v e n t i e s. . . T h e W h i t e W a l l . . . T h e W h i t e
C u b e . . . M o d e r n i s t M a n . . . T h e U t o p i a n A r t i s t . . . M o n d r i a n ' sR o o m . .
M o n d r i a n ,D u c h a r n pL
, i s s i t z k y .. . .

Afterword

For SidneyYates,
whofghts for the artist

Acknowledgements
M y t h a n k s t o J o h n C o p l a n s .w h o p u b l i s h e d t h e o r i g i n a l e s s a y si n A r t f o r u m w h e n h e
w a s e d i t o r , a n d t o C h a r l e sC o w l e s ,w h o w a s t h e n t h e p u b l i s h e r . l n g r i d S i s c h y ,t h e p r e s e n t
editor, offered the writer every courtesy in collecting these essays for republication.
J a n B u t t e r f i e l d o f T h e L a p i s P r e s sh a s b e e n a n i d e a l e d i t o r , a n d I a m g r a t e f u l t o h e r f o r
h e r d e t e r m i n a t i o n t o p u t t h e s e a r t i c l e si n b o o k f o r m . B a r b a r a N o v a k r e a d t h e t e x t c l o s e l y ,
a s i s h e r w o n t . N a n c y F o o t e m o s t k i n d l y a s s e m b l e dt h e p h o t o g r a p h s . S u s a n L i v e l y t y p e d
t h e t e x t w i t h p r e c i s i o na n d r r i o .
I am indebted to Jack Stauffacher for his careful design of the book.
I a m a l s o g r a t e f u l t o t h e m u s e u m s a n d g a l l e r i e sw h i c h p e r m i t t e d t h e p u b l i c a t i o n o f r h e
p h o t o g r a p h s w h i c h i l l u s t r a t er h e t e x t .
I w a n t s p e c i a l l yt o l h a n k T h o m a s M c E v i l l e y f o r s o c o g e n t l y s e r r i n g t h e c o n t e x t i n h i s
i n r r o d u c t i o n a n d A n n M c C o y f o r s u g g e s r i n gr h i d e a o f t h e b o o k .
I should also thank Maurice Tuchman for his invitation to lecture at the LosAngeles
C o u n t y M u s e u m o f A r t i n J a n u a r y 1 9 7 5 ,w h e n t h e l e c l u r e " l n s i d e t h e W h i t e C u b e .
1855 - 1974' was first delivered.

Introduction

It has been the specialgenius of our cenrury to investigatethings

in relation to their context,to come to seethe context as formative
on the thing, and. finally, to seethe conrext as a thing itself.In this
classicessay,first published as a seriesof three articlesin Artforum
in1976, Brian O'Doherty discussesthis turn toward context in
twentieth century art. He investigates,perhaps for the first time,
what the highly controlled context of the modernist gallery does
to the art object,what it doesto the viewing subject,and, in a crucial moment for modernism,how the context devoursthe object,
becoming it.
In the flrst of the three sections,O'Doherty describesthe modern
galiery spaceas "constructedalong iaws as rigorous as those for
building a medieval church." The basic principle behind these
laws, he notes,is that "The outside world must not come in, so
windows are usually sealedoff.Walls are painted white.The ceiling becomesthe sourceof light . . . . The art is free, as the saying
used to go, 'to take on its own life.' " The purpose of such a setting
is not unlike the purpose of religiousbuildings - the artworks, like
religiousverities,are to appear "untouc[ed by time and its vicissitudes." The condition of appearingout'of time, or beyond time,
implies a claim that the work already belongs to posterity-that is,
it is an assuranceof good investment.But it does strangethings to
the presentnessof life, which, after all, unfolds itself in time.'Art
existsin a kind of eternity of display.and though rhere is lots of
'period' (late
modern) there is no time.This eternity givesrhe gallery a limbolike status;one has to have died already to be there."
7

In searching for the significance of this mode of exhibition one

must look to other classesof chambers that have been constructed
on similar principles.The roots of this chamber of eternal display
are to be found not in the history of art so much as the history of
religion, where they are in fact even more ancient than the medieval church. Egyptian tomb chambers.for example, provide an
astonishingtycloseparallel.Theytoo were designedto eliminate
awarenessof the outside world.They too were chamberswhere an
illusion of eternal presencewas to be protected from the flow of
time.They too held paintings and sculpturesthat were regardedas
magically contiguous with eternity and thus able to provide access
to it or contact with it. Beforethe Egyptian tomb, functionally
comparablespaceswere the Paleolithicpainted cavesof the Magdalenian and Aurignacian agesin Franceand Spain.There,too,
paintings and sculptures were found in a setting deliberately set
off from the outside world and difficult of access- most of the
famous cave galleries are nowhere near the entrances, and some
of them require exactingclimbing and spelunking to get to them.
Such ritual spacesare symbolic reestablishmentsof the ancient
umbiiicus which, in myths worldwide, once connectedheaven
and earth.The connection is renewed symboiically for the purposesof the tribe or, more speciflcally,of that casteor party in the
tribe whose specialinterestsare ritually represented.Sincethis is a
spacewhere accessto l'righermetaphysicalrealms is made to seem
available,it must be shelteredfrom the appeaianceof changeand
time. This speciallysegregatedspaceis a kind of non-space,ultraspace,or ideal spacewhere the surrounding matrix of space-time
is symbolically annulled. ln Paieolithictimes the ultra-spacefilled
with painting and sculptureseemsto have servedthe ends of magical restitution to the biomass; afterlife bpliefs and rituals may have
been involved also.By Egyptian times thesepurposeshad coalescedaround the personofthe Pharaoh: assuranceofhis afterlife
through eternity was assuranceof the sustenanceof the statefor
which he stood.Behind thesetwo purposesmay be glimpsedthe
political interestsof a classor ruling group attempting to consolidate its grip on power by seeking ratification from eternity. At one
8

level the processis a kind of sympatheticmagic, an artempr ro

obtain somethingby rituarly presentingsomething ersethat is in
some way like the thing that is desired.If something like what one
wants is present, the underlying reasoning implies, then what one
wants may not be far behind. The construction of a supposedly
unchanging space.then, or a space where the effectsof charrg. u..
deliberatelydisguisedand hidden, is sympatheticmagic to pio- mote unchangingnessin the real or non-ritual world; it is an
attempt to castan appearanceof eternality over the statusquo in
terms of socialvaluesand also,in our modern instance,artistic
va I ues.
The eternity suggestedin our exhibition spacesis ostensibly
.
that of artisticposterity,of undying beauty.of the masterpiece.But
in fact it is a specificsensibility,with specificlimitations and conditionings, that is so glorified.By suggestingeternal ratiflcation ofa
certain sensibility,the white cube suggeststhe erernal ratification
of the claims of the casteor group sharing that sensibility.As a
ritual place of meeting for members of that casteor group, it cen_
sors out the worid of socialvariation, promoting a senseof the
sole reality'of its own point of view and, consequently,its endur_
ance or eternal rightness.Seenthus, the endurance of a certain
power structureis the end for which the sympathetic magic of the
white cube is devised.
In the secondof the three sectionsof his essay.O,Dohertv deals
w i t h t h e a s s u m p t i o n sa b o u t h u m a n s e l f h o o dt h " t u r . i n v o l v e di n
the institutionaiization of the white cube.,,presencebefore a work
of art," he writes. "means that we absentourselvesin favor of the
Eye and the Spectaror."By rhe Eyehemeans the disembodied
faculty that relatesexclusivelyto formal visual means.The Spec_
tator is the attenuatedand bleached-outlife of the self from which
the Eye goesforth and which, in.the meantime, does nothing else.
The Eye and the Spectatorare afl that is left of someone who has
"died,"
as O'Doherty puts it, by entering into the white cube.In
return for the glimpse of ersatz eternity that the white cube affords
us-and as a token of our solidarity with the specialinterestsof a
group-we give up our humanness and become the cardboard
9

Spectator with the disembodied Eye. For the sake of the intensity
of the separateand autonomous activity of the Eye we accept a
reduced level of life and self. In classical modernist galleries,as in
churches, one does not speak in a normal voice; one does not
laugh, eat,drink, lie down, or sleep;one does not get ill, go mad,
sing, dance, or make love. Indeed, since the white cube promotes
the myth that we are there essentially as spiritual beings - the Eye
is the Eye of the Soul-we are to be understood as tireless and above
the vicissitudesofchance and change.Thisslender and reduced
form of life is the type of behavior traditionaliy required in religious sanctuaries,where what is important is the repressionof
individual interestsin favor of the interestsof the group.The essentially religiousnature of the white cube is most forcefully expressedby what it doesto the humanness of anyone who entersit
and cooperateswith its premises.On the Athenian Acropolis in
Plato'sday one did not eat,drink, speak,laugh, and so on.
O'Doherty billiantly tracesthe development of the white cube
.out of the tradition of Western
easelpainting. He then redirects
attention to the sane developmentsfrom another point of view,
that of the anti-formalist tradition representedhere by Duchamp's
installations1,200CoalBags\1938) and Mile of String (1942\,
which steppedonce and for all outside the frame of the painting
and made the gallery spaceitself the primary material to be altered
by art. When O'Doherty recommendstheseworks by Duchamp to
the attention of artists of the seventies he implies that not a great
deai has been achievedin the last forty or fifty years in breaking
down the barriersof disinterestor disdain that separatethe two
traditions.Such lack of communication is impressive,sinceartists
themselveshave attemptedto carry on this dialogue for a generation.Yves I(lein, for example,exhibited an empty gallery called
"The Void" (Le vide\ (
I958); shortly rhereafrerArman responded
with an exhibition called "The Full" (te pleinl (1960) in which he
dialecticizedKlein's positing of a transcendentalspacethat is in
the world but not of it by filling the same gallery from floor to ceiling and wall to wall with garbage.Michael Asher, James Lee Byars,
and others have used the empty exhibition space irself as their
l0

primary material in various works - not to mention the

tradition
known as Light and Space.O,Doherty discoveredthe way
to ver_
balize these developments for the first time. His essayis an
exam_
ple.of criticism attempting to digest and analyze theiecent
past
and the present-or shall I saythe recent p..ie.rt. He arguesthat
the communal mind of our culture went ;hrough a sigriificant
shift that expresseditserf in the prominence of the white cube
as a
central material and expressivemode for art, as well as a fashion_
able style of displayingit. He identifies rhe rransirion in question
as modernism bringing "to an endpoint its relentlesshabit
of selfdeflnition." The defining of self means the purposeful neglect
of
all that is other than serf.Ir is a process incriasingly reductive
that
finally leavesthe slatewiped clean.
The white cube was a transitional device that attempted to
bleach out the past arid at rhe same time control the future by
appealingto supposedlytranscendentalmodes ofpresenceand
power. But the problem with transcendentalprinciples is
that by
definition they speakof another world. .rot thir one. It is rhis
other
world, or accessto it, that the whire cube represents.Itis like
Plato'svision of a l"righermetaphysicalrealm where form,
shiningly attenuatedand abstracrlike mathematics,is utterly discon_
nected from the Iife of human experience here below. (pure
form
would exist,Plaro felt, even if this worrd did not. It is little recog)
nized how much this aspectof pratonism has to do with moderriist
ways of thinking, and especiallyas a hidden controlling structure
behind modernist esthetics.Revivedin part as a compensarory
reaction to the decline of religion, and promoted, however mistak_
enly, by our culture'sattention to the unchanging abstraction
of
mathematics,the idea of pure form domihat.d trr. esthetics(and
ethics) from which the white cube emerged.Thepythagoreans
of
Plato s day,including plato himself. held that the beginning
was a
blank where there appearedinexplicably a spot which stretched
into a line, which flowed into a plane, whictrfolded into a solid,
which casta shadow,which is what we see.This set of elements_
point. line, surface,solid, simulacrum - conceived as conientless
except in their own-nature, is the primary equiprnent of much
lt

modern art.The white cuberepresentsthe blank ultimate faceof

light from which, in the Platonicmyth, theseelementsunspeakabiy evolve.In suchtypesof thought, primary shapesand geometric abstractionsareregardedasalive- in fact,as more intensely
alive than anythingwith a specificcontent.Thewhite cube'sultimate meaningis this life-erasingtranscendentalambition disguisedand convertedto specificsocialpurposes'O'Doherty's
issaysin this book aredefensesof the real life of the world against
the iterilizedoperatingroom of the white cube- defensesof time
and changeagainstthe myth of the eternalityand transcendence
of pure form. In fact,they embodythis defenseas much asthey
."p..tt it. Theyarea kind of spookyreminder of time, illustrating
how quickly tlle newestrealizationsof today becomethe classical
Though it is common to saythat modernism'
insightsof yesterday.
rate of changeor development,is over'that
with its exacerbated
rate of changenot only remainsbut is increasing.Articleswritten
todaywili, U1,rOlo, eitherhavebeenforgottenor like these,will
havebecomeclassic.
Thomas McEvilleY
New York City 1986

I. Noteson the GallerySpace

A recurrentscenein sci^fimoviesshowsthe earthwithdrawing

from the spacecraft
until it becomesa horizon,a beachball,
a
grapefruit,a golf ball,a star.With the changesin scale,
responses
slidefrom rheparticularto rhe generat.
fni inaiviaualis replaced
by the raceand we area pushoverfor the race_amortal
biped,or
a tangleofthem spreadout below like a rug.From a certain
heieht
peoplearegenerallygood.verticardistanceencourages
this
' generosity.
Horizontalitydoesn'tseemto havethe samemoral
virtue.Farawayfiguresmay be approachingand we anticipate
the
insecurities
of encounter.
Life is horizontal,just one thinq after
another,a conveyerbelt shufflingus towardthe fro.iror.r."sui
;lr_
tory, the view from the departingspacecraft,
is different.As the
scalechanges,
layersof time aresuperimposed
and throughthem
we projectperspectives
with which to recoverand correcithepast.
No wonderarr gersbollixedup in this process;its history,perceivedthroughtime,is confoundedby the picturein fronr
of your
eyes,a witnessreadyto changetestimonyat the slightertp.r..p_
tual provocation.
Historyand the eyehavea profoundwrangle'at
the centerof this ',constant,,
we call tradition.
All of us arenow surethat the glut of history,rumor,and
evi_
dencewe callthe modernisttradilionis beingcircumscribed
by a
horizon.Lookingdown,we seemoreclearlyits,,laws,, progiess,
of
its armaturehammeredout of idealistphilosophy,its miliiarf
metaphorsof advanceand conquest.What
a sigfrtit is_or was!
Deployedideologies,trancendentrockets,romintic slumswhere
degradation
andidealismobsessively
couple,all thosetroopsrun_
ll

reports
ning backand forth in conventionalwars.Thecampaign
giveus little
ii-t"i*a up pressedbetweenboardson coffeetables
huddle
achievements
paradoxical
ideaof the actualheroics'Those
avant-garde
the
a"*" rft.t., "waiting the revisionsthat will add
it' Indeed'tradition
erato tradition,or,aswe sometimesfear'end
withdraws'looks like another pieceof brici*ff, "t the spacecraft
assemblage
,-U.u. o" the coffeetable-no morethan a kinetic
mythic motors
little
gf".a1"g.,ft.r with reproductions'poweredby
in its midst'onenotices
lnd spoitingtiny modelsof museums'And
"cell" that appearscrucialto making the thing
;; .;;;iy riintea
the gallerYsPace'
work:
'
by that space;or
ifr. irirr6ry of modernismis intimately framed
with changesin
rathe, the hiitory of modern art can be correlated
now reacheda point
it ur rpu.. and in the way we seeit'we have
of the ageis to
(A
*t .r. *. seenot the aribut ttrespacefirst' clich6
comesto
image
An
elalulateoverthe spaceon enteringa gallery')
singlepicture'
.ni.taoi, white,ideaispaceihat' morethan any
art; it clarifies'
century
archetypalimageof tw-entieth
;;;;1h.
attached
usually
itselfthrough a processof f,istoricalinevitability
to the art it contains.
ali cuesthat interihe ideal gallerysubtractsfrom the artwork
ferewiththefactthatitis"art'"Theworkisisolatedfromeveryitself'This
tl-tutwould detractfrom its own evaluationof
it-rir-rg
by otherspaceswhereconpossessed
givesthe spacea presence
throughthe repetitionof a closedsystemof
ventionsarepreserved
v a l u e s . S o m e o f t h e s a n c t i t y o f t h e c h u r c h , t h e f o r mjoins
alityo
fthe
with
iaboratory
courtroom,the mystrlueoi the experimental
Sopowerful
a unique chamberof esthetics'
chicdesignto prodr-,ce
that' once
"t. ,f-t.p"....piuut fieldsof forcewithin this chamber
things
outsideit, uri.u.t lapseinto secularstatus'Conversely'
art focuson
becomeart in a spacewherepowerfulideasabout
mediumthrough
them.lndeed,the objectfrequentlybecomesthe
discussion-a
fo-r
proffered
which theseideasaremanifestedand
aremoreinter("ideas
popularform of laternodernistacademicism
natureof the spacebecomes
.rting tf,unart") .The sacramental
laws of modernism:
projective
clear,and sodoesone of the great
l4

As modernismgetsolder,context becomescontent.In a peculiar

reversal.rhe objectintroducedinro the gallery ,,frames,.ihe gallery
and its laws.
A galleryis constructedalong rawsasrigorousasthosefor building a medievalchurch.The outsideworld must not comein, so
windowsareusuallysealedoff.Wallsarepaintedwhite.Theceiling becomesthe sourceof light.The woodenfloor is polishedso
that you click along clinically,or carpetedso that you pad sound_
lessly,restingthe feetwhile the eyeshaveat the wall. The art is
free,asthe sayingusedto go,,,totakeon its own life.,,The discreet
deskmaybe the only pieceof furniture.In this contexta standing
ashtraybecomesalmosta sacredobject,just asthe firehosein a
modernmuseumlooksnot like a flrehosebut an estheticconun_
drum. Modernism'stranspositionof perceptionfrom life to formal
valuesis complete.
This,of course,is one of modernism,s
fatal
diseases.
Unshadowed,
white,clean,artificial-the spaceis devotedto the
' technologyof esthetics.
Worksof art aremounted,hung,scattered
for study.Theirungrubbysurfaces
areuntouchedby time and its
vicissitudes.
Arr exisrsin a kind of eternityof display,and though
thereis lotsof "period" (latemodem), thereis no time.Thiseter_
nity givesthe gallerya limbolikestatus;one hasto havedied
alreadyto be there.Indeedthe presenceofthat odd pieceoff.rniture,your own body,seemssuperfluous,
an intrusion.The space
offersthe thoughtthat wrrileeyesand nrindsarewelcome.irraceoccupyingbodies,are
not-or aretoleratedonly askinesthetic
mannekinsfor furtherstudy.This Cartesianparadoxis reinforced
by oqe of the iconsof our visualculture:the installationshot,sarzs
figures.Hereat lasttl.respectator,
oneself,is eliminated.you are
therewithout beingthere-one of the major services
providedfor
art by its old antagonist,
photography.The
installationshoris a
metaphorfor the galleryspace.In it an idealis fulfllledasstrongly
a si n a S a l o np a i n r i n go f t h e l 8 3 d s .
Indeed,the Salonitselfimplicitlydefineswhar a galleryis,a
definition appropriatefor the estheticsof the period.A galleryis a
placewith a wall,which is coveredwith a wall of pictures.The
l5

wall itselfhasno instrinsicesthetic;it is simply a necessityfor an

upright animal.SamuelF.B. Morse'sExhibition Galleryat the
as
Louvre( lS33) is upsettingto the moderneye:masterpieces
out and isolatedin space
wallpaper,eachone not yet separated
of
the (to us) horrid concatenation
like a throne.Disregarding
periodsand styles,the demandsmade on the spectatorby the
Are you to hire stiltsto riseto the
hangingpassour understanding.
knees
to sniff anything below the
get
hands
and
on
or
ceiling
overhear
dado?Both high and low areunderprivilegedareas.You
"skied"
but nothing
a lot of complaintsfrom artistsaboutbeing
aboutbeing"floored."Nearthe floor,pictureswere at leastacces"near" Iookbefore
ihe connoisseur's
sibleand couldaccommodate
he withdrewto a morejudiciousdistance.One can seethe ninefeenth centuryaudiencestrolling,peeringup, stickingtheir faces
in picturesand falling into interrogativegroups'aproper distance
away,pointing with a cane,perambulatingagain,clockingoff the
exhibition pictureby picture.Largerpaintingsrise to the top
(easierto seefrom a distance)and aresometimestilted out from
"best" picturesstayin
the wall to maintainthe viewer'spiane;the
the middlezone;smalipicturesdrop to the bottom.Theperfect
hangingjob is an ingeniousmosaicof frameswithout a patchof
w a s t e dw a l l s h o w i n g .
law couldjustify (to our eyes)sucha barbarWhat perceptuai
ity? One-andone only: Eachpicturewas seenasa self-contained
entity,totallyisoiatedfrom its sium-closeneighborby a heavy
systemwithin. Space
framearoundand a completeperspective
just
and categorizable. asthe housesin which
was discontinuous
thesepictureshqng had differentrooms for differentfunctions.
The nineteenthcenlurymind wastaxonomic,and the nineteenth
ofgenreand the authorityof
hierarchies
,centuryeyerecognized
the framd
How did the easelpicturebecomesucha neatlywrappedparcel
coincideswith the riseof
Thediscoveryof perspective
of space?
picture,
in turn, confirmsthe promthe easelpicture,and the easel
ise of illusionisminherentin painting.Thereis a peculiarrelationship betweena mural - painted directly on the wall - and a picture
l6

Sam uel F B. Morse. Exhibition Gallert at the Louvre, l8j2 - )j,

c o u r l e s y T e r r a M u s e u m o f A m e r i c a n A r t , E v a n s t o n ,I l l i n o i s

t7

that hangson a wall; a painted wall is replacedby a piece of portable wall. Limits are establishedand framed; miniaturization
becomes a powerful convention that assistsrather than contradicts
illusion.The spacein murals tends to be shallow; even when illusion is an intrinsic part of the idea, the integrity of the wall is as
oftel,reinforced, by struts of painted architecture, as denied.The
wall itself is always recognized as limiting depth (you don't walk
through it),just as corners and ceiling (often in a variety of inventive ways) limit size.Close up, murals tend to be frank about their
means - iliusionism breaks down in a babble of method. You feel
you are looking at the underpainting and often can't quite find
your "place." Indeed,murals project ambiguous and wandering
vectors with which the spectator attempts to align himself.The
easelpicture on the wall quickly indicatesto him exactiy where
he stands.
For the easdlpicture is like a portable window that, once set on
,
the wall, penetratesit with deep space.Thistheme is endlessly
repeated in northern art. where a window within the picture in
turn frames not only a further distance but confirms the windowlike limits of the frame.Themagical,boxlike statusof some smaller
easelpicturesis due to the immense distancesthey contain and
the perfectdetailsthey sustainon cioseexamination.The frame of
the easelpicture is as much a psychologicalcontainer for the a4ist
as the room in which the viewer standsis for him or her.The perspectivepositionseverythingwithin the picture along a cone of
space,againstwhich the frame acts like-a grid, echoing those cuts
"steps"
of foreground,middleground,and distancewithin. One
firmly into such a picture or glides effortlessly,depending on its
tonality and color.The greaterthe illusion, the greater the invitation to the spectator'seye; the eye is abstractedlrom an hnchored
'
body and projectedas a miniature proxy into the picture to inhabit
and test the articulationsof its space.
For this process,the stability of the frame is as necessaryas an
oxygen tank is to a diver. Its limiting security completely defines
the experiencewithin.The border as absoluteiimit is confirmed in
easelart up to the nineteenth century.Where it curtails or elides
t8

il

subjectmatter,it doesso in a way that strengthensthe edge.The

classicpackageof perspectiveenclosedby the Beaux-Artsframe
makesit possiblefor picturesto hang like sardines.Thereis no .
suggestionthat the spacewithin the picture is continuouswith
the spaceon either sideof it.
, This suggestionis made only sporadicallythrough the eight_
. eenth and nineteenthcenturiesas atmosphereand color eataway
at the perspective.
Landscapeis the progenitorof a translucent
mist that puts perspectiveand tone/colorin opposition,because
implicit in eachare oppositeinterpretationsof the wall they hang
on_.
Picturesbeginto appearthat put pressureon the frame.The
archetypalcomposifionhereis the edge-to-edge
horizon,separat_
ing zonesof sky and sea,often underlined by beach,with maybe
a figurefacing,as everyonedoes,the sea.Formal compositionis
gone; the frameswithin the frame (coulisses,
repoussoirs,
the Braille
of perspectivedepth) have slid away.Whatis left is an ambiguous
surfacepartly framedfrom the insideby the horizon.Suchpictures
(by Courbet,CasparDavid Friedrich,Whistler,and hostsof little
masters)arepoisedbetweeninfinite depth and flatnessand tend
to read aspattern.The powerful convention of the horizon zips
easilyenoughthrough the limits of the frame.
Theseand certainpicturesfocusingon an indeterminatepatch
of landscapethat often looks like the ,,wrong,.subjectintroduce
the ideaof noticingsomething,of an eyescanning.This
temporal
quickeningmakesthe framean equivocal,and not ah absolute,
zone.Onceyou know that a patchoflandscaperepresents
a deci_
sion to excludeeverythingaround it, you are faintly awareof the
spaceoutsidethe picture.Theframebecomesa parenthesis.The
separationof paintingsalonga wall, through a kind of magnetic
repulsion,becomesinevitable.And it wes accentuatedand Iargely
- or art- devotedto the excisiono1a
initiatedby the new science
subjectfrom its context:photography.
In a photograph,the locationof the edgeis a primarydecision,
- or decomposes
- what it surrounds.Eventually
sinceit composes
framing,ediring,cropping- establishinglimits - becomemajor
actsof composition.But not so much in the beginning.Therewas
l9

the usual holdover of pictorial conventions to do some of the work

of framing - internal buttressesmade up of convenient trees and
knolls.The best early photographs reinterpret the edge without
tlle assistanceof pictorial conventions. They lower t}:'.etension on
the edge by allowing the subject matter to compose itself, rather
than bonsciouslyaligning it with the edge.Perhapsthis is typical
ofthe nineteenth century.The nineteenth century looked at a subject-not at its edges.Variousfields were studied within their
declaredIimits. Studying not the fleld but its limits, and defining
these limits for the purpose of extending them, is a twentieth century habit. We have the illusion that we add to a fleld by extending
it laterally,not by going, as the nineteenth century might sayin
proper perspectivestyle,deeperinto it. Even scholarshipin both
centurieshas a recognizablydifferent senseofedge and depth, of
Iimits and definition. Photography quickly learned to move away
from heavy framesand to mount a print on a sheet of board.A
.frame was allowed to surround the board after a neutral interval.
Early photography recognizedthe edge but removed its rhetoric,
softenedits absolutism,and turne d it into a zone rather than the
strut it later became.One way or another,the edge as a firm conventio.n locking in the subject had become fragile.
Much of this applied to Impressionism,in which a major rheme
was the edgeas umpire of what's in and what's out. But this was
combined with a far more important force,the beginning of the
decisivethrust that eventually altered the idea of the picture,the
way it was hung, and ultimately the gallery space:the myth of
flatness,which becamethe powerful logician in painting's argument for self-definition'The development of a shaflow literal space
(containing invented forms, as distinct from the old illusory space
containing "real" forms) put further pressureson the edge'The
great inventor here is, of course,Monet.
Indeed, the magnitude of the revolution he initiated is such that
there is some doubt his achievementmatches iU for he is an artist
of decidedlimitations (or one who decided on his limitations and
stayed within them). Monet's landscapes often seem to have been
noticed on his way to or from the real subject.There is an impres20

C l a u d e M o n e t , W a t e rL i l i e s , 1 9 2 0 ,r r i p r y c h : e a c h p a n e l 6 , 6 , ' x 1 4 ' ,
courtesy Museum of Modern Art, New york.
Mrs. Simon Guggenheim Fund

2l

sion that he is settlingfor a provisionalsolution; the very featurelessnessrelaxesyour eyeto look elsewhere.Theinformal subject
. matter of Impressionismis alwayspointed out, but not that the
subjectis seenthrough a casualglance,one not too interestedin
"looking at"
what it's looking at.What is interestingin Monet is
this look - the integumentof light, the often preposterousformularization of a perceptionthrough a punctatecodeof color and
edge
touch which remains(until nearthe end) impersonal.The
that
decision
eclipsingthe subjectseemsa somewhathaphazard
could just aswell havebeenmade a few feet left or right.A signature of Impressionismis the way the casuallychosensubjectsoftens the edge'sstructuralrole at a time when the edgeis under
douof the space.This
pressurefrom the increasingshallowness
bled and somewhatopposingstresson the edgeis the preludeto
the definition of a painting as a self-sufficientobject-a container
of illusory fact now becomethe primary fact itself-which setsus
on the high road to somestirring estheticclimaxes.
Flatnessand objecthoodusually find their first officialtext in
Maurice Denis'sfamousstatementin 1890that beforea pictureis
subjectmatter,it is first of all a surfacecoveredwith lines and colors.Thisis one of thoseliteralismsthat soundsbrilliant or rather
Right now, having seenthe enddumb, dependingonthe Zeitgeist.
nonillusion and nonnonstructure,
point to which nonmetaphor,
makesit sounda little obtuse.
contentcantakeyou,the Zeitgeist
That pictureplane- the ever-thinningintegumentof modernist
seemsreadyfor WoodyAllen and hasindeed
integrity- sometimes
attractedits shareof ironistsand wits. But this ignoresthat the
powerful myth of the picture plane receivedits impetusfrom the
centuriesduringwhich it sealedin unalterablesystemsof illusion.
Conceivingit differentlyin the modern era was an heroicadjustment that signifieda totaily differentworid viei'v,which was
trivialized into esthetics,into the technologyof flatness.
The literalizationof the pictureplaneis a greatsubject.As the
vesselof contentbecomesshallowerand shallower,composition
and subjectmatter and metaphysicsall overflowacrossthe edge
the emptyingout is
until, as GertrudeSteinsaidaboutPicasso,
22

complete.But all the jettisoned apparatus-hierarchies of painting,

illusion, locatablespace,mythologies beyond number-bounced
back in disguiseand attachedthemselves,via new mythologies,to
the literal surfdce,which had apparently left them no purchase.
The transformation of literary myths into literal myths-objecthood, the integrity of the picture plane, the equalization of space.
the self-sufflciency of the work, the purity of form-is unexplored
territory.Without this change,art would have been obsolete.
Indeed,its changesoften seem one step ahead of obsolescence,
and to that degreeits progressmimics the laws of fashion.
The cultivation of the picture plane resulted in an entity with
length and breadth but no thickness,a membrane which, in a
metaphor usually organic,could generateits own self-sufficient
laws.The primary law, of course,was that this surface,pressed
between huge historicalforces,couid not be violated.A narrow
space forced to represent without representing, to symbolize without benefit ofreceived conventions,generateda plethora ofnew
conventionswithout a consensus-color codes,signaturesof
paint, private signs,intellectually formulated ideas of structure.
Cubism'sconceptsof structureconservedthe easelpainting status
quo; Cubistpaintings are centripetal,gathered toward the center,
fading out toward the edge.(Is this why Cubist paintings rend to
be small?) Seuratunderstoodmuch better how to define the limits
of a classicformulation at a rime when edgeshad become
equivocal.Frequently,painted borders made up of a glomeration
ofcolored dots are deployedinward to separateout and describe
the subject.The border absorbsthe slow movements of the structure within.To muffle the abruptnessof the edge,he sometimes
pattered all over the frame so that the eye could move out of the
picture-and back into it-witirout a bump.
Matisseunderstoodthe dilemma of the picture plane and its
tropism toward outward extension better than anyone.His pictures grew bigger as if, in a topological paradox, depth were being
translatedinto a flat analog.On this, place was signifiedby up and
down and left and right, by color, by drawing that rarely closed a
contour without calling on the surface to contradict it, and by
23

paint appliedwith a kind of cheerfulimpartiality to everypart of

that surface.InMatisse'slargepaintingswe are hardly everconsciousof the frame.He solvedthe problem of lateral extensionand
containmentwith perfecttact.He doesn'temphasizethe centerat
the expenseof the edge,or vice versa.His picturesdon't make
arrogantclaimsto stretchesof bare wall.They look good almost
anywhere.Theirtough,informal structureis combinedwith a
decorativeprudencethat makesthem remarkablyself-sufficient.
Theyareeasyto hang.
Hanging,indeed.is what we needto know more about.From
history.
ofhangingarean unrecovered
Courbeton, conventions
The way picturesarehung makesassumptionsabout what is
offered.Hangingeditorializeson mattersof interpretationand
influencedby tasteand fashion.Subvalue.and is unconsciously
Iiminal cuesindicateto the audienceits deportment.It shouldbe
possibleto correlatethe internal history of paintingswith the
externalhistory of how they were hung.We might begin our
searchnot with a modeof displaycommunallysanctioned(iike
the Salon),but with the vagariesof privateinsight-with those
and eighteenthcenturycollectorseiepicturesof seventeenth
gantly sprawiedin the midst of their inventory.The first modern
in which a radicalartistsetup his own space
I suppose,
occasion,
and hung his picturesin it wasCourbet'sone-manSalondes
Refusds
outsidethe Expositionof I855.How were the pictures
their relationhung? How did Courbetconstruetheir sequence,
did nothing
he
I
suspect
between?
ship to eachother,the spaces
(who
happened
startling;yet it wasthe firsttime a modernartist
to be the flrst modern artist)had to constructthe context of his
work and thereforeeditorializeaboutits values.
Thoughpicturesmayhavebeenradical,their earlyframingand
hangingusuallywasnot.Theinterpretationof what a picture
impliesaboutits contextis always,we may assume,delayed'In
stucktheir pictures
their firstexhibitionin I874,the Impressionists
cheekby jowl, just asthey would have hung in the Salon.Impressionistpictures,which asserttheir flatnessand their doubtsabout
the limiting edge,arestill sealedoff in Beaux-Artsframesthat do

little more than announce "Old Master,,-and monetary - status.

When William C. Seitztook off the frames for his greatMonet
show at the Museum of Modern Art in t960, the undressedcanvasseslooked a bit like reproductions until you saw how they
began to hold the wall.Though the hanging had its eccenrric
moments, it read the pictures' relation to the wall correctlvand. in
a rare act of curatorial daring, followed up the implicationi. Seitz
also set some of the Monets flush with the wall. Continuous with
the wall, the picturestook on some of the rigidity of tiny murals.
The surfacesturned hard as the picture plane was ,,overliteralized."The differencebetween the easelpicture and the
mural was clarified.
The relation between the picture plane and the underlying wall
is very pertinent to the estheticsof surface.The inch of the
stretcher'swidth amounts to a formal abyss.The easelpainting is
not transferableto the wall, and one wants to know why. What is
lost in the transfer?Edges,surface,the grain and bite ofthe canvas,
the separationfrom the wall. Nor can we forget that the whole
thing is suspendedor supported- transferable,mobile currency.
After centuriesof illusionism. it seemsreasonableto suggestthat
theseparameters,no matter how flat the surface,are the loci of
the last tracesof illusionism. Mainstream painting right up to
Color Field is easelpainting, and its literalism is practicedagainst
\
these desiderataof illusionism. Indeed, these tracesmake
literalism interesting;they are the hidden component of the
dialecticalengine that gave the late modernist easelpicture its
energy.If you copied a late modernist easelpicture onto the wall
and then hung the easelpicture besideit, you could estimatethe
degreeof illusionism that turned up in the faultlessliteral pedigree
of the easelpicture.At the same timel tl-rerigid mural would underline the importance of surfaceand edgesto the easelpicture, now
beginning to hover closeto an objecthood defined by the ,,literal,,
remnants of illusion-an unstable area.
The attackson painting in the sixtiesfailed to specifythat it
wasn't painting but the easelpicture that was in trouble. Color
Field painting was thus conservativein an interestingway, but not
25

to those who recognized that the easel picture couldn't rid itself of
illusion and who rejectedthe premise of something lying quietly
on the wall and behaving itself. I've always been surprised that
Color Field - or late modernist painting in general- didn't try to
get onto the wall, didn't attempt a rapprochement between the
mural and the easelpicture. But then Color Field painting conformed to the social context in a somewhat disturbing way. It
remained Salon painting: it needed big walls and big collectors
and couldn't avoid looking like the ultimate in capitalist art. Minimal art recognized the illusions inherent in the easel picture and
didn't have any illusions about society.It didn't ally itself with
wealth and power, and its abortive attempt to redefine the relation
of the artist to various establishmentsremains largely unexplored.
Apart from Color Field,late modernist painting postulatedsome
ingenious hypotheseson how to squeezea little extra out ofthat
. recalcitrant picture plane, now so dumbly literal it could drive you
crazy.Thestrategyhere was simile (pretending),not metaphor
"like a ." The
(betieving): sayingthe picture plane is
blank was filled in by flat things that lie obligingly on the literal
surfaceand fuse with it, e.g.,Johns'sFlags,CyTwombly's
"sheets" of lined
blackboard paintings,Alex Hay'shuge painted
"notebooks." Then there is the "like a window
paper,Arakawa's
"like a sky" area.There'sa good comedy-ofshade," "like a wall,"
"like a -"
solution
manners pieceto be written about the
including
related
areas,
plane.There
are
numerous
to the picture
the perspectiveschemaresoiutelyflattened into two dimensions
ro quote the picture plane'sdilemma. And before leaving this area
of rather desperatewit, one should note the solutions that cut
through the picture plane (Lucio Fontana3 answer to the Gordian
surface) until the picture is taken away and the wall's plaster
attacked directlY'
Also relatedis the solution that lifts surfaceand edgesoff that
Procrustean stretcher and pins, sticks, or drapes paper, fiberglass,
or cloth directly against the wall to literalize even further. Here a
lot of Los Angelespainting falls neatly-for the first time!-into the
historical mainstream; it's a little odd to seethis obsessionwith
26

surface,disguisedasit may be with vernacularmacho,dismissed

asprovincialimpudence.
All this desperatefussmakesyou realizeall over againwhat a
conservativemovementcubism was.It extendedthe viability of
the easelpictureand postponedits breakdown.Cubismwasreducible to system,and systems,being easierto understandthan art.
dominateacademichistory.Systemsare a kind of p.R.which,
amongotherthings,pushthe ratherodiousideaof progress.
prog_
resscan be definedaswhat happenswhen you eliminaie the
opposition.However,
the tough oppositionvoicein modernismis
that of Matisse,andit speaksin its unemphatic,rationalway about
color,which in the beginningscaredCubismgray.ClementGreen_
berg'sArt and culturereportson how the New york artistssweatecrr
out Cubism.while castingshrewdeyeson Matisseand Mir6.
AbstractExpressionist
paintingsfollowed the route of lateral
expansion,droppedoff the frame,and graduallybeganto conceive
eaqeasa strucruralunit through which the painting entered
lfe
into a dialoguewith the wall beyond ir. Ar rhis point the dealer
and curatorenterfrom the wings.How they- in collaboration
with the artist-presented
theseworks,contributed,in the late
foities and fifties,to the deflnition of rhe new painting.
Throughthe flftiesand sixties,we notice the codifiiation of a
new themeasit evolvesinto consciousness:
How much space
shoulda work of art have(asrhe thrase went) ro ,,breathe,,Z
tf
paintingsimplicitly declaretheir own terms of occupancy,the
somewhataggrieved
mutteringbetweenthem becomesharderto
ignore.What goesrogerher,
what doesn,t?The esthetics
of hanging
evolvesaccordingto its own habits,which becomeconventions,
which becomelaws.we enterthe era whereworks of art conceive
the wall asa no-man'sland on which to projecttheir conceptof
the territorial imperative.And we are not far from the kind of border warfarethat often Baikanizesmuseum group shows.Thereis a
peculiaruneasiness
in watchingartworksattemptingto establish
territorybut not placein the contextof the placeless
modern
gallery.
All this trafficacrossthe wall made it a far-from-neutralzone.
27

: r a n k S t e l l a i,n s t a l l a t i o nv i e w ,l 9 6 4 ,
o u r t e s yL e o C a s t e l lC
i a l l e r yN
, en York
28

Now a participantin, rather than a passivesupportfor,the art, the

wall becamethe locusof contendingideologies;and everynew
developmenthad to comeequippedwith an attitude toward it.
(GeneDavis'sexhibition of micro-picturessurroundedby oodles
of spaceis a goodjoke aboutthis.) Oncethe wall becamean esthetic force,it modifiedanything shown on it.The wall, the context
of the art,had becomerich in a content it subtly donatedto the art.
It is now impossibleto paint up an exhibition without surveying
the spacelike a healthinspector,
taking into accountthe esthetics
of the wall which will inevitably "aftify" the work in a way that
frequentlydiffusesits intentions.Most of us now "read" the hanging aswe wouid chewgum-unconsciouslyand from habit.The
wall's estheticpotencyreceiveda final impetusfrom a realization
that,in retrospect,
hasall the authorityof historicalinevitability:
The easelpicturedidn't haveto be rectangular.
Stella'searlyshapedcanvasses
bent or cut the edgeaccordingto
the demandsof the internal logic that generatedthem. (Here
ld'ihael Fried'sdistinctionbetweeninductive and deductivestructrfie remainsone of the few practicalhand tools addedto the critid3 blackbag.) The resultpowerfully activatedthe wall; the eye
frequentlywent searching
tangentiallyfor the wall'slimits.Stella's
show ofstripedU-,T-,and L-shapedcanvasses
at Castelliin 1960
"developed"everybit of the wall,
floor to ceiling,cornerro corner.
Flatness,
edge,format,and wall had an unprecedented
dialoguein
that smail,uptown Castellispace.As they were presented,
the
works hoveredbetweenan ensembleeffectand independence.
The hangingtherewasasrevolutionaryas the paintings;sincethe
hangingwaspart of the esthetic,
it evolvedsimultaneously
with
the pictures.Thebreakingof the rectangleformally confirmedthe
wall'sautonomy,alteringfor goodthe conceptof the galleryspace.
Someof the mystiqueof the shallowpictureplane (oneof the
threemajorforcesthat alteredthe galleryspace)had beentransferredto the contextof art.
Thisresultbringsus backagainto that archetypalinstailation
shot-the suaveextensions
of the space,the pristineclarity,the
pictureslaid out in a row like expensivebungalows.ColorField
29

. e n n e t h N o l a n d , i n s r a l l a t i o n v i e w . 1 96 7 ,
ourtesy Andr Emmerich Gallery, New york

l0

e n e D a v i s , i n s t a l l a t i o n v i e w , 1 9 6 8 .c o u r t e s y F i s c h b a c h
Gallery,
ew York (photo: John A. Ferrari)
ll

william Anastasi,Westwal!,DwanMain Gallery,1967

(photo: walter Russell)
j2

H e l e n F r a n k e n t h a l e r ,i n s t a l l a r i o nv i e w . 1 9 6 8 .
cou rtesy Andrd Emmerich Gallerv

33

painting,which inevitablycomesto mind here' is the most impepicturesrecur as

rial of modesin its demandfor lebensraum.The
reassuringiyasthe columnsin a classictemple.Eachdemands
enough tpu.. so that its effectis over beforeits neighbor'spicks
up. Otherwise,the pictureswould be a singleperceptualfield,
frank ensemblepainting,detractingfrom the uniquenessclaimed
ColorFieldinstallationshot shouldbe recogby eachcanvas.The
endpointsof the moderntradition.
teleological
nizedasone of the
There is somethingsplendidlyluxurious about the way the pictures and the gaileryresidein a context that is fully sanctioned
socially.We areawarewe arewitnessinga triumph of high seriousnessand hand-tooledproduction,Iike a RollsRoycein a showroom that beganasa Cubistjalopyin an outhouse'
What commentcan you make on this? A comment hasbeen
made already,in an exhibition by William Anastasiat Dwan in
New Yorkin 1965.He photographedthe emptygalleryat Dwan'
noticed the parametersof the wall, top and bottom' right and left'
theiplacementof eachelectricaloutlet, the oceanof spacein the
middle. He then silkscreenedall this data on a canvasslightly
smallerthan the wall and put it on the wall. Coveringthe wall
with an imageof that wall deliversa work of art right into the zone
where surfaie,mural, and wall have engagedin dialoguescentral
to modernism.In fact,this history was the theme of thesepaintings,a theme statedwith a wit and cogencyusually absentfrom
For me, at Ieast,the show had a peculiar
ou-rwritten clarifications.
after-effect;when the paintingscame down, the wall becamea
mural and so changedeveryshowin that
kind of ready-made
sDacethereafter.

II. The Eyeand the Spectator

Couldn't modernismbe taught to children as a seriesof Aesop,s
fables?It would be more memorablethan art appreciation.Think
of suchfablesas"Who Killed Illusion?" or "How the EdgeRevolted
Againstthe Center.""The Man Who Violatedthe Canvas,,could
follow "Where Did the FrameGo?" I would be easyto draw morals:think of "TheVanishingImpastoThat SoakedAway-and Then
CameBackand Got Fat."And how would we tell the storyof the
little PicturePlanethat grew up and got so mean? How it evicted
everybody,including FatherPerspective
and Mother Space.who
had raisedsuchnice real children,and left behind only this horrid
resultof an incestuousaffair calledAbstraction,who looked down
on everybody,
including-eventually-itsbuddies,Metaphorand
Ambiguity; and how Abstracrionand the picture plane,thick as
thieves,keptbootingout a persistent
guttersnipenamedCollage,
who just wouidn'tgiveup. Fablesgiveyou more latituderhan art
history.I suspectart historianshavefantasiesabout their fields
they would like to make stick.Thisis a prefaceto somegeneralizationsaboutCubismand collagethat seemequallytrue and fictitious,and thuscomposea fairy talefor adults.
Theforcesthat crushedfour hundredyearsof illusionismand
idealismtogetherand evictedthem from the picturetranslated
deepspaceinto surfacetension.Thissurfacerespondsasa fieldto
any mark on it. Onemark wasenoughto establisha relationship
not so much with the next aswith the estheticand ideological
potencyof the blank canvas.
The contentof the emptycanvas
increased
asmodernismwent on.Imaginea museumof such
potencies,
a temporalcorridorhung with blank canvasses-from
1 8 5 0 ,1 8 8 0 ,1 9 I 0 ,1 9 5 0 ,1 9 7 0E
. a c hc o n r a i n sb,e f o r ea b r u s hi s l a i d
on it. assumptions
implicit in the art of its era.As the series
approachesthe present,eachmemberaccumulatesa more comt>

plex latent content.Modernism'sclassicvoid endsup stuffedwith

ideasall readyto jump on the first brushstroke.The specialized
surfaceof the moderncanvasis as aristocratican invention as
human ingenuityeverevolved.
Inevitably,what went on that surface,paint itself,becamethe
locus of conflictingideologies.Caughtbetweenits substanceand
its metaphoricalpotential,paint re-enactedin its materialbody
the residualdilemmasof illusionism.As paint becamesubject,
out of it.Theintegillusionismwas squeezed
object,and process,
rity of the pictureplaneand the morality of the medium favorlateral extension.The
mainstreamasscheduledfrom Czanneto
it with verticaland
Color Fieldglidesalongthe wall,measures
horizontal coordinates,maintainsthe propriety of gravity and the
upright viewer.Thisis the etiquetteof normal socialdiscourse,
and through it the mainstreamviewer is continually reintroduced
to the wall, which in turn supportsthe canvas-its surfacenow so
sensitivethat an objecton it would causeit. asit were,to blink.
But ashigh art vacuumedthe picture plane,the vernacular
its vulgar equivalent.While the
surpasseditselfin transgressing
Impressionistsoccludedtraditional perspectivewith a curtain of
paint, popular paintersand photographersin many countries
to
gamedwith illusion from Archimboldesquegrotesqueries
trompe lbeil. Shells,glitter,hair.stones,minerals,and ribbons
photographs,frames,shadowboxes.
were attachedto postcards,
This tacky efflorescence,
saturatedin the Victorian'scorrupt version of short-term memory- nostalgia- was,of course,a subSowhen, in l9l l, Picasso
stratumof Symbolismand Surrealism.
stuckthat pieceof oil cloth printedwith chair-caningon a canvas,
may haveseenit asa retardataire
someadvancedcolleagues
gesture.
That work is now collage'sExhibit A. Artists.historians,critics
are alwaystrampingbackto l9l I to take a look at it. It marksan
glasspassage
from the picture's
irrevocable
through-the-lookingspaceinto the secularworld, the spectator'sspace.Analytic Cubism
didn't push laterallybut pokedout the picture plane,contradicting
previousadvancesin definingit. Facetsof spaceare thrust forward;
J6

PabloPicasso,Srill Lifewith ChairCaning,tgll

sometimesthey look stuckon the surface.Bits of Analytic Cubism,

then,couldalreadybe seenasa kind of.collage
manqud.
The moment a collagewas attachedto that unruly Cubistsurfacethere wasan instantaneousswitch.No Ionger ableto pin a
subjecttogetherin a spacetoo shallow for it, the multiple vanishing points of the Analytic Cubistpicture showerout into the room
with the spectator.
His point of view ricochetsamong them.The
surfaceof the pictureis madeopaqueby collage.Behind it is simply a wall, or a void.In front is an open spacein which the viewer's
senseof his own presence
becomesan increasinglypalpable
shadow.Expelledfrom the Edenof illusionism.kept out by the
literal surfaceof the picture,the spectatorbecomesenmeshedin
the troubledvectorsthat provisionallydefinethe modernistsensibility.Theimpurespacein which he standsis radicallychanged.
The estheticsof discontinuitymanifestthemselvesin this altered
spaceand time.The autonomyof parts,the revolt of objects,pocketsof void becomegenerativeforcesin all the arts.Abstractionand
reality- not realism- conductthis rancorousargumentthroughpictureplane,like an exclusivecountryciub,
out modernism.The
keepsrealityout andfor goodreason.Snobbishness
is,afterall, a
form of purity,prejudicea way of being consistent.Realitydoes
not conformto the rulesofetiquette,subscribe
to exclusivevalues,
or wear a tie; it hasa vulgarsetof relationsand is frequentlyseen
slummingamongthe senses
with other antitheticalarts.
Both abstraction
and reality,however,areimplicatedin that
The exclusivedivision
sacredtwentiethcenturydimension,space.
betweenthem hasblurredthe factthat the firsthasconsiderable
- contraryto the modernmyth that art is "usepracticalrelevance
less."Ifart hasany culturalreference(apartfrom being"culture")
surelyit is in the definitionof our spaceand time.Theflow of
energybetrveenconcepts
of spacearticulatedthroughthe artwork
and the spacewe occupyis one of the basicand leastunderstood
forcesin modernism.
Modernistspaceredefinesthe observer's
status,tinkerswith his self-image.
Modernism'sconceptionof
space,not its subjectmatter,may be what the public rightly conceivesasthreatening.
Now,of course,spacecontainsno threats,
l8

hasno hierarchies.
Its mythologiesaredrained,its rhetoriccol_
lapsed.It is simply a kind of undifferentiatedpotency.This is not a
"degeneration"
ofspacebut the sophisticated
conventionofan
advancedculture which has cancelledits valuesin the name of an
abstractioncalled"freedom.',Spacenow is not just where things
happen;thingsmakespacehappen.
Spacewasclariflednot only in the picture,bur in the place
wherethe picturehangs-the gallery,which,with postmodeinism,
joins the pictureplaneasa unit of discourse.
If thepictureplane
definedthe wall, collagedefinesthe spacebetweenthe wails.The
fragmentfrom the real world plonked on rhe picture,ssurfaceis
the imprimaturof an unstoppablegenerativeenergy.Do we not,
throughan odd reversal,
aswe standin the galleryspace.end up
insidethepicture,lookingout ar an opaquepictureplanethat pio_
tectsus from a void? (Could Lichtenstein,spaintingsof t].ebaik of
a canvasbe a text for this?)As we movearoundthat space,looking
at the walls,avoidingthings on the floor,we becomeawarethat
that galleryalsocontainsa wanderingphantomfrequentlymen_
tionedin avant-garde
dispatches-the Spectator.
Who is this Spectator,
alsocalledthe Viewer,sometimescalled
the Observer,
occasionally
the perceiver?
It hasno face,is mostlya
back.It stoopsand peers,is slightlyclumsy.Its atrirudeis inquiring,
its puzzlementdiscreet.
He-I,m sureit is more male than female_
arrivedwith modernism,with the disappearance
of perspective.
He seemsborn out of the pictureand,like someperceptualAdam.
is drawnbackrepeatedly
to contemplateit.The Spectatorseemsa
little dumb; he is not you or me.Alwayson call,he staggers
into
placebeforeeverynew work that requireshis presence.This
obliging stand-inis readyto enactour fanciestspeculations.
He tests
them patientlyand doesnot resentthat we providehim with direc_
"The viewerfeels
tions and responses:
. . ."; ,,theobserver
"
notices. . ."; the spectatormoves. . . .,,He is sensitiveto effects:
"The effecton
the specrator
is . . . .,, He smellsout ambiguitieslike
a bloodhound:"caughtbetweentheseambiguities,theipec_
tator. . . ." He not oniy standsand sitson command;he liesdown
and evencrawlsasmodernismpresses
on him its final indignities.
)9

Roy Lichtenstein, Stretcher

Frame,196E,
courtesyIrving Blum (photo: RudolphBurckhardt)

Plungedinto darkness,
deprivedofperceptualcues,blastedby
strobes,he frequentlywatcheshis own image choppedup and
recycledby a varietyof media.Art conjugateshim, but he is a sluggishverb,eagerto carry the weight of meaning but not alwaysup
to it. He balances;
he tests;he is mystified,demystified.Intime.the
Spectatorstumblesaround betweenconfusingroles:he is a cluster
of motor reflexes,a dark-adaptedwanderer,the vivant in a tableau,an actormanqu,evena triggerof soundand light in a space
land-minedfor art.He may evenbe told that he himselfis an artist
and be persuaded
that his contributionto what he observes
or
trips overis its authenticatingsignature.
Yetthe Spectator
hasa dignifledpedigree.His genealogy
includesthe eighteenthcenturyrationalistwith an astuteeyeAddison'sSpectator,
perhaps,whosegalleryequivalentis called
"the onlooker"and "the
beholder."A closerantecedentis the
Romanticself,which quickly splitsto producean actor and an
audience,a protagonistand an eyethat observeshim.
ThisRomanticsplitis comparableto the additionof the third
actorto the Greekstage.Levelsof awareness
are multiplied,
relationships
reformed,new voidsfilledin with meta-commentary
by the audience.The
Spectatorand his snobbishcousinthe Eye
good
arrivein
company.Delacroixcallsthem up occasionally;
Baudelairehobnobswith them.Theyarenot on suchgoodterms
with eachother.TheepiceneEyeis far more intelligentthan the
Spectator,
who hasa touch of male obtuseness.
The Eyecanbe
trainedin a way the Spectatorcannot.Itis a finely tuned,even
nobleorgan,esthetically
and sociailysuperiorto the Specrator.
It
is easyfor a writer to havea Spectatoraround*there is something
of the EternalFootmanabouthim. It is more difficultto havean
Eye,althoughno writer shouldbe without one.Not havingan Eye
is a stigmato be hidden,perhapsby knowing someonewho has
one.
The Eyecanbe directedbut with lessconfidencethan rhe Spectator,who, unlike the Eye,is rathereagerto please.The
Eyeis an
oversensitive
acquaintance
with whom one must stayon good
terms.It is often quizzeda little nervously,its responsesreceived
4l

respectfully.It must be waited on while it observes- observation

being its perfectlyspecializedfunction: "The eyediscriminates
between. . . .Theeyeresolves. . . .Theeyetakesin. balances,
weighs,discerns,perceives. . . ." But like any thoroughbred,it has
its limits. "Sometimesthe eyefails to perceive. . . ." Not always
predictable,
it hasbeenknown to lie.It hastroublewith content,
which is the lastthing the Eyewants to see.It is no good at all for
Iookingat cabs,bathroomflxtures,girls,sportsresults.Indeed,
it is
so specialized
it canend up watchingitself.But it is unmatchedfor
looking at a particularkind of art.
The Eyeis the only inhabitantof the sanitizedinstallationshot.
The Spectatoris not present.Installationshotsaregenerallyof
abstract
works;realistsdon,tgo in for them much.In installation
shotsthe questionof scaieis confirmed (the sizeof the galleryis
deducedfrom the photo)and blurred (the absenceof a Spectator
couldmeanthe galleryis 30 feethigh).Thisscalelessness
conforms
with the fluctuationsthrough which reproductionpassesthe successfulwork of art.The art the Eyeis broughtto bearon almost
exciusivelyis that which preservesthe picture plane- mainstream
modernism.The
Eyemaintainsthe seamless
galleryspace.
its walls
sweptby flat planesof duck.Everythingelse-all thingsimpure,
includingcollage-favorsthe Spectator.The
Spectatorstandsin
spacebrokenup by the consequences
ofcollage,the secondgreat
forcethat alteredthe galleryspace.
When the Spectatoris Kurt
Schwitters,
we arebroughtto a spacewe can only occupythrough
eyewitness
reports,by walkingour eyesthroughphotographs
that
tantalizeratherthan confirmexperience:
his Merzbauof 1923at
Hanover,destroyed
in 1943.
"It growsabout the way a big city does."
wrote Schwitters,
"when a new buildinggoes
up, the HousingBureauchecksto see
that the whole appearance
of the city is not goingto be ruined.In
my case,I run acrosssomethingor other that looks to me as
though it would be right for the I(deE ICathedralof Erotic Miseryl, so I pick it up. takeit home,and attachit and paint it, always
keepingin mind the rhythm of the whole.Then a day comeswhen
I realizeI havea corpseon my hands-relics of a movementin art

--.-'
K u r t S c h w _ i r t eir4se, r z b a u , b e g uln9 2 l _ d e s r r o y e d
1941,
Hanover,Germanv
43

rhat is now pass.So what happensis that I leavethem alone,only

I coverthem up either wholly or partly with other things,making
clearthat they arebeing downgraded.As the structuregrowsbigger and bigger,valleys,hollows,cavesappear,and theselead a life
of their own within the overallstructure.Thejuxtaposedsurfaces
give rise to forms twisting in everydirection,spirallingupward.An
arrangementof the most strictlygeometricalcubescoversthe
whole, underneathwhich shapesare curiouslybent or otherwise
twisted until their completedissolutionis achieved."
Witnessesdon't report on themselvesin the Merzbau.Theylook
4f it, rather than experiencethemselvesin it. The Environment
was a genrenearly forty yearsaway,and the idea of a surrounded
spectatorwas not yet a consciousone.All recognizedthe invasion
of space,the author being,asWerner Schmalenbachput it, "progressivelydispossessed."
The energypowering this invasionis not
mentioned
by Schwitters,for if the work had
though
recognized.
any organizingprinciple,it was the mythos of a city.Thecity provided materials,modelsof process,and a primitive estheticof juxtaposition-congruityforcedby mixed needsand intentions.The
contextof collageand of the galleryspace.
city is the indispensable
Modern art needsthe soundof traffic outsideto authenticateit.
The Merzbauwas a tougher,more sinisterwork than it appears
in the photographsavailableto us.It grew out of a studio- that is,
Spaceextended(upan artist,and a process.
a space,materials,
stairsand downstairs)and so did time (to about l3 years).The
work cannot be rememberedasstatic,as it looks in photographs.
Framedby metersand years,it was a mutating, polyphonic construct,with multiple subjects,functions,conceptsof spaceand of
art. It containedin reliquariesmementoesof suchfriendsasGabo,
Arp, Mondrian, and Richter.It was an autobiographyof voyagesin
the city.Therewasa "morgue"of city scenarios(TheSexCrime
Cave,TheCathedralof EroticMisery,TheGrottoof Love,TheCaveof
theMurderers).
Culturaltraditionwaspreserved(TheNiebelungen
Exhibition\.It
Cave,The
Cave,
the absurdMichelangelo
Goethe
Heroes)and offeredmodels
revisedhistory (TheCaveof Depreciated
-two built-in systems
of
of behavior(TheCaves
of HeroWorship)
44

value that, like their environment,were subjectto change.Most of

theseExpressionist/Dada
conceirswere buried, like guii, by the
later constructivistoverlaythat turned theMerzbaulnto a utopian
hybrid:part practicaldesign(desk,stool),parr sculprure,
part
architecture.Asthe Expressionism/Dada
was collagedovea
esthetichistory was literalizedinto an archeologicalrecord.The
Constructivismdid not clarify the structure,which remained,as
Schmalenbach
says,"irrationalspace.,,Both
spaceand artist_we
tend to think of them together-exchanged
identitiesand masks.
As the author'sidentitiesare externalizedonto his shell/cave/
room,the wallsadvanceupon him. Eventuallyhe flitsarounda
shrinkingspacelike a pieceof movingcollage.
Thereis somerhinginvolutionaland inside-outabourthe
Merzbau.Itsconcepthad a kind of nuttinessthat somevisitors
acknowledgedby commentingon its lackof eccentricitv.Its
- betweenDadaand constructivism,
numerousdialectics
structure
and experience,the organicand the archeological,the city outside,
the spaceinside-spiralaroundone word: transformation.Kate
Steinitz,the Merzbau'smost perceptivevisitor,noticed a cave,,in
which a bottleof urine was solemnlydisplayedso that the raysof
light that fell on it rurnedthe liquid to gold.,,Thesacramental
nature of transformationis deeplyconnectedto Romantic
idealism;in its expressionist
phaseit testsitselfby performing
rescueoperationsamongthe most degradedmaterialsand sub_
jects'Initially the pictureplaneis an idealizedtransforming
space.
The transformation
of objectsis contextuar,a matterof relocation.
Proximityto the pictureplaneassists
this transformation.
When
isolated,the conrextof objectsis the gallery.Evenrually,rhegallery
itselfbecomes,
like the pictureplane,a transformingforce.at this'
point,asMinimalismdemonstrated.
art can be literalizedand
detransformed;
the gallerywill makeit art anyway.Idealismis
hard to exringuishin art,becauserhe empryg"il.iy itselfbecomes
art manqudandso preservesit. Schwitters,sMerzbaumay be the
fir-stexampleof a "gallery,,as a chamberof transformatibn,from
which the world can be colonizedby the convertedeye.
Schwitters'scareeroffersanother exampleof an intimate space
45

definedby his proprietaryaura.During his stayin a British detention campfor enemyaliens,on the Isle of Wight, he establisheda
living spaceunder a table.This creationof placein a campfor displacedpeopleis animal,ludicrous,
and dignified.Inretrospect,
this space,which, like the Merzbau,wecan only remember,signifies how firmly Schwittersforceda reciprocalfunction between
art and life. mediatedin this caseby just living. Like piecesof Merz,
the trivia of sub-tabularoccupancy,curtainedby moving feet,are
transformedin time.by day-to-dayliving, into ritual. Could we
now saythis waspartly a performancepiecein a self-created
proto-gallery?
sportsan odd
Merzbau,like
otherCubistcollages,
Schwitters's
letter-lettersand wordsbeingdonorsof, in Braque'sview,"a feelA soundtrackaccoming of certainty."Collageis a noisybusiness.
paniesits wordsand letters.Withoutgoing into the attractivecomplexitiesof the letterand the word in modernism,they are disruptive.FromFuturismto the Bauhaus,wordscut acrossmediaand
literally forcethemselveson stage.All mixed movementshavea
theatricalcomponentwhich runs parallelto the galleryspacebut
which,in my view,doesn'tcontributemuch to its deflnition.Theatrical conventionsdie in the gallery.Schwittersmay haverecognizedthis when he separated
his two kindsof theater:one wasa
actualization
of the Merzbau,enveloping
chaoticmulti-sensory
of the conventionalstage
spectator;
the
other
a
clariflcation
the
Neitherreallyintrudeson the gallery
through Constructivism.
space,thoughthe immaculategallerydoesshow sometracesof
in the gallerysubhousekeeping.
Performance
Constructivist
scribesto an entirelydifferentsetof conventionsfrom stage
performance.
Schwitters's
recitations
brokethe conventionsof ordinarylifetalking,iecturing.The
way his properlydressedpersonframedhis
- like a bank tellerpassing
utterances
musthavebeendisorienting
you a hold-up note aftercashingyour check.In a letter to Raoul
Hausmannhe reportson a visit to VanDoesburg'sgroup in 192124:
"Doesburg
reada verygooddadaistic
Program[in the Hague],in which
46

he saidthe dadaistwould do somethingunexpected.At that moment I

rosefrom the middle of the publick and barkedloud. some peoplefainred
and werecarriedout, and the papersreported,that Dadameani barkine.
At oncewe got Engagements
from Haarlemand Amsterdam.It was soli
out in Haarlem,and I walked so that all could seeme, and all waited that
I shouldbark.Doesburgsaidagain,I would do somethingunexpected.
This time I blew my nose.Thepaperswrore phat [sic] I didnot bark,that I
blew only my nose.In Amsterdamit was so full, that peoplegavephan_
tasticprises[sic]to getstilla sear,Ididnt bark,nor blow my nose,i recited
the Revolution.Aladycouldnot stoplaughingand had to be carried
out."
The gesturesare precise and could be briefly interpreted - ,,I am
a dog, a sneezer.a pamphlet." Like piecesof Merz, they are collaged into a set situation (environment), from which they derive
energy.The indeterminacy of that context is favorable ground for
the growth of new conventions,which in the theater would be
smothered by the convention of '.acting.,,
Happenings were first enacted in indeterminate, nontheatrical
spaces- warehouses,desertedfactories,old stores.Happenings
mediated a careful stand-off between avant-gardetheater and
collage.Theyconceivedthe spectatoras a kind ofcollage in that
he was spreadout over the interior-his attention split by simultaneous events,his sensesdisorganizedand redistributedby firmly
transgressedlogic. Not much was said at most Happenings.but,
like the city that provided their themes,they literally crawled with
words. Words,\nd.eed,,
was the title of an Environment with which
Allan I(aprow enclosedthe spectatorin l96l; I4lords contained
circulating names (people) who were invited to contribute words
on paper to attach to walls and partitions. Collage seemsto have a
latent desireto turn itself outside-in; there is somethine womblike
about it.
Yet the realization of the Environment was oddly retarded.Why
is there almost nothing Environmental between Cubism and
Schwitters- barring forthcoming Russiansurprises- or between
Schwitters and the Environments of the late fifties and early sixties
which arrive in a cluster with Fluxus, the New Realists,Kaprow.
I(ienholz, and others?It may be that illustrarive Surrealism,con47

Allan Kaprow,.4r Apple Shrine, Environmenr, 1960,

c o u r t e s y J u d s o n G a l l e r y ,N e w Y o r k ( p h o r o : R o b e r t M c E h o y )
48

servingthe illusion within the picture,avoidedthe imprications

of
the expulsionfrom the picture plane into real space.Within
this
time therearegreatlandmarksand gesturesthat conceive
of the
gaileryasa unit-Lissitzky designeda modern gallery
spacein
1925in Hanover,as Schwitterswas working athis Meribau.But
with somedoubtfulexceptions(Duchamp,s
coalbagsand string?),
they do not emergefrom collage.Environmentalcollaeeand
assemblage
clarify themserveswith the acceptanceof ihe tabreau
asa genre.With tableaux(Segal,I(ienholz),the illusionisric
space
within the traditionalpicture is actualizedin rhe box of the gallery.
Thepassionto actualizeevenillusion is a mark_even a stigma_of
sixtiesart.With the tableau,the gallery,,impersonates,,
other
spaces.Ir
is a bar (Kienholz),a hospitalroom (I(ienholz),a gas
station(Segal),
a bedroom(Oldenburg),a living room (Segal).
a
"real" studio(Samaras).The
galleryspa..,,q,rotes,,
the tableaux
and makesthem art, much as their representationbecameart
within the illusory spaceof a traditional picture.
The spectatorin a tableausomehowfeetshe shouldn'tbe there.
Segal's
art makesthis clearerthan anyoneelse,s.
His objects_great
lumpsof them- weara historyof previousoccupancy,
whether
bus or dineror door.Theirfamiliarityis distancedby ihe gallery
contextand by rhe senseofoccupancyconveyedUytfre plastei
figures.The figuresfreezethis history bf urug. at a parricular
time.
Like periodrooms,Segal,s
piecesarecloselylime_bound
while
they imitatetimelessness.
Sincethe environmentis occupied
already,our relationshipto it is partly preemptedby the figures,
which havethe blush of life completelywithdrawn from them.
They-evenin their mode of manufacture-aresimuracraof
the
living and ignoreus with someof the irritating indifference
of the
dead.Despitetheir postures,
which signifyratf,erthan enact
relationships,they alsoseemindifferentto eachother.There
is a
slow,abstractlapsebetweeneachof them and betweenthem and
their environment.
Theiroccupancyof their environmentis a large
subject.But the effecton the spectatorwho joins them is one
of
trespass.
Because
trespass
makesone partly visibleto oneself,it
playsdown bodylanguage.encourages
a conventionofsilence.
49

and tendsto substitutethe Eyefor the Spectator.

This is exactly
what would happenif Segal'stableauxwere painted pictures.Itis
a very sophisticatedform of "realism." Segal'swhite plasteris a
conventionof removal,which alsoremovesus from ourselves.
Encounteringa Hansonor a de Andrea is shocking;it violates
our own senseof reality or the reality of our senses.
Theytrespass
not only on our spacebut on our credibility.Theyderive,in my
view,not somuch from sculptureasfrom collage,somethingtaken
indoorsand artifiedby the gallery.Outdoors,in the propercontext, they would be acceptedaslive, that is.would not be looked at
twice.Theyarestationson the way to the ultimate pieceof coilage
-the living figure.This
figurewasprovidedat O. K. Harrisin 1972
by Carlin Jeffrey:the living sculpture.which, like a pieceof collage,declared- on request- its own history.A live figure asa collagereturnsus to Picasso's
costumesfor Parade,a walking Cubist
picture; and it is a goodpoint at which to pick up thesetwo modern familiars,the Eyeand the Spectator,again.
The Eye and the Spectatorsetoff in differentdirectionsfrom
AnalyticCubism.The
Eyegoesalongwith SyntheticCubismasit
takesup the businessof redefiningthe picture plane.The Spectator,aswe haveseen,copeswith the invasionof realspacefrom
picturepiane,openedby collage.
Pandora's
Thesetwo directions
or traditions,asthe criticGeneSwensoncalledthem-vie with
eachotherin theiropprobrium.The
Eyelooksdown on the Spectator; the Spectatorthinks the Eye is out of touch with real life.
The comediesof the relationshipare of Wildean proportions;an
Eyewithout a bodyand a body without much of an Eyeusually
cut eachother dead.Yetthey indirectly maintain a kind of dialogue
no one wantsto notice.And in latemodernismthe two come
togetherfor the purposeof refreshingtheir misunderstanding.
After modernism'sfinal - and American- climax, the Eyebears
Pollock'spictureplaneoff triumphantlytoward ColorField;the
Spectatorbringsit into real spacewhere anything can happen.
In the late sixtiesand seventies,
Eye and Spectatornegotiate
sometransactions.
Minimal objectsoften provokedperceptions
other than the visual.Thoughwhat was there instantly declared
50

C l a e sO l d e n b u r gH, a p p e n i n gf r o m , , T h eS t r e e t , , ,
c o u r t e s yL e oC a s t e l lci a l l e r y ,N e wy o r k ( p h o t o :M a r t h aH o l m e s )
5 l

itsclf to the eye,ir had to be checked;otherwise,what was the

poinr of rhree-dimensionality?
Thereare two kinds of time here:
i5( <t? ryrchended rhe object at once, like painting, then the
body bore the eyearoundit.This prompteda feedbackbetween
expectationconfirmed(chpcking)and hitherto subliminalbodily
sensation.Eye and Spectatorwere not fusedbut cooperatedfor
the occasion.Thefinely tuned Eyewas impressedwith some
residualdatafrom irs abandonedbbdy (the kinestheticsofgravity.
tracking,etc.) .The Spectator's
other senses,
alwaysthere inlhe
raw, were infusedwith someof the Eye,sfine discriminations.The
Eyeurgesthe body aroundto provideit with information_the
body becomesa data-gatherer.There
is heavytraffic in both directions on this sensoryhighway-betweensensationconceptualized
and conceptactualized.In this unstablerapprochementlie the
origins of perceptualscenarios,
performance,and Body Art.
The empty gallery,then,is not empty.Its walls are sensitizedby
the picture plane.its spaceprimed by collage;and it containstwo
tenantswith a long-termlease.Why was it necessaryto invent
them?Why do the Eyeand the Spectatorseparate
themselves
out
from our daily personsto interruptand doubleour senses?
It often feeisasif we can no longer experienceanything if we
don't first alienateit. In fact,alienationmay now be a necessary
prefaceto experience.Anything
too closeto us bearsthe label ,,Ob"
jectify and Re-ingest.Thismodeof handlingexperience
- especially art experience-isinescapably
modern.But while its pathos
is obvious,it is not all negative.
As a mode of experience
it canbe
calleddegenerate,
but it is no moreso than our,,space,,
is degenerate.It is simplythe resultof certainnecessities
pressedupon us.
Much of our experience
canonly be broughthome throughmediation.Thevernacularexampleis the snapshot.youcan only see
what a goodtime you had from the summersnapshots.Experience
can then be adjustedto certainnormsof ,,havinga goodtime.,,
TheseI(odachromeiconsareusedto convincefriendsyou did have
a goodtime-if theybelieveit, you believeit. Everyonewanrsro
have photographsnot only to provebut to invent their experience.
This constellationof narcissism,
insecurity,and pathosis so
52

L u c a sS a m a r sa,B e d r o o m , 1 9 6 4 ,
courtesyThe paceGallerv,New york
53

'"rt39,'

\),''::

e,
(E!
F,4
YiI
irl

;ul_i

Irt

economy
RAIE FIR,E}tEN

'?f-ffiBEEN
hSAErt
MESS

ITIXESS
CALIiOK'|IU
AMOt,,i

which

A l l a n K a p r o w , l 4 z o r d(sd e t a i l ) , E n v i r o n m e n t , l 9 6 2

influential I supposenone of us is quite free of it.

Soin most areasof experiencethere is a busy trafficin proxies
and surrogates.The
implicationis that directexperience
might kill
us.Sexusedto be the last standwhere privacy preserveddirect
experience
without the interpositionof models.But when sex
went public,when its studybecameasunavoidableastennis,the
fatal surrogateentered,promising "real" experienceby the very
consciousness
of selfthat makesit inaccessible.
Here,aswith other
"feeling"is turned into a
mediatedexperience,
consumerproduct.
Modern art, however,in this as in other areas,was aheadof its
time.Forthe Viewer-literallysomethingyou look through-and
the Eyevalidateexperience.
Theyjoin us wheneverwe entera
gallery,and the solitariness
of our perambulations
is obligatory,
becausewe arereally holding a mini-seminar with our surrogates.
To that exactdegree,we are absent.presencebeforea work of art,
then, meansthat we absentourselvesin favor of the Eye and Spectator,who report to us what we might have seenhad we been
there.The absentwork of art is frequently more presentto us. (I
believeRothkounderstoodthis better rhan any other artist.) This
complexanatomyof lookingat art is our "elsewhere"trip; it is
fundamentalto our provisionalmodern identity, which is alwavs
beingreconditioned
by our Iabilesenses.
ror thi Spectator
andihe
Eyeareconventionswhich stabilizeour missingsenseof ourselves.
Theyacknowledge
that our identityis itselfa fiction,and
they giveus the illusionwe arepresentthrough a double-edged
self-consciousness.
We objectifyand consumeart,then,to nourish
our nonexistentselvesor to maintainsomeestheticstarveling
called"formalistman." All this is clearerif we go backto rhat
momentwhen a picturebecamean activepartnerin perception.
Impressionism's
flrstspectators
must havehad a lot of trouble
seeingthe pictures.When
an attemptwas madeto verifythe subject by goingup close,it disappeared.The
Spectatorwasforcedto
run backand forth to trap bits ofcontentbeforethey evaporated.
The picture,no longera passiveobject,was issuinginstructions.
And the Spectator
beganto utter his firstcomplaints:not only
"What is it supposed
to be?" and "What doesit mean?" but

CI a e sO l d e n b u r g, B e d r o o m
E n s e m b l1
e9
,6 j ,
c o u r t e s yN a t i o n a lG a l l e r yo f C a n a d aO
, rrawa
56

v a r d K i e n h o l z . T l r eB e a n e r y( d e t a i l ) , 1 9 6 5 ,
e c t i o n o f t h e Sr e d e l i j k M u s e u m , A m s t e r d a m
57

, a nw i t hH a n d T r u c k , 1 9 7 5 ,
D u a n eH a n s o nM
courtesyO. K. HarrisWorks of Afi, New York(phoro: Eric Pollitzer)
58

ohn de Andrea, installation view,1974,

ourtesy O. K. Harris Works of Art, New York

59

G e o r g e S e g a l ,c a s S t d t i o n .1 9 6 8 ,
c o u i l e s y N a t i o n a l 6 a l l e r y o f C an a d a , O t t a w a

"Wheream
I supposedto stand?',problemsof deportmentare
intrinsicto modernism.Impressionism
beganthat harassment
of
the Spectatorinseparablefrom most advancedart.As we read
avant-gardedispatches,
it seemsthat modernismparadedthrough
a vastsensoryanguish.For once the objectof scrutinybecomes
active;our sensesare on trial. Modernism underrineJthe fact that
"identity" in
the twentieth century is centeredaround perception,
on which subjectphilosophy,physiology,and psychologyhave
alsoconvergedmajor efforts.Indeed,just as systems
were a
nineteenthcenturyobsession,
perceptionis a twentieth.Itmediates
betweenobjectand ideaand includesboth.Oncethe ,,active,.
artworkis includedin the perceptualarc,the sensesarecalledinto
question;and sincethe senses
apprehendthe datathat confirm
identity,identity becomesproblematic.
The Eyethen standsfor two oppositeforces:the fragmentation
of the selfand the illusion of holding it together.TheS.-pecrator
makespossiblesuchexperienceas we are allowed to have.Aliena_
tion and estheticdistancebecomeconfused-andnot unprofitabrv.
It seemslike an unstablesituation: a fracturedself,senseson the
blink, surrogates
employedin tasksof fine discrimination.But ir,s
a tight lirrle sysremwith a lot of stabilitybuilt into it. Ir is reinforced
everytime you call on the Eye and the Spectator.
But the Eyeand the Spectatorsrandfor more than slipping
senses
and mutatingidentity.When we becameself-conscious
aboutlookingat a work of art (lookingat ourselveslooking),any
certaintyaboutwhat's"out there,,waserodedby the unceriainties
ofthe perceptualprocess.The
Eyeand the Spectatorstandfor that
process,
which continuallyrestates
the paradoxesof consciousness.Thereis an opportunityto dispensewith thosetwo surro.,directly.,,
gatesand experience
Suchexpeiience.ofcourse.can_
celsthe self-consciou snessthat sustainsmemory.SoEyeand Spec_
tator acknowledge
the desirefor directexperience,
at the same
time theyrecognize
that the modernistconsciousness
can only
temporarilysubmergeitselfin process.
Again the Eyeand Spec_
tator emergewith a doublefunction_ asmuch curatorsof our
consciousness
assubverters
of it. Somepostmodernart showsan
6l

Carlin Jeffrey.installationview t972.

c o u r t e s yO . K . H a r r i sW o r k so f A r r , N e wy o r k
(photo: Eric Pollitzer)

"r

K o s u t h , i n s t a l l a r io n v i e w , l 9 7 2
s y L e o C a s r e l l i G a l l e r y ,N e w y o r k

6)

tll

r\---iSrl-.\

ofthis.Its quotasofprocessarefrozenby those

exactappreciation
memory- documentation,which providesnot
organized
of
traces
but the evidenceof it.
the experience,
then, givesus opportunitiesto eliminatethe Eye and
Process,
aswell asto institutionalizethem; and this hashapthe Spectator
eliminatesthe Eyein favorof
pened.Hard-coreConceptualism
is reasonablywell equipLanguage
the mind.Theaudiencereads.
ped to examinethe setsof conditionsthat formulateart'sendproduct:"meaning."Thisinquiry tendsto becomeself-referential
or contextual- that is,morelike art or more like the conditions
that sustainit.
thereis a marOne of theseconditionsis the galleryspace.Thus
"installation"at Castelliin
velousparadoxaboutJosephI(osuth's
the openbooks.Itis not a looking
I972: tlretables,the benches,
room; it is a readingroom.Theceremonyof informalityis deceptive. Hereis the aura of Wittgenstein'sstudy,aswe might imagine
evenpuritanical,it cancels
Bare,essential,
it. Or is it a schoolroom?
of
asweli asdrawson the specialcloister estheticstllat the gallery
is.It is a remarkableimage.
So is its opposite- an imageof a man in a gallerythreateninghis
with implicit or explicitviolence.IfConceptualism
own substance
eliminatesthe Eyeby once againmaking it the servantof the
mind, BodyArt, suchasChrisBurden's,identifiesthe Spectator
trinity.The
with the artistand the artistwith art-a sacramental
Eiiminatart.
advanced
of
a
theme
is
punishmentof the Spectator
ing the Spectatorby identifyinghim with the artist'sbody and
of art and processis an
enactingon that body the vicissitudes
perceive
again
the double movement.
We
conceit.
extraordinary
priceof alienatingit.
at
the
Experienceis madepossiblebut only
Thereis somethinginfinitely patheticabout the singlefigure in
the gallery,testingIimits,ritualizingits assaultson itsbody,gathering scantyinformation on the flesh it cannot shakeoff.
In theseextremecasesart becomesthe life of the mind or the
iife of the body,and eachoffersits returns' The Eye disappearsinto
phantomsuicide,
in a surrogate's
the mind, and the Spectator,
induceshis own elimination.
64

III. Contextas Content

When we all had front doors-not intercomand buzzer-theknock

at the door still had someatavisticresonance.
De euincy got off
one of his bestpassages
on the knockingat the gatein Macbeth.
The knockingannouncesthat "the awefulparenthesis"-thecrime
-is overand that "the goings-onof the world in which we live"
areback.Literatureplacesus asknocker (Mrs. Blake answering
the door sinceMr. Blakeis in Heavenand must not be disturbed)
and knockee(the visitor from Porlockbringing Coleridgedown
from his l(ubla l(han high). The unexpectedvisitor summonsanticipation,insecurity,evendread-despitethat it's usuallynothing.
sometimesa kid who knockedand ran away.
If the houseis the houseof modernism,what knockscanyou
expect?The houseitself,built on idealfoundations,is imposing,
eventhoughthe neighborhoodis changing.Ithasa Dadakitchen,
a fine Surrealist
attic,a utopianplayroom,a critics'mess,
clean,
well-iightedgalleriesfor what is current.votive lightsro various
saints,a suicidecloset,vaststoragerooms,and a basementflophousewherefailedhistorieslie aroundmumbling like bums.We
hearthe Expressionist's
thunderousknock,the Surrealist's
coded
knock,the Realists
at the tradesman's
entrance,the Dadassawing
through the back door.Verytypical is the Abstracrionisr's
single,
unrepeatedknock.And unmistatableis the peremptoryknock of
historicalinevitability,which setsthe whole house scurrying.
Usuallywhen we'redeepin something,a gentle knock drawsus
to answerit by its lack of pretension- it can't be much.We open
the door to find a rather shabbyfigure,with a facelike the Shadow,
65

but very benign.We arealwayssurprisedto find Marcel Duchamp

there; but therehe is,insidebeforewe know it. and afterhis visithe neverstaystoo long-the houseis not quite the same.He first
visitedthe house's"white cube"in l9l8 and inventedthe ceilingif inventionis makingus consciousof what we agreenot to see,
i.e.,take for granted.Thesecondtime, four yearslater,he delivered
- coneveryparticieof the interiorspaceto our consciousness
sciousness
and the lackof it beingDuchamp'sbasicdialectic.
The ceiling,until he "stood"on it in 1938,seemedrelativelysafe
from artists.It's alreadytakenup by skylights,chandeliers,tracks.
fixtures.We don't look at the ceiling much now. In the history of
indoorlookingup, we rank low.Otheragesput plenty up thereto
look at.Pompeiiproposed,
amongotherthings,that morewomen
than men lookedat the ceiling.TheRenaissance
ceilinglockedits
paintedfiguresinto geometriccells.The Baroqueceiling is always
sellingus somethingorherthan the ceiling,asif the ideaof shelter
had to be transcended;
the ceilingis reallyan arch,a dome,a sky,a
vortex swirling figuresuntil they vanish through a celestialhole,
like a sublimeoverheadtoileu or it is a luxuriouspieceof handtooledfurniture,stamped,
gilded,an albumfor the family escutcheon.TheRocococeilingis asembroidered
asunderwear(sex)or a
doily (eating).The
Georgianceilinglookslike a white carpet,its
stuccoedborderoften stoppingshort of the angle of ceilingand
walls;inside,the centralrose,dimpledwith shadow,from which
descendsthe opulent chandelier.Often the imageryup there
suggests
that lookingup wasconstruedasa kind of lookingdown,
which gently reverses
the viewer into a walking stalactite.
With electriclight, the ceilingbecamean intenselycultivated
gardenof fixtures,and modernisrnsimplyignoredit. Theceiling
Iostits rolein the ensemble
of the total room.TheGeorgianceiling,
for instance,
palisade
droppeda
to the picturemolding,extending
the roof 's domain asa graceful,graduatede4closure.Modern
architecturesimply ran rhe blank wall into the blank ceilingand
Ioweredthe lid. And whar a lid! Its pods,floods,spots,canisrers,
ductsmake it a technician'splayground.Up there is yet another
undiscoveredvernacular,with all the probitv of function that cer66

tifiesits bizarrearrangementsof grid and acoustictlle as honestthat is,unconscious.

So our consciousness.
which spreads
like a
fungus,inventsvirtuesthe schlockdesignerdidn,t know he/she
had. (Themorality of vernacularis our new snobbism.)The only
gracetechnologybestowedon rhe ceiling is indirect lighting,
which bloomslike lily padson the overheadpond or which, from
recessed
lips.flushesan areaof ceiling with the crepuscular
smoothness
of an Olitski.Indirectlightingis the colorfieldof rhe
ceiling.But up theretoo is a dazzlinggardenof gestalts.
On the
morecommonregimentsof recessed
lights,crisscrossing
in endless
perceptualdrill, we canprojectthe estheticof the Minimal/Serial
era.Orderand disordersmartlylapseinto a singleideaaswe move
around below,raisingthe issueof an alternativeto both.
It must havebeenan odd feelingto come into the International
Exhibitionof Surrealismat the GalerieBeaux-Artsin 193g,see
most of thosewild men neatly fitted into their orthodox frames.
then look up expectingthe usual deadceiling and seethefloor.ln
our historiesof modern art, we tend to take old photographsas
gospel.They
areproof,so we don't grill them aswe would any
other witness.But so many questionsabout thoseI ,200 Bagsof
Coaldon't have answers.Werethere really 1,200bags?(Counting
them is a task to drive Virgoscrazy.lWasit the first time an artist
quantifiedlargenumbers,therebygiving an eventa quota,a conceptualframe?Wheredid Duchampget those 1,200bags?(He
firstthoughtof suspending
openumbrellasbut couldn,tgetthat
many.) And how could they be full of coal?That would bring the
ceiling-and the police-down on top of him.Theymusthavebeen
stuffedwith paper.How did he attachthem all? Who helpedhim?
Youcan look throughthe Duchamptomesand not be clearabout
this.What happenedro the ceiling lights?The photographsshow
them washingout a clusterof bagshere and there.And mysteryof
mysteries.why did the other artistslet him get away with it?
He had a title of sorts:"Generator-Arbitrator.,of
the exhibition.
Did he hangthe picruresalso?Did he conceivethem simplyas
decorfor his gesture?If he were accusedof dominating the show,
he couldsayhe took only what no one wanted-the ceilingand a
67

M a r c e l D u c h a m p , I . 2 0 0 B a g so f C o a l ,i n s t a l l a t i o n v i e w a t
"lnternational
E x h i b i r i o n o I S u r r e a l i s m , " 1 9 3 8 ,N e w Y o r k
68

little spoton the floor; the accusationwould underlinehis (gigantic) modesty,his (excessive)
humility.No one looksat the ceiling;
it isn't choiceterrirory- indeedit wasn't (until then) rerritory at
all. Hangingoveryour head,the largestpiecein the show was
unobtrusivephysicallybut totally obtrusivepsychologically.
In one of thosebad punshe loved,Duchampturnedthe exhibition topsy-turvyand "stoodyou on your head.,,Theceilingis the
floor and the floor,to drive home the point, is the ceiling.For the
stoveon the floor-a makeshiftbraziermade from an old barrel,
from the looks of it - becamea chandelier.The police rightly
wouldn't let him put a fire in it, so he settledfor a light bulb.Above
(below)are 1,200bagsof fuel and below (above)is their consuming organ.A temporalperspectivestretchesbetween.at the end of
which is an emptyceiling.a conversionof massto energy,ashes,
maybea commenton history and on art.
This inversionis the first time an artist subsumedan entiregallery in a singlegesture- and managedto do so while it was full of
other art. (He did this by traversingthe spacefrom floor to ceiling.
Fewrememberthat on this occasionDuchampalsohad his say
aboutthe wall: he designedthe doorsleadingin and out of the
gallery.He madethem- againwith reservations
from the policerevolvingdoors,that is,doorsthat confuseinsideand outsideby
spinningwhat theytrap.Thisinside-outside
confusionis consistent with tilting the galleryon its axis.)By exposingthe effectof
contexton art,of the containeron the contained,Drlchamprecognizedan areaofart that hadn't yet beeninvented.Thisinvention
of contextinitiateda seriesof gestures
that ,,develop,,
the idea
of a galleryspaceasa singleunit, suitablefor manipulationasan
estheticcounter.Fromthis momenton, thereis a seepage
of energy
from art to its surroundings.With time the ratio betweenthe
literalizationof art and mythificationof the galleryinversely
increases.
Like everygoodgesture,
Duchamp'sCoalBagsbecomesobvious
postfacto.Gesturesare a form of invention.They can only be done
once,unlesseveryoneagreesto forgetthem.The bestway of forgetting somethingis to assumeit; our assumptions
drop out of sight.
6g

As an invention,however,the gesture'spatent is its most distinguishingfeature- far more than its formal contenr,if any.I supposethe formal contentof a gesturelies in its aptness,economy,
and grace.It dispatchesthe bull of history with a singlerhrusr.Yet
it needsthat bull, for it shiftsperspectivesuddenlyon a body of
assumptionsand ideas.Itis to that degreedidactic,as Barbara
Rosesays,though the word may overplaythe intent to teach.If it
teaches,it is by irony and epigram,by cunning and shock.A gesture wisesyou up.It dependsfor its effecton the context of ideasit
changesandjoins.It is not art,perhaps,but artlikeand thushasa
meta-lifearound and about art.Insofar asit is unsuccessfulit
remainsa frozencurio,if rememberedat all. If it is successful
it
becomeshistory and tendsto eliminateitself.It resurrectsitself
when the contextmimics the one that stimulatedit. making it
"relevant" again.So a gesturehas an odd historicalappearance,
alwaysfainting awayand reviving.
The ceiling/floortransplantgesturemight now be repeatableas
a '1project."A gesturemay be a "young" project;but it is more
argumentativeand epigrammatic,and it speculatesriskily on the
future.It callsattentionto untestedassumptions,overlookedcontent, flawsin historicallogic.Projects-short-termart madefor
specificsitesand occasions-raise
the issueof how the impermanent survives.if it does.Documentsand photographschallenge
the historicalimaginationby presentingto it an art that is already
dead.Thehistoricalprocessis both hamperedand facilitatedby
removingthe original,which becomesincreasinglyfictitiousasits
afterlivesbecomemore concrete.Whatis preservedand what is
allowed to lapseedit the idea of history-the form of communal
memory favoredat any particulartime. Undocumentedprojects
may surviveasrumor and attachthemselvesto th personaof
their originator,who is constrainedto developa convincingmyth.
Ultimately projects- it seemsto me - are a form of historical
revisionismwagedfrom a privilegedposition.Thatpositionis
definedby two assumptions:that projectsare interestingapart
from being " art"- that is,they havea somewhatvernacularexistencein the world; and that they can appealto untrained aswell
70

astrainedsensibilities.Our architectsof personalspace,quasianthropologists,

perceptualrevisionists.and mythologistsmanqushavethus madea breakin how the audienceis construed.We
are now awareof a tentativeattempt to contactan audiencethat
postmodernismwould like to call up but doesn.tquite havethe
number.This is not the startof a new populism.It is a recognition
of a neglectedresource,aswell as disaffectionwith the privileged
spectatorplacedby art educationin the gallery space.Itmarksa
move awayfrom the modernistconceptionof the spectatorabusedon the basisof presumedincompetence,which is fundamentally a Romanticposition.
Gestureshavea becomingquality,and somecan.retroactively.
becomeprojects.There
is a projectshrewdnessimplicit in
Duchamp'stwo gallerygestures.They
have survivedtheir naughtinessand becomehistoricalmaterial,elucidatingthe galleryspace
and its art.Yetsuchis Duchampiancharismathat they continueto
be seenexclusivelyin the context of his work. They efficiently
keep history at bay.which is one way of remaining modern (Joyce
is the literary equivalent). Both the CoalBagsand the Mile of
String,done four yearslater (1942) for the Firstpapersof Surrealismshowat 55l MadisonAvenue,areaddressed
ambiguously.
Are they to be deliveredto the spectator,to history,to art criticism,
to otherartists?To all,of course,but the addressis blurred.If
pressedto sendthe gesturessomewhere,I'd sendthem to other
artists.
Why did the other artistsstandfor it not once but twice?
Duchampwasveryobligingabouthangingpeopleup on their
worstinstincts,especially
when thoseinstinctswere disguised
as
ideology.The Surrealists'
ideologyof shocksometimesmanifested
itself asexaitedpublic relations.Shock,as the history of the avantgardeshows,is now small-armsequipment.Duchamp,I feelsure,
was seenassomeonewho couldgenerateattention.In delegating
him to provideit, the artistswere playing little Fauststo an amiable
demon.Whatis the Mile of String?At a level so obviousour sophistication immediatelydisallowsit, an imageof deadtime. an exhibition paralyzedin prematuresenescence
and turned into a grotes71

que horror-movieattic.Both Duchamp,sgesturesfail to

acknowledgethe other art around,which becomeswallpaper.yet
the artists'protest(did any ofthem eversayhow they feitZl is
preempted.For the harassmentof their work is disguisedasharass_
ment of the spectators.
who haveto high-steplike hens aroundit.
Ttvo kids (SidneyJanis'sboys)playednoisy gamesduring rhe
openingfrom which Duchampof courseabsentedhimself.A con_
noisseurof expectationsof all kinds, Duchamp,sinterferencewith
the spectator's"set" is part of his malign neutrality.The string,by
keepingthe spectatorfrom the art, becamethe one thing he/ihe
remembered.Instead
of beingan intervention,somethi;g between
the spectator
and the art,it graduallybecamenew art of some
kind.What inflictssuchharassment
is innocuous_5,2g0feetof
continuousstring.(Againthe unverifiablequantificationgivesa
conceptualneatnessto the epigram.)
Fromthe photographs,
the stringreconnoitered
the space
relentlessly,
loopingand tauteningacrosseachoutcropwith
dementedpersistence.
It crisscrosses,
changesspeeds,
ricochets
backfrom pointsof attachment,
clustersin knots.wheelsnew sets
of parallaxes
wirh everystep,parcellingup the spacefrom the
insidewithour the slightestformalworry.yet it followsthe align_
ment of the room and bays,erraticallyreplicatingceilingand
walls.No obliquesplungeacrossthe centralspace,which becomes
fencedin, casuallyquotingthe shapeof the room.Despitethe
apparenttizzyof randomness,
the room and what is in it deter_
mine the string'speregrinations
in an orderlyenoughway.The
spectatoris harassed.
Everybit of spaceis marked.Duchampdevel_
opsthe modernistmonad:the spectatorin his gallerybox.
Like all gesrures,
the stringeitheris swallowedor sticksin his_
tory'steeth.It stuck,which meansthat the formal aspect,if any,
hasn'tbeendeveloped.
Thestring,spedigreeborrowsfrom Constructivismand is a clichin Surrealist
painting.The string
literalizedrhe spacemany of the picturesin thi exhibitionillustrated.Thisactualization
of a pictorialconventionmay be an (un_
conscious?)
precedent
for the will to actualizeof the latesixties
and seventies.To
paint somethingis to recessit in illusion.and
72

dissolvingthe frametransferredthat function to the galreryspace.

Boxingup the space(or spacingup the box) is part ofthe central
formal themeof Duchamp'sart: containment/inside/outside.
From
this anglehis scattered
artifactsarigninto a rough schema.Isthe
box- a containerof ideas- a surrogatehead?And the windows,
doorways,and apertures
the channelsof sense?The two lock into
fairly convincingmetaphor.The ricochetingstring (association
tracts?)wrapsup the galleryspace,modernism,s
thinking bowl;
the Boiteen valiseis memory; the LargeGrass\s the mock mechanical apotheosis
of apertureand insertion(the inseminationof traditon? the creativeact?);the doors(open/shut?)and windows
(opaque/transparent?)
the unreliablesensesthroughwhich infor_
mation flowsboth ways(asit doesin puns),dissolvingidentityas
a fixedlocation.Identityliesscatteredaroundin humorouslv
alienatedbody parts,which contemplateinside/outside-iiellsen_
sation,consciousness/unconsciousness
- or rather,the slash
(glass?)
berweenrherwo.Lackingidentity,rhe parts.rhe senses,
the ideasdecompose
the paradoxicaliconographerglidingaround
this anthropomorphicshambles.As the Mile of Stringshowed,
Duchampis fond of boobytraps.He keepsthe spectator,
whose
presence
is alwaysvoluntary,hung up on his own etiquette,thus
preventinghim/her from disapprovingof his/her own harassment
- a sourceof further annoyance.
Hostilityto the audienceis one of the key coordinates
of mod_
ernism,and artistsmay be classifled
accordingto its wit, style,and
depth.Like someobvioussubjects,
it hasbeenignored.(It,samaz_
i n g h o w m a n ym o d e r n i shr i s r o r i a nm
s i m e r h ea i t i s ts c u r a t o r i a l
shadow,directingrrafficaroundthe work.) This hostilityis far
from trivial or self-indulgent-thoughit hastreenboth.For
throughit is wagedan ideologicalconflictaboutvalues_ofart,of
the lifestyles
that surroundit, of the socialmatrix in which both
areset.Thereciprocalsemioticsof the hostilityritual areeasily
read.Eachparty- audienceand artisr- is not quite freeto breik
certaintaboos.The
audiencecan,tget mad,i.e.,becomephilis_
tines.Itsangermust be sublimated,
alreadya kind of proto_
appreciation.
By cultivatingan audiencethroughhostility,the
73

avant-gardegaveit the opportunity to transcendinsult (second

nature to businesspeople) and exerciserevenge (also second
nature).The weapon of revengeis selection.Rejection,according
to the classicscenario,feedsthe artist'smasochism,senseof injustice, and rage.Enough energy is generated to allow both artist and
audience to presume they are fulfilling their social roles. Each
remains remarkably faithful to the othert conception of his rolethe relationship's most powerful tie. Positive and negative projections volley back and forth in a social charade that wavers between
tragedy and farce.One negativeexchangeis basic: the artist tries
to sell the collector on his obtusenessand crassness - eisilv oroj e c t e do n a n y o n e m a t e r i a le n o u g h t o w a n t s o m e t h i n g- a n d ' t h e
collector encouragesthe artist to exhibit his irresponsibility.Once
the artist is assignedthe marginal role of the self-destructivechild,
he can be alienatedfrom the art he produces.His radical notions
are interpretedas the bad manners expectedfrom superior tradesmen.The militarized zone between artist and collector is busy with
guerillas.envoys,double-agents,runners, and both major parties
in a variety of disguisesas they mediate between principle and
money.
At its most serious,the artist/audiencerelation can be seenas
the testingof the socialorder by radical propositions and as the
successfulabsorption ofthese propositionsby the support system
- galleries,museums,collectors,even magazinesand house critics
-evolved to barter successfor ideological anesthesia.Themain
medium of this absorptionis style,a stabilizingsocial constructif
ever there was one. Style in art, whatever its miraculous, self-defining nature,is the equivalentof etiquettein society.It is a consistent
gracethat estabiishesa senseof place and is thus essentialto the
social order.Thosewho flnd advancedart without contemporary
relevanceignore that it has been a relentlessand subtle critic of
the social order,alwaystesting,failing through the rituals of success,succeedingthrough the rituals of failure.This artist/audience
dialogue contributes a useful definition of the kind of society we
have evolved. Each art licensed a premises where it conformed to
and sometimes tested the social structure - concert hall. theater.
74

ffi

ffi
e l D u c h a m p , , M i l ec / 5 l r i r g , i n s t a l l a t i o n v i e w a t
P a p e r so f S u r r e a l i s m , " I 9 4 2 , N e w Y o r k ( p h o t o : J o h n D S c h i f f )

gallery.Classic
avant-gardehostilityexpresses
itselfthroughphysical discomfort(radicaltheater),excessive
noise(music), or by
removingperceptual
constants(thegalleryspace).Commonto all
aretransgressions
of logic,dissociation
of the senses,
and bore(the
dom.In thesearenasorder
audience)assays
what quotasof
disorderit canstand.Suchplacesare,then,metaphorsfor consciousness
and revolution.The
spectator
is invitedinto a space
wherethe actof approachis turnedbackon irself.Perhaps
a perfectavant-garde
actwould be to invitean audienceand shootit.
With postmodernism,
the artist and audienceare more like each
other.Theclassichostilityis mediated,too often,by irony and
farce.Both partiesshow themselveshighly vulnerableto context,
and the resultingambiguities
galiery
blur their discourse.The
spaceshowsthis.In the classiceraofpolarizedartistand audience,
the galleryspacemaintainedits statusquo by muffling its contradicitonsin the prescribedsocio-esthetic
imperatives.For many
of us,the galleryspacestill givesoff negativevibrationswhen we
wander in. Estheticsareturned into a kind of socialelitism- the
galleryspaceis exclusive.Isolated
in plotsof space,what is on displaylooksa bit like valuablescarcegoods,jewelry,or silver:esrherics areturned into commerce-the galleryspaceis expensive.What
- art
it containsis,without initiation,well-nighincomprehensible
is dfficult. Exclusiveaudience,rareobjectsdifficult to comprehend
-here we havea social,financial,and intellectualsnobberywhich
models(andat its worstparodies)our sysremof iimited production, our modesof assigning
value,our sociaihabitsat large.Never
wasa space,
designedto accommodate
the prejudicesand enhance
the self-image
of the uppermiddleclasses,
so efficientlycodified.
The classicmodernistgalleryis the limbo betweenstudioand
living room,wherethe conventions
of both meeton a carefully
neutralizedground.There
the artist'srespectfor what he has
inventedis perfectlysuperimposed
on rhebourgeoisdesirefor
possession.
Fora galleryis,in the end,a placeto sellthings-which
is O.K.Thearcanesocialcustomssurroundingthis-the stuffof
socialcomedy-divertattentionfrom the businessof assigning
materialvalueto that which hasnone.Herethe hostileartistis a
76

commercialsinequanon.Bygassingup his self_image

with obso_
lete romanticfuel.he provideshis agentwith the meansro sepa_
rate artist and work, and so facilitateits purchase.Theartist,sirresponsiblepersonais a bourgeoisinvention, a necessaryfiction to
preservesomeillusionsfrom too uncomfortablean examinationillusionssharedby artist,dealer,and public.It is hard now to avoid
the conclusionthat latemodernistart is inescapably
dominated
by the assumptions-mostly
unconscious-ofthe bourgeoisie;
Baudelaire'sviciousand noble prefaceTothe Bourgeoisie
for the
Salonof 1846is the prophetictext.Throughrecipiocatingparadoxesthe ideaof freeenterprisein art goodsandideas,,lppo.t,
socialconstantsasmuch asit attacksthem.Attackingthem has
indeedbecomea permissiblecharadefrom which bolh parties
emergerelativelysatisfied.
This may be why the art of the seventieslocatesits radical
notions not so much in the art as in its attitudesto the inherited
"art" structure.
of which the gallery spaceis the prime icon.The
structureis questionednot by classicresentmentbut by project
and gesture,
by modestdidacticismand phasingof alteinatives.
Thesearethe hiddenenergies
of the seventies;
they presenta lowlying landscape
which is rraversed
by ideasdeprivedofabsolures
and poweredby low-gradedialectics.No peaksare forcedup by
irreconcilable
pressures.
Thelandscapelevelsoff partlybecause
the genresinvolvedin mutual recognitionand avoidance(post_
Minimalism,Conceptualism,
Color Field,Realism,etc.;are
- one is asgoodas another.Thedemocracyof
nonhierarchical
meanscontributedby the sixtiesis now extendedto genres,
which
in turn reflecta demythifiedsocialstructure(the ,,professions,,
now carryfewerrewardsand diminishedprestige).
The sixtiesstill
headlinemostpeople's
perceptionof the seventies.
Indeedone of
the "properties"ofseventies
art is the failureof sixtiescriticsto
lookat it. Measuringthe seventies
by the sixtiesis faultybut un_
avoidable(an artist'snew phaseis alwaysjudgedin relationro rhe
one previous). Nor doesthe skippeddecadetheoryhelp_ the flfties
revivalturned out to be a bummer.
Seventiesart is diverse,made up of nonhierarchicalgenresand
77

highly provisional- indeedunstable- solutions.Major energies

no longergo into formal painting and sculpture(young artists
have a fairly goodnosefor historicalexhaustion)but into mixed
post-Minimal,video' tuning the environcategories(performance,
ment), which presentmore temporarysituationsinvolving an
art crosses
seventies
When necessary,
inspectionof consciousness.
a
being
understatement
way
media in a gentle,nonpolemical
is
what
of its low profile.It tendsto deal with
characteristic
immediatelypresentto the sensesand the mind, and so presents
itself asintimate and personai.Thus it often appearsnarcissistic,
unlessthis is understoodasa modeof locatingthe boundary
wherea person"ends"and somethingelsebegins.Itis not in
searchof certainties,for it toleratesambiguity well. Its intimacies
havea somewhatanonymouscastsincethey turn privacyinside
out to make it a matter of public discourse-a seventiesform of
distancing.Despitethis personalfocus,there is no curiosityabout
mattersof identity.Thereis greatcuriosityabout how consciousconcerns
Locationis a key word.It telescopes
nessis constructed.
perceived,one
Whatis
.
aboutwhere(space)and.how(perception)
and
gathersfrom genresaswidely removedasPhoto-Realism
is not asimportant(thougha dwarf called
post-Minimalism.
aroundknockingat everydoor).Most seviconographyschlepps
entiesart seemsto attempta seriesof verificationson an ascending
scale:physical(out there);physiological(internal);psychologiroughlycorrescal; and,for want of a betterword,mental.These
personal
space,
are
correlatives
pond with availablegenres.The
and silence.
explorationof time conventions,
perceptualrevisions,
Theseverificationslocatea body,mind, and placethat can be
or at leastpartly tenanted.If flftiesman was a Vitruvian
occupied,
survivorand sixtiesman composedof alienatedpartsheld
man is a workablemonad-figure
seventies
togetherby systems,
and groundinto a quasi-social
place,
offigure
a transposition
and
of fifties
situation.Seventiesart doesnot rejectthe consequences
and sixtiesart, but somebasicattitudeshave changed.The sixties
audienceis rejectedby seventiesart. Often there is an attemptto
communicatewith an audiencethat hasn'tbeen interferedwith
7a

by art, thus dislodging the wedge rhat ,,arr,,has driven between

perception and cognition. (The growth of alternative
spacesacross
the country outside the formal museum structure is part of this_a
change of audience, location, and context that makei it possible
for New York artists to do what they can,t do in New york. Seven_
)
ties art remains troubled by history, yet so much of it is temporary
it rejects the historical consciousness.It questions the system
through which it presenrsitself, yet most of it passedthiough that
system.Its makers are socially concerned but politically iniffec_
tive. Some of the dilemmas suppressedduring the avant-gardeera
have come home to roost,and seventiesart is working thiough
them in its rather elusive way.
With postmodernism,the gallery spaceis no longer ,,neutral.,,
The wall becomesa membrane through which estheticand com_
mercial valuesosmotically exchange.As this molecular shudder
in the white walls becomesperceptible,there is a further inversion
of context.The walls assimilate;the art discharges.How much can
the art do without? This calibratesthe degreeof the gallery,s
mythification. How much of the object,seliminated content can
the white wall replace?Conrext provides a large part of late modern and postmodernart'scontent.This is seventiesart,smain issue,
as well as its strengthand weakness.
The white wall's apparent neutrality is an illusion.It standsfor a
community with common ideas and assumptions.Artist and audi_
ence are,as it were, invisibly spread-eagledin 2-D on a white
ground. The developmentof the pristine,placelesswhite cube is
one of modernism'striumphs-a development commercial,esthet_
ic, and technological.In an extraordiriary strip-tease.the art
within baresitself more and more, until it presentsformalist end_
products and bits of reality from ourside- ,,collaging',the gallery
space.Thewall's content becomesricher and richer (maybe a col.
lector should buy an "empty" gallery space).The mark of provin_
cial art is that it has to include too much-the context can't replace
what is left out; there is no system of mutually understood
assumptions.
The spotlessgallery wall. though a fragile evolutionary product
79

of a highly specializednature, is impure. It subsumes commerce

and esthetics,artist and audience,ethics and expediency.It is in
the image of the society that supports it, so it is a perfect surfaceoff
which to bounce our paranoias.Thattemptation should be resisted'
The white cube kept philistinism at the door and allowed modernism to bring to an endpoint its relentlesshabit of self-deflnition.It
hothoused the serialjettisoning of content.Along the way numerous epiphanieswere purchased,as epiphaniescan be, by suppression of content.If the white wall cannot be summarily dismissed,
it can be understood.Thisknowledge changesthe white wall, since
its content is composedof mental projectionsbased on unexposed
assumptions.Thewall is our assumptions.Itis imperative for every
artist to know this content and what it doesto his/her work'
The white cube is usually seen as an emblem of the estrangement of the artist from a society to which the gallery also provides
access.Itis a ghetto space,a survival compound, a proto-museum
with a direct line to the timeless,a set of conditions, an attitude,a
place deprivedof location,a reflex to the bald curtain wall, a magic
chamber,a concentrationof mind, maybe a mistake.It preserved
theposs\bi$o{artbutmadeit"diffi.cutt.ltismainlyaformalist
and
invention, in that the tonic weightlessnessof abstractpainting
by
only
penetrable
sculpture left it with a low gravity. Its walls are
an
the most vestigialiilusionism.Wasthe white cube nurtured by
with
its
obsession
Was
art?
internal logic iimilar to that of its
enclosurein organic response,encystingart that would not otherwise survive?was it an economic constluct formed by capitalist
models of scarcityand demand?Was it a perfect technological
shrinkageresultingfrom specializationor a ConstructivisthangFor
over from the twenties that became a habit, then an ideology?
better or worse it is the single major convention through which art
is passed.Whatkeepsit stableis the Iack of alternatives'A rich
constellationof projectscomments on matters of location' not so
much suggestingalternativesas enlisting the gailery spaceas a
unit of estheticdiscourse.Genuine alternativescannot come from
within this space.Yet it is the not ignoble symbol for the preservahas
tion of whatlociety finds obscure,unimportant, and useless.It
80

incubatedradicalideasthat would haveabolishedit. the gallery

spaceis all we'vegot,and mostart needsit. Eachsideof the white
cube questionhastwo. four, six sides.
Is the artistwho acceptsthe gallery spaceconformingwith the
socialorder?Is discomfortwith the gallery discomfortwith art,s
etiolatedrole.itscooptionand vagabondstatusasa refugefor
homelessfantasies
and narcissistic
formalisms?During modern_
ism,the galleryspacewasnot perceivedasmuch of a problem.But
then.contextsarehardto readfrom the inside.Theariistwasnot
awarehe wasacceptinganythingexcepta relationshipwith a
dealer.Andifhe sawbeyondit, acceptinga socialcontextyou can
do nothingaboutshowsa lot of commonsense.Most of us do
exactlythat.Beforelargemoral and culturalissues,the individual
is helplessbut not mute.His weaponsareirony.rage,wit, paradox,
satire.detachment,
scepticism.
A familiarkind of mind comesinto
focushere- restless,
self-doubting,inventiveabout diminishing
options,conscious
of void,and closeto silence.It is a mind with
no flxedabode,empirical,alwaystestingexperience.
consciousof
itselfand thus of history- and ambiguousaboutboth.
ThisFaustiancompositemore or lessflts numerousmodernists
from Czanneto de I(ooning.Suchfiguressometimesconvince
you that mortalityis a disease
to which only the mostgiftedare
susceptible,
and that the privilegedperceprionresidesin rhe
psychethat canmaximizethe contradictions
inherentin exis_
tence.Sucha figure,whateverits symbolistor existentialpedigree,
suffersfrom a romanticinfection with the absolute;achingfor
transcendence,
it is detainedin process.
Thisfigure,which hasgen_
eratedmostof modernism's
myths,hasdonegreatservice;but it is
a periodfigurethat might well be fully retired.For now contradiction is our dailyvernacular,
our artitudesto it a passinganger(a
short-termsynthesis?),
humor,and a kind of bemusedshrug.We
tolerateotherpeople'snecessary
anesthesia,
as they do ours.Whoeverbendson him/herselfthe raysof contradictionbecomesnot a
herobut the vanishingpoint in an old picture.In our own
interests,
we arehardon the art that precedes
us.Weseenot so
much the art asan emblemfor attitudes,contexts,and myths
EI

unacceptable to us. Finding a code to reject this art allows us to

inventour own.
Modernism has also provided us with another archetype:the
artist who. unaware of his minority, seesthe social structure as
alterable through art. A believer,he is concerned not so much with
the individual as with the race; is, in fact, a kind of discreetly
authoritarian socialist.The rational, reformist urge refers to the
age ofreason and is nourished on the utopian habit. It also has a
strong mystical/ideal component that places heavy responsibilities
on the function of art. This tends to reify art and turn it into a
device exactlymeasuringits dissociationfrom social relevance.So
both archetypesalienate art from the social structure with opposite intentions.Both are old Hegelian doubles partners,and they
are rarely pure. You can pick you own pairings: Picassoand Tatlin;
Soutine and Mondrian; Ernst and Albers; Beckmann and MoholyNagy.
But the history of utopianism in modernism is rather splendid.
The magnitude of the individual's presumption is clear to us, but it
is also clearto him. So while aligning himself with mystical energies,he also courts the rationalitiesof design- an echo of the
Design of the Creatorthat the artist-creatorintends to correct.At
the end of an era it is easyto be funny about such ambitions.We
tend to patronize high ideals after their failure. But the idealist/utopians are dismissedtoo easilyby our New York habit of mind - in
which the myth of the individual as a republic of sensibilityis
firmiy set.European utopians-who can forget Kiesler moving like
a Brownian particle through the New York milieu? - don't do well
here. Coming from a different structure, their ideas don't play in a
societythat reshufflesits classesevery secondgeneration.But a
kind of Europeanmind could think about social problems and
art's transforming powers very well. Now we ask some of the same
questionsabout the missing audience and where it has gone.Most
of the peoplewho look at art now are not looking at art; they are
looking at the idea of " art" they carry in their minds. A good piece
could be rvritten on the art audience and the educational fallacy.
We seem to have ended up with the wrong audience.
82

What makesartistsinterestingis the contradictionsthey choose

to edit their attention-the scissorsthey invent to cut out their
self-image.The
utopianartist/planner
findsthat his individuality,
which must conformto the socialstructurehe envisions.breaks
the rule of suchconformityby its individualism.As Albert Boime
wrote (Arts,Summer'70): " .. . Mondrian opposessubjectivityon
the groundsthat individualismleadsto disharmonyand conflict,
and interfereswith the creationof a 'harmonious materialenvironment' (i.e.,a universallyobjectiveand collectiveoutlook).At
the sametime,he is preoccupied
with artisticoriginalitybecause
in his view only the uniquelygiftedindividualcould discoverthe
universalorder.He thereforeurged all artislsto detachthemselves
'from the majority of the people.' " For such artists,intuition must
be thoroughly rationalized.Disorder,covertlysuppressedin Mondrian'sclearsurfacesand edges,is manifestin the whole arbitrary
natureof his choices.
As Boimesays,"Mondrian achievedequilibrium only afterinnumerablecomplexsteps,and the multiplication
of decisionsbetrayshis personality."So what can one saywhen
one entersMondrian'sroom (which he himselfneverentered,
sincehis 1926sketchfor a SalondeMadameB. d Dresden
wasnot
madeup until 1970[for an exhibitionat PaceGallery])?
We arein a propositionthat conjugates
basicneeds-bed,desk,
shelf- with principlesof harmony derivedfrom the natural order.
"Preciselyon accountof its profoundlovefor things,"wrote
Mondrian,"non-figurativeart doesnot aim at renderingthem in
their particularappearance."
But Mondrian'sroom is asclearly
basedon natureasif it werelined with trees.Thepanelsareso
adjustedthat theyadvanceand recede.withina narrow compass.
The room breathes,
asit were,throughthe walls.Thisis enhanced
producingthe obliquesMondrian formallyproby its perspective,
scribed.The
room is not so much anthropomorphicaspsyche-morphic.Itspowerfulideascoincidewith mentalcontoursperfectly
sensedby Mondrian:"In removingcompletelyfrom the work all
objects,the world is not separatedfrom the spirit, but is on the
contraryput into a balanced
opposition
with the spirit,sincethe
one and the other arepurified.Thiscreatesa perfectunity between
8l

Piet Mondrian, Salon de Madame B. d Dresden,

i n s t a l l a t i o n v i e w ( a f t e r r h e a r t i s r ' sd r a w i n g o f 1 9 2 6 ) , 1 9 7 O ,
c o u r t e s y T h e P a c eG a l l e r y ,N e r v Y o r k ( p h o t o : F e r d i n a n d B o e s c h )
84

the two opposites."Sincethe walls.despiteMondrian,sobjections

to Cubism'srealism,representa sublimatednature,the occupant
is similarly encouragedto transcendhis own brute nature.In
this
space,the grossness
of the body seemsinappropriate;from this
room burps and fartsare exiled.Through systemsof abutment
and
s,lide,rectangleand squaredefinea spacethat placesone inside
a
Cubistpicture; the occupantis synthesizedinto a coefficientof
orderwhosemotion is in consonance
with the rhythmsenclosing
him or her.The floor - which containsan uncharacteristicoval ( a
rug?)- and ceilingaddtheir verticalpressures.
It's a marvelous
p l a c et o v i s i t .
The visionis not hermetic.Windows
aliow for discourse
with
the outside.Random
process-whatyou seethroughthe window_
is preciselyframed.Isthis formallyacknowledged
in the smallbite
the lower left cornerof the window takesorrt of u black scuare
(muchasTexas
bitesoff a pieceof Arkansas)?For all its sober
idealistprogram,the room remindsme that Mondrian liked to
dance(thoughhis dancing,which wasterrible,was basedmore
on extractingpleasurefrom the programmedmovementswhile
happilycoupledthan on wild abandon).Mondrian,sroom.Dro_
posedan alternativeto the white cubethat modernismienored:
"By the unification
of architecture,
sculptureand paintiig, a new
plasticrealitywili be created.
paintingand scurpturewill not manifestthemselves
asseparate
objects,,o. u, ,-,r.ul art, which
destroysarchitecture
itself,nor as ,applied.art,but beingpurely
constructive
will aid the creationof a surroundingnot merely
utilitarianor rationalbut alsopure and completein its beauiy.,,
Duchamp'saiteredrooms- ironic,funny,fallible_ still accepted
the galleryasa legitimateplacefor discourse.
Mondrians ,poil.r,
room-a shrineto spiritand MadameBlavatsky_attempted
to
introducea new orderthat would makethe gallerydispensable.
The two counterposed
categories
suggesring;comicslapsticknot
unknown to modernism:the scruffyand the clean,the bacterial
and the hygienic,the sloppyand the precise.part ofthe grand
irony presidingoversuchdialecticalseparations
is their frequent
mimickingof eachotherin disguises
too elaborateto removehere.
85

Mondrian and Malevichshareda mysticalfaith in art'stransforming socialpower.Both men'sventuresoutsidethe picture

plane weretentative;both were politically innocent.Tatlin,in
contrast,was all socialinvolvement,full of greatschemesand
energy.
One figuretook Tatlin'sradicalsocialprogramand Malevich's
formal idealismand negotiatedbetweenthem to produceexhibitions that could- and did - alter-thepublic mind. Lissitzkydid so
through an inspirationthat doesn'tseemto occur to idealistsand
radicalsocialplanners.He acknowledged
the bystander,
who
becamethe involvedspectator.
Lissitzky,our Russianconnection,
was probablythe first exhibition designer/preparhtor.
In the processof inventingthe modern exhibition,he alsoreconstructedthe
gallery space- the first seriousattempt to affectthe contextin
which modern art and the sDectatormeet.

Afterword
Writing about your past writing is the closestyou ger to coming
back from the dead.You assume a false superiority over your previ_
ous self. who did all the work. So, looking back at these articies,
revived between their own pasteboards,what do I have to add? A
great deal.
In the past ten years so much.has been buried as if it never hap_
pened.Msual art does not progressby having a good memory. And
New York is the locus of some radical forgetting. you can reinvent
the past, suitably disguised,if no one remembers it. Thus is origi_
nality, that parenred fetish of the self, defined.
What has been buried? One of the art communitv,s conceivablv
noble efforts: the concerted move of a generation to question,
through a matrix of styles,ideas. and quasi-movements, the con_
text of its activity. Art used to be made for illusion; now it is made
from illusions.In the sixtiesand seventiesthe attempt to dispense
with illusions was dangerous and could not be tolerated for long.
So the art industry has since devalued the efforr. Illusions are back,
contradictions tolerated, the art world,s in its place and all,s well
with that world.
When the economics of a field are disturbed or subverted the
value systembecomesconfused.The economic model in place for
a hundred years in Europe and the Americas is prod.uct,filtered
through galleries,offered to collectorsand public institutions,
written about in magazinespartially supported by the galleries,
and drifting towards the academic apparatus that stabilizes
"history" certifying,much as banks do, the holding of its major
repository, the museum. History in art is, ultimateiy, worth money.
Thus do we get not the art we deservebut the art we pay for.This
comfortable system went virtually unquestioned by the key figure
it is basedupon: the artist.
The avant-garde artist's relation to his or her social context is
made up of contradictionsbecausevisual art has a tin can tied to
its tail.It makes things. And to switch Emerson around, man is in
87

the saddleand ridesthesethings to the bank.Thevicissitudesof

this product,asit tacksfrom studio to museum,provokeoccasional comment,usuallyof a vaguelyMarxist kind.The idealism
implicit in Marxism haslittle attractionfor devotedempiricists,
among whom I includemyself.Every systemconstrueshuman
nature accordingto its desiredends,but ignoring the grubbier
aspectsof our nature,or disguisingthem, is everyideology,sbasic
attraction.It sellsus on the idea that we arebetter than we are.The
varietiesofcapitalismat leastrecognizeour basicselflshness:
this
is their strength.Thecomediesof ideologyand the object(whether
it be artwork, televisionset,washingmachine)a1s;played
out on a
field rampantwith the usualfalsehopes,lies,
and megalomania.
Art is of courseimplicatedin all this,usuallyasan innocent
bystander.No one is more innocent than the professionalintellectual, who hasneverhad to decidebetweentwo evils,and to whom
compromiseis synonymouswith having his or her epaulettestorn
off. It was the avant-gardethat developedthe self-protectiveidea
that its producthad a mysticaland redeemingesthetic,socialand
moral value.Thisideaarosefrom the fusionof idealistphilosophy'sremnantswith idealisticsocialprogramsat the beginningof
modernism.John StuartMill's On Libertymust be the ideal text to
justify any avant-garde,
whether of right or left. whether Futurist
or Surrealist.But locatingmoral energyin a saleableobjectis like
sellingindulgences,and we know what reformsthat provoked.
Whateverits heroicvirtues,the avant-gardenotion has,we now
see,liabilities.Itspeculiarrelationto the bourgeoisie(flrstcitedby
Baudelairein his prefaceto the Salonof 1846)is interdependent
and ultimately parodic.The cult of originality,the determinarion
of value,the economicsof'scarcity,
of supplyand demand,apply
themselves
with a particularpoignancyto the visualarts.Itis the
only art in which the artist'sdeathcausesa profound economic
shudder.The
avant-garde
artist'smarginalsocialpositionand the
slow move of his or her work, Iike someunmanned craft,to the
centersof wealth and power perfectlysuitedthe prevailingeconomic system.With any valuableproduct,the first task is to effect
its separationfrom its maker.Modernism'ssocialprogram,if one
88

can call it that, ignoredits immediatecontexrto call for large

reformson the basisthat it spokewirh a privilegedvoice.linis is
the "fame" fallacy:askBabeRuth for solutionsto the Grear
Depression.
)
We now know that the maker has limited control over the content of his or her art.It is ils reception
that ultimatelyderermines
irs
content.and that content,as we seefrom revisionistscholarship.is
frighteninglyretroactive.The retroactiveprovisionofconrenr to
art is now a cottageindustry.And it is cumulative.Even,onemusr
shoehorn-inhis or her little bit of conrenr.Nor hasrhe original
content,if we look at the history of modernism.an1,massir.e
ideologicaleffect.Modernism transformedperception.
but rhe politicsof perceptionremainunwritten.In the sixtiesand sevenriis,
during the art community'sdissenton Viernamand Cambodia.a
new insight took hold: the systemthrough which the work of artistswas passedhad to be examined.Thisis a key marker,ro my
mind, of what is clumsilycalledpostmodernism(is deathpostlife?)in visualart.
This was radical.Sometimesit's saferto sound off about large
political mattersthan to cleanup your own kitchen.political courageis measuredby the degreeto which your positioncan.if prudentlypursued,hurt you.It'slesscomfortableto beginthe political
processat home.PostwarAmerican artists,with someexceptions
(e.9.StuartDavisand David Smith)had a poor understanding
of
the poiitics of art'sreception.But severalartistsof the sixtiesand
seventies,particularlythoseof the Minimal/Conceptuaigeneration, understoodverywell.Theirconcerninvolveda curioustransposition.Art's seif-referentialexaminationbecame,almostovernight,an examinationof its socialand economiccontext.
Severalmattersprovokedthis. Many artistswere irritatedby the
audienceavailablefor art; it seemednumb to everythingbut, ar
best,connoisseurship.
And the expensivecompound(gallery,collector,auctionhouse,museum)into which art inevitablywas
deliveredmuffled its voice.Art's internal developmentbeganto
pressagainstseveralconventionalboundaries,inviting contextual
readings.All was occurringin a restlesssocialcontext in which
89

A
protestand radicalformulationswere an everydaypresence.
potentiallyrevolutionarysituationexisted.Thatquasi-revolution
failed,asit had to. But someof its insightsand lessonsremain,
though. asI saidbefore,thereis a vestedinterestin suppressing
them.
It is an unansweredquestion- and will probablyremain soto this situationwere teleologicalor
whether the art'sresponses
political.If the art work is the key unit of discourse,both esthetic
and economic,therefore,the thinking then went, removeit.The
systemclosesin a spasmaround a vacuum.Thereis nothing or
very little to buy, and "to buy" is. of course,the sacramentalinfinitive. Make the art difficult; that will hinder its assimilation.If art
lives by criticism.make art more like criticism,turn it into words
that make criticismitself an absurdity.And then havepeoplepay
for that.Examinethe collector,including the provenanceof his or
her bank accounustudywhat NancyHanksusedto call the
museum'sgreatestenemy:the trustee.Studythe corporatedrift of
the museumand how the museumdirector.the most consistently
persecuted
becomesa gypsywith a tie
memberof the bourgeoisie,
and a suit.
Studyart'smonetaryfate,the protectionismthat surrounds
greatinvestment.Seethe auctionhouseat work, where the living
artist may witnesshis or her authentication,but not partakein it.
Seethe contradictionsinherentin the placewhere art is shown
and sold.And note the self-selectionimplicit in this system
wherebythe art of the museumsis very differentfrom what
Cdzannetalkedaboutwhen he wantedto do overImpressionism.
Justasformalismled to art madeup by prescription(andjust as
so
the New Criticismusedto generatei1sown poeticspecimens),
degree
have
forth
a
kind
of
museum
art,
to
that
museums
drawn
.
an officialart. appropriatefor massviewing.I would hesitateto
counterpose
a sinkinglandscape
of goodart that evadesthis process.But the thought that thereis more here than our arrogance
allows us to perceiveremainstroubling.And how do we explain
the passionfor the temporarythat attemptedto forestallthe
future?Aboveall, we were reminded,we must be awareof the
90

arbitraryand manipulativeways of assigningvalue.

What was the natureof this curious outburstof insight?Apart
from the usualmild socialism,was it a desireto control the content
of art by its producers?or an attempt to separateart from its consumers?Partof this,intentional or not, was the break-upin the
seventiesof the mainstreaminto multiple styles,movements,
activities.Thispluralismwas intolerableto estheticpurists,whose
passionfor a mainstream.however,assistsmarketing_ not the first
time that estheticidealismand commercesuperimposeperfectly.
The systemalsomaintainsits certaintyof new produci by a
peculiarimperativeI call "slotting,,.uniqueto the visualaris.Most
artistsbecometime-boundto the nioment of their greatestcon_
tribution, and arenot allowed out of it.The presentrushesby,leaving them curatingtheir investment-sad imperialistsof the esthetic
self.Nor is any changetolerated;changeis considereda moral
failure unlessits morality can be convincingly demonstrated.
Removedfrom contemporarydiscourse,such artistswait for random breezesfrom the present.Originality is reified; so is its
creator.The art scenein any greatcenteris alwaysa necropolisof
stylesand artists,a columbarium visitedand studiedby critics,
historians,and collectors.
What a grandirony thar all this insight led. in the eighties,to a
reconfirmationof all that had beenlaid bare and rejected.product
and consumptionreturnedwith a plethora of contentfor those
starvedof it.The new work's defenseagainstsmooth consumption
is in its variousmasks,in which complexinternal ironiesare
decipherable.Subjectmatter exploitsitself,and someof the paradoxesofpop return,often servicedby a criticismthat brilliantlv
questionsthe basisfor valuejudgements.
The galleryspacehas
againbecomethe unchallengedarenaof discourse.But that is the
subjectof this book. Sufficeit to sayhere that the elusiveand
dangerousart of rheperiodberween1964and l9Z 6 is sinking,
with its lessons,
out of sightas,giventhe conditionsof our.ultrr..,
it must.
Brian O'Doherty
New york City 1986
9l