Robert Joseph Horvitz

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  print December 1974

  Beyond Reductivism: The Work of Alan Sondheim

  No imagery satisfies me unless it is also knowledge.
  —Antonin Artaud
  

  IN THE PAST FIVE YEARS, Alan Sondheim has produced a large body of work, including records of experiments, performances, notational schemes, and several book-length essays, that is notable not only for its intellectual zeal and resourcefulness, but also for its breadth of conception. As with most artists, it is difficult to sum up what he is trying to do in simple terms: he has covered a lot of ground. Moreover, his interests seem to gravitate toward precisely those areas of experience that lie outside the grasp of analytical

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  print November 1973

  Nature as Artifact: Alan Sonfist

  THE TRADITIONAL PICTORAL AND PLASTIC media all presume a certain range of free choice in the creation of an art object. Effects which are difficult to achieve are expressive and distinctive, those which are easy to achieve are inexpressive and mundane. The constraints are provided by the skill of the artist, the properties of his tools and materials, the strength of his desire to accomplish certain goals, and the achievements of other artists involved in similar work. In his efforts to be expressive or distinctive, the artist must challenge his constraints in some way. Today, the constraints

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  print October 1973

  A Talk with George Kubler

  TEN YEARS AGO A slender volume appeared with the striking title, The Shape of Time: Remarks on the History of Things. It has become a classic of humanist thought. Its author, George Kubler, addresses himself with uncommon grace and lucidity to the problems of constructing accurate historical narratives out of the tangled and often incomplete residue of human culture. His search for a universal historical grammar, applicable to all societies and all ages, leads him to a boldly expansive definition of art which he states at the opening of the first chapter:

  Let us suppose that the idea of art can