|
|
ON THE THEME OF THE EXHIBITION
Sidney Janis
Reaction and change in the continuity of art have never before undergone the rapid nor unpredictable succession of metamorphoses as they have in the twentieth century.
Cubism, Surrealism, Dadaism and later Abstract Expressionism, to name only a few, were each in turn ardent dissents from existing creative art forms and frequently before these forms were even accepted. The originality of each succeeding movement, challenged or maligned as it was, ultimately found its recognition.
Today's Factual artist, and the work of these artists make up the present exhibition, belong to a new generation (age average about 30) whose reaction to Abstract Expressionism is still another manifestation in the evolution of art. As the Abstract Expressionist became the world recognized painter of the 50s, the new Factual artist (referred to as the Pop Artist in England, the Polymaterialist in Italy, and here as in France, as the New Realist) may already have proved to be the pacemaker of the 60s.
City bred, the New Realist is a kind of urban folk artist. Living in New York, Paris, London, Rome, Stockholm, he finds his inspiration in urban culture. He is attracted to abundant everyday ideas and facts which he gathers, for example, from the street, the store counter, the amusement arcade or the home. Rediscovered by the artist and lifted out of its commonplace milieu, the daily object, unembellished and without "artistic" pretensions is revealed and intensified and becomes through the awareness it evokes a new esthetic experience. In the unplanned transformation the ordinary become extraordinary, the common, uncommon, a transposition in which the spirit of the common object becomes the common subject for these artists. Thus, the traditional artist-invented work of art now is supplanted unceremoniously by a true product of mass culture, the Readymade. Artists working in this direction form the central theme of the exhibition.
Also dead center to the idea of the exhibition is work colored by other qualities in mass media. The billboard, magazine, comic strip, daily newspaper, very directly have been the inspiration of a variety of facts and ideas introduced by the new generation.
Repetition, another inevitable consequence of his environment, plays a role as well in the artist's choice. Accumulations, objects painted or gathered in great quantities are leitmotifs, concentrated and accentuated by the New Realist. The multiplication of massproduced objects into great accumulations imparts to the viewer a highly intensified visual experience.
These are the categories upon which the exhibition concentrates. To avoid confusion, peripheral, or closely related works of quality, but whose techniques are less factual than they are poetic or expressionist, have been omitted as outside the scope of the exhibition. In this sense, the paintings of Rivers and Rauschenberg come to mind. Johns, an established Factualist, also is, unfortunately, not included. To remain within the idea of the exhibition, the important directions of Collage and Assemblage are omitted. In line with this, the inventive walls of the pioneer Louise Nevelson, varied assemblages by Dubuffet; automobile compressions by Cesar, assembled sculptures by Chamberlain and by Stankiewicz and work by Conner; Del Pezzo; Frazier; Marisol, among others, have not been included. Because of limitation of space, many artists working in the direction of New Realism, to name a few, Brecht; Filliou; Getz; Henderikse; Hockney; Kaprow; Kienhoiz; St. Phalle; Watts; Westermann; are not represented in the present showing.
Since no attempt here has been made of an historical survey of the object in twentieth century Art, the pioneer, Cornell and the precursors, Picasso, Schwitters, Duchamp, Man Ray, together with others, have been exempt.
Because of its connotation, the label Neo-Dada sometimes applied to the new work, needs clarification, for while the Dadaist then and the New Realist now, have certain common ground, aims of each are in fact quite polar. Dada artists, disillusioned by the war, set out to destroy art; that despite negation and pessimism a new art-form came into being is beside the point, but none the less, a windfall we now gratefully accept. Still, the Dadaist in attitude and intent was violently anti-art; the present day Factualist eschewing pessimism is, on the contrary, intrigued and stimulated - even delighted - by the environment out of which he enthusiastically creates fresh and vigorous works of art. In this context, the angry young men of 1918, and the cool young men of today, are diametrically opposed.
But in the sense that the basic vocabulary of creative ideas survives, the long angry silence of Dada has ended, reborn with the healthy cry of a new generation. Duchamp, most prophetic of the Dada painters, whose sense of irony and indifference saved him from involvement with contemporary vitriolic controversy, himself has become, in recent years, most influential and encouraging to Factual artists everywhere. Duchamp's Readymades of 1914 remain today art works of vision and of particular significance and inspiration to the New Realist.
Exhibition catalogue, The New Realists, October 1962
|
|
|
|
|
|
