Tuesday, 26 January 1993

ART / 1968 and all that

James Hall reviews:

Gravity and Grace: The Changing Condition of Sculpture, 1965-1975 at the Hayward

IF Francis Coppola were ever to direct a film version of The Divine Comedy, for Part I ('Inferno Now') he would do well to cast an art critic in the role of Virgil, and an art viewer in the role of Dante.

Who is Francis [Ford] Coppola?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sx7XNb3Q9Ek

Most critiques of Francis Ford Coppola's career interweave film criticism with biography and produce an account of a wasted genius, a failed wunderkind, a director who had a few great years, produced some magnificent movies, but slid further and further downhill as time passed. With the publication of this article, I am pleased to report that any and all announcements of Coppola's artistic demise are not only premature, but flat-out wrong.

From: Francis Ford Coppola by Brian Dauth at:http://archive.sensesofcinema.com/contents/directors/06/coppola.html

Who is Virgil?

Virgil's full name was Publius Vergilius Maro. He was a Roman poet who lived from October 15, 70 to September 21, 19 B.C. Virgil is believed to have been born in Cisalpine Gaul. He went to Rome for his education. There Virgil studied under an Epicurean philosopher, although he later exhibited Stoic sentiments. Virgil became part of the literary circle around Maecenas, a patron of the arts and minister of Octavian. He died of a fever at Brundisium.

Who is Dante?

The greatest Italian poet and one of the most important writers of European literature. Dante is best known for the epic poem COMMEDIA, c. 1310-14, later named LA DIVINA COMMEDIA. It has profoundly affected not only the religious imagination but all subsequent allegorical creation of imaginary worlds in literature. Dante spent much of his life travelling from one city to another. This had perhaps more to do with the restless times than his wandering character or fixation on the Odyssey. However, his Commedia can also be called a spiritual travel book.

"The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in time of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality."

http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/dante.htm

The Divine Comedy

Written in the first person, it tells of the poet's journey through the realm of the afterlife: Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise. "Midway upon the journey of our life / I found myself within a forest dark," begins the work. The Roman poet Virgil (Vergilius) is the guide through the Inferno and Purgatorio. Dante greets Virgil as "my master and my author". Beatrice, the personification of pure love, has been sent to rescue Dante. She finally leads Dante to Paradiso.

Hall goes on to write that:

An art viewer would make an ideal Dante because, when experiencing modern art, you have to thread your way through some terribly intimidating terrain. When the going gets really tough, you may even imagine that the neon writing on the wall says,

'Abandon all hope, ye who enter here'.

An art critic would make an ideal Virgil for a related reason. The critic is the dried-up old duffer with the hapless task of taking bemused viewers by the hand, and acting the omniscient guide. In other words, he or she has to put a neat philosophical spin on a vast catalogue of what look like gratuitous grotesqueries.

[(Fine Arts & Visual Arts / Art Terms) something that is grotesque, esp an object such as a sculpture.]

Something Virgilian is called for in the current exhibition at the Hayward Gallery, the oddly titled 'Gravity and Grace: The Changing Condition of Sculpture 1965-1975'. Since opening in 1968, the Hayward has been an 'abandon-all-hope' sort of place, and this show is to the manner born.

As you pass through the main entrance, a sheaf of paper is thrust into your hand with the following storm warning: 'CAUTIONARY NOTE - KEEP CHILDREN IN HAND AT ALL TIMES - DO NOT TOUCH WORKS IN THE EXHIBITION. Works in this exhibition are made from unorthodox and fragile materials - many are precariously constructed and several are electrically wired. Please take special care when moving round the galleries and, especially, keep children in hand.'

A child in the hand may not necessarily be worth two in the exhibition, but what

follows can easily be construed as a chamber of horrors. Starring roles are had by ash, dust, felt, fat, lead, neon, gravel, concrete, cacti, foam rubber, burnt skin, broken glass, lettuce, cast-off clothes, metal cages and X-rayed rib-cages. This embarrassment[?] of sights is matched by an embarrassment of sounds. Continuous aural stimulation is provided by the hiss of gas, the sound of steam, the crackle of strobes and electricity, and the shufflings of a live macaw.

What we have here is a reunion of the class of '68. There are 19 men in the class and one woman. Eight are from Italy, six from New York, and two each from England, Belgium and Germany. Four are now dead. Having begun by producing consumer- unfriendly 'anti-art', almost all of them - from Bruce Nauman and Eva Hesse in America, to Joseph Beuys and Richard Long in Europe - have become darlings of the international art world.

Bruce Nauman

Bruce Nauman’s "One Hundred Fish Fountain" 2005

Eva Hesse

Joseph Beuys

Joseph Beuys “The Pack” 1969 Staaliche Museen Kassel, Neue Galerie. 2005

I Like America and America Likes Me, 1974 -- Joseph Beuys

Richard Long

Richard Long at work and an exhibition of his work.

They share a Neo-Dadaist distrust of fine art media and methods, and a preference for the found, rather than the crafted, object. Assemblage is the characteristic form - the apparently haphazard, precarious and enigmatic yoking together of disparate elements. Their exhibitions had much in common with Happenings and experimental theatre. Not only were they frequently fly-by-night affairs, but they were also staged in unconventional arenas - warehouses, garages and factories. It may sound heretical, but this aesthetic has its roots in the romantic cult of the fragment and the ruin.

The year was 1917. A young punk by the name of Marcel Duchamp decided to inject a little humour into the modern art scene, in the name of Dada. He assembled a readymade sculpture from a urinal. "Fountain," signed with the pseudonym R. Mutt, profoundly pissed off the public. Duchamp gained instant notoriety, and his "Fountain" was roundly rejected (or "misplaced") from the avant-garde Society of Independent Artists exhibit in New York. Four decades later, "Art News" magazine and the art critic Barbara Rose hailed the Neo-Dadaists, a new wave of Dada-inspired artists.

http://www.ehow.com/about_4567046_neodada.html