Sirs:
I have read with tremendous interest Rosalind Krauss’ article on the Cubist exhibition assembled by Douglas Cooper (Artforum, February 1971). Even though it may appear somewhat late to comment on it, I cannot resist the temptation to bring to your attention a footnote that Clive Bell appended to his book on “Art” which first appeared in 1913:
“Anyone who has visited the very latest French exhibitions will have seen scores of what are called ‘Cubist’ pictures. These afford an excellent illustration of my thesis. Of a hundred cubist pictures three or four will have artistic value. Thirty years ago the same might have been said of ‘Impressionist’ pictures; forty years before that of romantic pictures in the manner of Delacroix. The explanation is simple—the vast majority of those who paint pictures have neither originality nor any considerable talent. Left to themselves they would probably produce the kind of painful absurdity which in England is known as an ‘Academy picture.’ But a student who has no original gift may yet be anything but a fool, and many students understand that the ordinary cultivated picture-goer knows an ‘Academy picture’ at a glance and knows that it is bad. Is it fair to condemn severely a young painter for trying to give his picture a factitious interest, or even for trying to conceal beneath striking wrappers the essential mediocrity of his wares? If not heroically sincere he is surely not inhumanly base. Besides, he has to imitate someone, and he likes to be in the fashion. And, after all, a bad cubist picture is no worse than any other bad picture. If anyone is to be blamed, it should he the spectator who cannot distinguish between good cubist pictures and bad. Blame alike the fools who think that because a picture is cubist it must be worthless, and their idiotic enemies who think it must be marvellous.”
—John Rewald
New York City
Sirs:
Mr. Burnham’s recent articles (“Unveiling the Consort,” March and April 1971) must be read by artists not only for ideas about Duchamp but for Burnham’s contention that the high arts of painting and sculpture have ceased to be socially useful and important, that they finished their course about 1968. Fortunately for artists, Burnham’s argument in this matter pivots uneasily upon the belief that art has only one kind of life and function in the world, one residing in art’s semiotic/mythic capacities. But if art can and does fulfill numerous functions, and is responsive to various continuing and recurring needs, then even if one of high art’s tasks is now completed, other tasks would remain, making the high arts continuingly viable. And as Morris Weitz noted, no one has convincingly cited a single function as a necessary and sufficient element of art.
Indeed, Burnham never argues this point, but only assumes that since art had its genesis in magic and ritual, it remains magic and ritual (the genetic fallacy), and implies that art, being undeniably related to these activities, can have no parallel foundation in other sources. But there is in fact lots of evidence to indicate that art is responsive to and generated by many human needs (e.g., eroticism), and while this makes definition by way of function impossible, it makes art itself varied, ongoing and gratifying. Burnham’s announcement of art’s demise is, because based on a false notion, unfounded.
We may note, too, in this article and Burnham’s other writings, the equation of “avant-garde art” with “all of art that matters.” This equation is natural if one takes the view of art that Burnham does; if art is running a linear course then front runners alone are important. If, however, art is seen as meeting continuing or recurring human needs, then there is no “front” and no avant-garde and there is only different kinds of art. If we see art this way, it is foolish to see the death of art in the death of the avant-garde; the latter becomes only a phantom notion superimposed upon art in the first place.
—Justin Schorr
New York City
Sirs:
While I hesitate to burden your readers with more intermural bickering over the genealogy of the Washington Color School, I must correct a misleading impression in Cornelia Noland’s letter (May 1971) concerning my interview with Barbara Rose.
Mrs. Noland writes: “from August to November of 1956. Mr. Davis paid Kenneth Noland to come and give him 'lessons in color’ like those Kenneth was then giving to his students at Catholic University.” This is inaccurate. On two occasions Noland visited my studio to look at my work and was paid a nominal fee ($5 per visit, as I recall) for his trouble. Since I never formally studied with anyone, I relied on this arrangement to hear outside opinions from artists I respected. These visits were essentially no different in character from similar visits (but without fee) from other established local artists during that period including Jacob Kainen, Joe Summerford and Robert Gates. After two visits with Noland (not from August to November of 1956 as stated by Mrs. Noland), the arrangement was terminated by mutual consent. In any event, in no way did I regard Noland as my teacher and “lessons in color” were certainly not the object of the visits. Rather, I regarded Noland, whom I admired, as simply a more experienced colleague with whom I could trade opinions.
After all, the episodes to which Mrs. Noland refers occurred quite some time after Noland had given me a full-dress, one-man show, along with David Smith, Cy Twombly and others, at Catholic University and after Noland and I had back-to-back exhibitions at the Dupont Theater Gallery in Washington. Hardly a teacher-student relationship.
—Gene Davis
Washington, D.C.
Sirs:
Robert Pincus-Witten’s “review” of the Structure of Color show at the Whitney Museum (April 1971) is an ad hominem attack which in no way deals with the issues raised by the exhibition, nor with the paintings themselves. Had he examined the catalog, he would have noted that of the 39 artists included, only eight were represented by “Soho” galleries. This is a very small percentage indeed to justify his accusation that “entirely too much of the new ‘Soho scene’ has been legitimized on the Whitney Museum walls.”
Far more important, however, is Pincus-Witten’s earnest assurance to your readers that my selections were made on the basis of “allegiances and fears; views of friends, enemies, lovers, families; political strategies” etc. Such an accusation comes dangerously close to libel, and is blatantly untrue.
Pincus-Witten may be incapable of reviewing the work in this exhibition, but this does not mean that he is capable of reviewing my personal life or my political convictions, about which he knows nothing at all.
—Marcia Tucker
Associate Curator
Whitney Museum Of American Art
New York City
