Six Years the Dematerialization of the Art Object From 1966 to 1972

Lucy Lippard, Half-dozen Years: The Dematerialization of the Art Object from 1966 to 1972 (New York: Praeger), 272 pages, 128 black-and-white illustrations.

A bespeak has been reached, with the publication of Lucy Lippard's book The Dematerialization of the Art Object from 1966 to 1972, where sure propositions tin can no longer get unquestioned. The understanding of the importance of these propositions will come up only from an investigation of the internal contradictions of the volume itself which, in turn, will reveal its hidden theoretical and ethical implications. As is often the case, the covert meaning of the structure differs from the expressed intentions.

To document the history of six years of extremely active and possibly radical fine art requires a sense of responsibility to the spirit of the fine art itself. The bibliographic processes must exist systematic, articulate, informed, and consistent within the chosen theoretical framework. Lippard's book does not satisfy these criteria. The plan of the volume as presented on the jacket is an "intentional reflection of the chaotic network connected with so-chosen conceptual art. . . ." In her preface the author writes oft and positively of "fragmentation"; "Fragmentation is more than similar direct communication than the traditionally unified arroyo in which superfluous literary transitions are introduced." Support of this updated McLuhanism lies in the dense, chaotic, "fragmented" mixture of type sizes, faces, and weights which listing, in constant and confusing reversal, books (alphabetically past author) and exhibitions or mailing pieces (chronologically past month and year). Lippard insistently substitutes the fragmentation method for what she considers the fallacia consequentis of continuity, i.due east., "superfluous literary transitions." The problem of this format is not ane of "superfluous literary transitions" but of an arbitrary manner of option camouflaged past a supposedly objective presentation of chief data. The visually impenetrable layout with its lists and bound-cuts presents a parody of her assumptions about the content of this fine art. The "blueprint" mimics sure stylistic conventions of Conceptual art. While fragmentation is held to exist a more than authentic organizing principle, information technology is contradicted on every other page past the insertion of editorial comments and by chronological preferences. Chaos resulting from this blazon of performance is not inherent chaos, merely a symptom of an unwillingness or disability to ascertain particular issues.

A refusal to acknowledge more than rigorous structural principles demonstrated past this art results in a book-length pastiche. Parodistic imitation appeared earlier in Lippard's writing, most notably her introduction in The Museum of Modern Fine art'south Information exhibition catalogue, and her contribution to the Sol LeWitt catalogue published in The Hague, Netherlands, ii years ago. For this occasion she did a typographic "rendition" of a LeWitt grid drawing with the heading "Imitation-Homage." Simulated on the part of a critic is a course of indulgence. In this book, and several previous catalogues of exhibitions, it has been disguised as a "certificate" and presented in an unchallenged context because of the advertised closeness betwixt artist and critic: "The editor has been closely involved with the art and artists since their emergence" (jacket blurb). This "interest" lends an authorization and uncontsestability to what is explicitly an uncritical try.

The critic as historian is no more than acceptable than the critic as artist, unless the methodology is inverse. Without this change the surreptitious slide from 1 role to the other slurs the neutrality essential to the critical evaluation. Unlike the critic, who tin can function without criticizing the given assumptions of the artist's guild, historians are obliged to present a context for their examination of contradictions in the existing order. There is besides a cultural stardom to exist made. A critic has a "task," a historian has a "post." The linguistic communication distinction reveals that the critic is accepted as a functionary of the endeavor (in the capacity of a distributor of information), only that the historian is accorded the privileges of altitude from the market. That Lippard would prefer to present her activities as history is not surprising. This suppresses the issue of partiality. But in her presentation, the role of historian is transformed from annotator to apologist, and the writing of immediate history tempts her to participate in its making. Because distance is sacrificed, and analytical thought dismissed as "literary transitions," history is frozen into an individualistic perspective unaware of its undisclosed distortions and incapable of offer any insight into the relationship of the works themselves. The struggle between ideas is eliminated by bibliographies, timetables, or simple memoirs of individuals and adventitious encounters.

In her own predictable defense force she writes ". . . the point I want to make is phenomenological not historical." The employ of the word phenomenology in the current art vocabulary is an abuse of its meaning. When Husserl wrote "go to the things themselves" he was not suggesting the compilation of lists of "things," or the presentation of unexamined raw experiences. Phenomenology is the radical postulate of "presupposition-less lived feel" as a technique for the investigation of intentionality (how the world is our construction of information technology). It was not a withdrawal from analysis, but a method for bringing subjectivity under logical scrutiny. The consequences for philosophy itself inevitably involved a return to the questions of idealism and transcendental subjectivity. (This process came into the language of contemporary fine art criticism as a question of objecthood versus objectness—a case of trivialization, or but a confusion with 19th-century Phenomenalism.) The trouble of this misused terminology is that information technology incorrectly identifies the problems being argued in the art. It is the differentiation of the attitudes of these artists that is important, not the writer's projected similarity of their stylistic means.

When Lippard claims no theoretical basis for choice, she even so admits that she could not include everything that happened during that catamenia (which would exist like the map in Lewis Carroll's Silvie and Bruno, with the calibration of one inch = one inch, obviating the need for any map at all). She offers the following rationale: "I would similar this book to reflect that gradual de-emphasis of sculptural concerns, and every bit the book evolves, I accept deliberately concentrated on textual and photographic work" (italics mine). The implications of the italicized words point upwards the contradiction between the expressed bibliographic structure of the book and the actual organizational principles. Lippard sees the book as having an internal evolution reflective of the evolution of Concept art from sculpture. Then she proposes the book as congruent with the menstruation, setting herself up every bit the principle of selection by the method of concentration. Her argument above is a disguised confession, particularly when juxtaposed with the opening claim: ". . . There is no precise reason for sure inclusions and exclusions expect personal prejudice and an idiosyncratic method of categorization." There is zilch "idiosyncratic" about this reading of history. It has been central to general fine art-disquisitional awareness for at least iv years. Lippard has personally emphasized this centrality in terms of the exhibitions she arranged, wrote well-nigh, and now cross-references.

In journalistically rejecting theoretical grounds, she ignores the covert line she is pushing. Acknowledgement of a theoretical ground for this art would reveal aspects antithetical to her premises: for example, information technology would become axiomatic that many of the artists she lists outlined the bounds of their fine art quite early on, independent of more than traditional concerns in sculpture, and that whatever development was not teleological. Lippard's lack of perspective leads her to patronize intentions, "Some artists now think it's absurd to make full upwardly their studios with objects that won't be sold, and are trying to get their fine art communicated every bit rapidly as it is made." Her refusal to engage the complex and frequently contradictory intellectual questions beingness raised, reduces the intentions of an fine art attempting a forceful critique of the existing social and esthetic social club into a series of purely promotional activities.

The principles of exclusion deserve more attention. A basic tenet of the book is that a piece of mail service is to be considered a work of art. Ray Johnson is eliminated, even so, because it is said of his mailings that they would "confuse issues," and the book would go "unmanage able if some similarity of esthetic intention were non maintained" (italics Lippard'south). On the surface this appears to be an adequate premise, notwithstanding why, and then, does she exclude an artist of the stature of Dan Flavin, particularly since his fine art seriously investigated aspects of "dematerialization." Flavin certainly is not to be excluded on the grounds of a lack of "esthetic similarity," as he was one of the strongest proponents of the "lean-pared-down-look," and one of the first and most consequential artists to write theoretically about his art during the period in question.

The office of "fragmentation" can at present be identified as a hidden exclusion principle. Lippard's form derives from the French "nouvelle roman," in books such as Sutor's Mobile, which merely misconstrue developmental logic rather than supplant it. In dissimilarity, narrative fiction as a model yields a history of sequences . . . if A then B, if B then C, if C . . . etc. What is offered is nothing more than a disguised remodeling of the patrimony theory of art history. The machinery of art history is designed to bestow legitimacy by forging a sequential evolution which accedes to the demands of causal reasoning for the beingness of specific works of art. Artists who exercise not fit the simplified a priori causal schema or who do not adjust to prescribed attitudes are eliminated.

The Dematerialization of the Art Object is non a conscious corruption of history. Information technology is a victim of the historical forces it is unable to acknowledge. To confront these forces requires an analysis of the political and economic problems that inform esthetic issues. Books such as this one have a predetermined use demanded by the system of distribution. They role to shore up a position, establish theoretical domains, create hierarchies of individuals for the market, try to provide definitive reference works, and indoctrinate supporters. It is merely some other ideological handbook. But information technology is potentially dangerous considering Lippard fronts a phantom objectivity, an autonomy that appears so strictly rational and all-embracing as to conceal every trace of its purposes. To bound from a listing for a 1968 work by Lawrence Weiner to this entry, "Sept. 26 (1968) Amsterdam: Boezem sends out map and documentation of the day's conditions report and meteorological analysis entitled 'Medium for the Furtherance of Renewed Experiences,' " is to debase the content of Weiner'south art by juxtaposing information technology with an obvious neo-Fiuxist ploy, such as declaring the weather map as fine art. This cannot b east defended, a s Lippard attempts i n the preface past saying, "I have included certain work here because it illustrates . . . how far ideas can be taken earlier they become exhausted or totally absurd."

Information technology merely is incommunicable for the uninitiated reader to distinguish a time-dissipation gene when the works enter the public domain virtually simultaneously. Lippard'southward notion of how fine art informs other art is one of misguided democratization, defined equally everybody can understand everything. Specific content is not of import. The effect of this process is to nowadays a clarified mass of information, from which all contradictory and conflicting ideas have been factored out by juxtaposition. Yet Lippard proposes intuition and "fragmentation" in order to cover upwardly the inconsistencies necessary to perpetuate the illusion of wholeness.

In the Lippard book, the inconsistencies are obvious. The volume is indexed. It lists the artists alphabetically and measures the amount of their comparative contributions. Lippard's biases are easy to reconstruct. This process facilitates the rating of an individual artist'south "worth" by typographic weight. The index is a direct refutation of her opening claim to an "anti-individualistic" point of view, and functions equally a very adequate replacement for "a traditionally unified approach."

This volume is in a unique position, one enjoyed by few other art histories, except some dealing with ancient art. Much, if not almost, of the art it records is no longer in existence. The temporal continuity of these works is in the form and identify given by this book. That is as well arbitrary a process to let it slide unquestioned into the civilisation. The writer has assumed a responsibility which cannot be reconciled with the technique of pasting old clippings and announcements together. This "assemblage" technique is rendered invisible by what Roland Barthes calls the "terrorism of the printed page." The device of the invisible narrator is a 19th-century novelistic device for composing historical fiction, in order to manipulate the unaware reader'south responses.

Another serious effect is the cocky-fulfilling implication of the title itself. By attempting to imitate the future information technology distorts the present. Some art critics believe that their contribution to culture is enhanced by coining titles for "art movements." Her term, "dematerialization," has been filtering into general usage every bit a prescriptive device used in an ethical context. It suggests the immorality of artists who proceed to brand objects. A alphabetic character from the Art-Linguistic communication group, published in this book, is an authentic analysis of the discussion and its misuse:

All the examples of art-works (ideas) that you refer to in your article are, with few exceptions, fine art-objects. They may not exist an fine art-object in its traditional matter-country, but they still are affair in one of its forms, solid-state, gas-land, liquid-country. And it is on this question of matter-state that my caution with regard to the metaphorical usage of dematerialization is centered upon . . . That some art should be directly material and that other art should produce a fabric entity only equally a by-product of the need to record an thought is not at all to say that the latter is connected by any process of dematerialization to the former [italics mine].

Does this dissuade the author? No. She replies in her preface, "Granted. Simply for the lack of a improve term I have connected to refer to a process of dematerialization . . ." (italics mine). The terminology perpetuates itself until it becomes total nonsense. "Keith Arnatt comes to 'idea fine art' via procedure or behavioral land art (a constant interest in hermeticism and holes) and a something-to-nothing development."

Because Lucy Lippard was able to acquire pertinent documents, and because she was in close proximity to the artists, this book, by virtue of its inconsistencies and misrepresentation of esthetic intentions, tin can only be establish severely defective as a useful piece of work of scholarship. And for its falsifications, information technology tin can be called an act of bad faith to art.

Wittgenstein used to say that the Tractatus was not all incorrect: it was not like a bag of junk pretending to be a clock, simply a clock that would never tell the right fourth dimension.
—G.Due east.K. Anscombe, Introduction to Wittgenstein's Tractatus

—Mel Bochner

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Source: https://www.artforum.com/print/197306/six-years-the-dematerialization-of-the-art-object-from-1966-to-1972-36293

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