Daniel Thomas : Newspaper writings

"TELEGRAPH" Sydney, N.S.W. Art without objects ONE might suppose that an artist's proper activity was to snake objects, for example, paintings and sculptures. Yet there is a tendency in 20th century art which denies the value of artists' objects. Instead, an artist will simply point to existing objects (and activities), or present them, in a way that heightens our awareness of them. Ultimately, these artists would wish us to see our entire environment as if It were art, to live every mo- ment as if it were art. Art is life, they will say -it Is not objects, for ob- jects are dead. Especially objects that have been elevated into museums, where they are protected, cared for, made precious. And they will be as re- sentful of dealers as of museums, resentful of the fact that sensations and emotions which can be free, have been replaced by ob- jects, which can me mar- keted for money. 910 they are pleased to make anti -museum art (that can't be preserved for the future) and anti -deal- er's art (that can't be sold and resold). Well, of course, there are plenty of art objects that don't die, that do continue to stir people centuries later. One might suspect that the "anti -object" artists are cowardly, that they are denying the value of some- thing which they couldn't make anyway. This is not so, though their vehemence certainly indicates a major division between artists, and per- haps between people as a whole. Artists who do care about making objects are in fact making something sen- suos,_ but which appeals chiefly to the senses of sight and touch. Such artists are more in- clined to be solitary and cranky than the anti - object artists. CHARMING The latter are usually so gregarious,ie grlittrgiunIg,and man- ners that their own per - penal life can become a Nark of art. Instead of the visual and tactile relation between one person and one object, they arc concerned with a multiplicity of relation- ships, involving all the senses, all the emotions, and as many people as possible. Their art Is the realism of today. In an age when it's not easy for an artist dayait a picture of every - life, it Is possible to manipulate everyday life Itself. This is just as good a way of bringing its joy and dramas to an audience as painting a picture. Here I have arrived at the language of theatre, and it Is toward theatre, that such artists tend, though a mixture of all art media is their ideal. For example, it is under a Department of Perform- ing Arts that an "inter - media" course is given at New York University. The PJ ART with Daniel Thomas audience. tt on to the Pacific Highway, and was followed a romantic grassy dell, lit by vlblet mercury vapor, where fen- cers were balletically kill- ing each other. It was an event which manipulated and thus heightened awareness of such activities as dancing (ordinary dancing, a danc- ing heap on the floor of a pool, dancing In the open air as If to kill), and as being an audience (throw- ing two distinctly different audiences together, making two audiences watch each other, putting the coffee break into so confined a space that it Increased hysteria instead of releas- ing tension). Happenings don't always have to happen. Just to read of the available activ- ities can sometimes work well enough. Here are a few from Allan Kaprow, the chief Inventor of Happenings in America, about 10 years ago. "On the shoulder of a stretch of highway, a fancy banquet table is laid out, food on the plates, money in the saucers. Everything left there." "Couples make love in hotel rooms, Before they check out, they cover everything with large sheets of black plastic Rim." "Photos and washerette projected on to clouds, Into air." Here Is one from Wolf Vostell: "Kiss the face on the television screen." In Sydney the best Hap- pening I've attended was a Dinner -Happening -by Brian Thomson (who has now formed a company Zz000rn Art which Is pre- pared to switch you on to the world around you.) FLOATING In a darkened room, a long table was covered with silver paper. The objects on the table thus appear- ed to be floating. The room was filled with extra people and things painted on the walls and ceiling, extra people and things projected on to a screen hung at the window (outside the win- dow, so that later the screen could be sat alight and the projected Image go up in flames). The food and the equip- ment were mostly red, orange and yellow. Tomato soup, red wine, sunset sips, smarties, very red stuffing t uses people and ob- in the chicken; toothpicks, Je,ut, e the best I mugs and plates were lit in underground movies, strict - u the ultra -violet ly as collage, never as mar- flicker, rative. Midway came balloons, Not many happenings red, orange, yellow, lots of take place in Sydney. Last them tossed around and year there was one by the fining the space to the Painter Robert Williams. coiling. The audience was part of Pudding was orange it; fringey art -world people flowers-Iceland poppies, found the church hell half daffodils -crystallised and filled with Catholic Youth candied, (Try them.) whose regular meeting And pop -art hearts In place it was and each crimson jelly. group's self-awareness was And a riotous palette of heightened by the contrast. Ice -creams colored scarlet, Catholic Youth knew turquoi,e, Prussian blue. to dance to recorded rummy, when the silver art -world knew that table was quite covered at had begun when a with the messy wreok of dozen figures, closely roped the dinner, everybody toss - together, emerged from oil ed silver glitter up into drums into a small plastic the air for some time. pool on whose floor they Chicken bones, melted splashed and heaved to the ice -creams' were embalmed same rock. In silver, reclaimed by the Then a choice of two gleaming table (hat had films, home movies and begun the evening. Dr. Wear', at opposite The event Was is better ends of the room, tile two work of art than most audiences facing each paintings or films, other. You couldn't buy a Hi s Then a bandaged figure pelting and re-sell it in a wheelchair burst profit. You couldn't pu it through the screen into the in a museum, sculptor, Len Lye, recently a visitor to Sydney, lec- tures in this course and since his sculptures both dance and sing, he has much to contribute. (I've seen his eight -foot loops and strips of metal, suspended from a ceiling, motorised to spin furious- ly then given extra elec- tric shocks to make them twitch and clang with a spleialid percussive music.) Architecture is another art form they draw upon; they like making walk-in works of art, or "environ- ments," where the sense of apace is dramatised. MOVEMENT They like lights and movement-that Is cinema, the "moving pictures." The visual arts seem dominant in this century, even over literature. In- stead of telling stories, ex- perimental novels use the devices of painting: cubism in Robbe-Orillet, collage in Burroughs. The "moving pictures" being closer to painting than to theatre or litera- ture can be successful as films without any story, se long as they have the visual sophistication of "Last Year at Marienbad," "2001," or "Yellow Sub- marine." Thus, without a strongly visual Impulse, the numer- ous Underground movies shown in Sydney remain pretentious Gothic r u b. lash, and the only locally made ones I've much en- joyed are by Julian Gib- sone-whose cast was mostly artists-and Garry Shead, who is a painter. What else do the new realist painters produce be- sides environments and films? The Happening is the most typical of their art forms, and the closest