Pier Luigi Tazzi

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  print September 1984

  The One that Got Away

  {THE HYPOTHETICAL COMPUTER OF THE BIENNALE'S VISUAL-ARTS SECTION RESPONDS TO A QUESTION: “LIFE” IS A WORD I DON'T KNOW.}

  IN HIS CAREER AS AN INIMITABLY GREAT VOYEUR, MARCEL DUCHAMP RESORTED TO “DIRTY TRICKS,” UNAWARE OF THOSE THAT HAVE BEEN THE SPECIAL PRESERVE OF OUR CURATORS. BUT AFTER THE LIGHT, ELEGANT BEGINNING HIS WORK AFFORDED THESE EXHIBITIONS, THE REST WAS A LONG, INTERMINABLE CEMETERY, A SERIES OF ILLUSTRATED TOMBS. LIFE WAS OVER; AND SINCE, UNLIKE LIFE, ART HAS NEVER SEEMED TO SUFFICE ON ITS OWN, IT WAS COUPLED WITH DEATH, WITH WHATEVER LACKS MOVEMENT, ENERGY, AND VITAL FORCE. LIFE NO

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  print May 1984

  “L’Ultima Avanguardia”

  A few colored objects, the cast-off toys of infants precociously grown old, remain on the white walls of the nursery. Dust has dulled their brilliance; long abandonment rather than past use has smoothed over and adulterated their clear, rigorous forms. The babes are dispersed and far distant, and to search them out would surely be a sad endeavor.

  A nostalgic glow attaches to backward looks at childhood and early youth, but a look back at infancy will yield only worn-out relics without paint. The patina of time, elsewhere so generous, transforms these objects to the point of destroying them. Their

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  print January 1984

  Michelangelo Antonioni

  As a filmmaker Michelangelo Antonioni is no stranger to the seductions of painting—one need only think of The Red Desert (1964), in which Antoni Tapiès’ fashion of painting with real objects was crossed with the chromatic palette of certain Pop artists (John Chamberlain, Richard Hamilton) and certain nouveaux réalistes (Christo, Arman, César). Photography has also interested the director, to the point of his basing a film on the process—Blow-Up (1967), in which the photograph reveals a micro-reality of violence, and also of explanation and discovery, beneath the macro-reality of appearances.