Resnick / Reinhardt Debate

by Geoffrey Dorfman
Excerpted with permission from the author.

Resnick: Very good. I agree. I think so too.

Reinhardt: The problem comes up though, after you’ve looked inside yourself, about the possibilities of what to do about the outside world.

Morris: No, that’s already accomplished.

Reinhardt: No, it isn’t already accomplished. It goes on all the time.

Morris; No. Art, in general. Every painting has been accepted—

Reinhardt: One doesn’t know about, uh—one has to question that acceptance; everything has been accepted, not only abstract art. Everything has been accepted.

Thomas B. Hess: Individual insight, particularly in terms of painting; well, to some extent, Ad, but people who have that usually become the leaders. At the same time the ones who are imitative or influenced and are crowding the scene, pardon me, are—

Resnick: Not enough room in this world!

Thomas B. Hess: —corrupt.

Resnick: Not enough room, huh? You mean there’s only so much room?

Thomas B. Hess: In that respect, yes.

Resnick: You’re a businessman! Every businessman thinks there’s just so much room in this world; you’re a Republican! (laughter)

Thomas B. Hess: What are you saying?

Resnick: A Republican in art; that’s what you are!

Thomas B. Hess: Could be, but that still doesn’t negate the idea of individuality. I think the Republicans could have won the election if they’d only understood what they were talking about.

Resnick: You’re a businessman looking for a trademark. You want to be an individual businessman. You want a little shop where there’s only one of a kind; your own.

Thomas B. Hess: What’s wrong with that?

Resnick: Nothing. You’re not an artist.

Thomas B. Hess: And how do you know?

Resnick: Then maybe you are, but that idea is not an artist’s idea. My original contribution to this discussion is that you’re not very original if you want to be an individual!.
(simultaneous with)

Thomas B. Hess: Well, what you’re talking about is a contradiction. You’ve been talking (inaudible) all night! (whistles, boos)

Voice: —feel crowded. You feel that the system—you feel crowded; You want to get away from—

Resnick: Yeah, I want to get out of the “original” gang!

Voice: Your original objection to what he said. What are you objecting to, Milton?

Resnick: I object to you, too! (laughter)

Reinhardt: The whole idea of individuality is also a racket.

Voice: No it isn’t. We’ve got our own individual in us.

Voice: All of us are living and dying by ourselves. And this is our individuality.

Reinhardt: Well, I’ve never compiled any kind of social theory, but I certainly wouldn’t go along with any individualist notion.

Thomas B. Hess: It has to be done!

Resnick: I like “insight” better. Why don’t you stick to insight; then you’d be all right here!
Voice: No, insight is very important. This means our (inaudible) that. And this is our individuality.

Resnick: Oh, you mean insight is a capital letter word, a capital “I”. You don’t mean insight.

Voice: Insight!

Resnick: You mean that’s what you’ve got. You don’t mean that there is such a thing as insight—

Voice: Oh, I don’t know if I’ve still got it.

Resnick: You don’t mean that there’s something in this world such as insight that people could aim for. You mean that’s what you’ve got!

Voice: I may mean it. Maybe I do! But that’s not the point.

Resnick: That’s right; Now you know what you mean.

Voice: No, the idea is this; that people can spread-eagle themselves all over a kind of a fad; a small community—they almost drown out the individual who has been doing something.

Resnick: Tell me, are you an individual?

Voice: Uh—

Woman’s Voice: Yes, he is!

Voice: Probably.

Resnick: Probably? You’re not even sure!

Voice: Sure. Now, what good would it do me to say yes or no to that—

Resnick: You’re to some degree an individual. Well, it’s all measure. It’s all measure again. Well, what the hell is measure? Individual means One. Indivisible!

Voice: So? Yeah?

Resnick: There’s no measure! Just say so!

Reinhardt: There’s a problem about individuality and insight. It isn’t as unique or as isolated as you might think. I’m sorry Harold Rosenberg went home because he again brought up this idea that’s come up several times; when you make a work of art, whatever that is, an insight or individual activity, it moves out of your hands and becomes a great many things to a great many people and it acquires all kinds of other things that react back to you again. When you talk about insight in that situation you’re just not very realistic about it. Also someone who talks about individualism is immediately suspect. You know that the people who talked about rugged individualism all the time were the most anonymous, mechanical, uniform men. All the time. It was part of the Hoover period. Hoover represented individualism.

Voice: Are you comparing politics to art?

Reinhardt: Yeah.

Resnick: How about you?

Woman: (possibly Elise Asher): I’d like to talk about what you said last year about corruption. You remembered a great line, I thought. First you do it for mom, then for somebody else and then for money. But actually, in the final analysis, it’s the guy, the painter, or gal, for herself or himself. It doesn’t make a damn bit of difference to me, or you really, if de Kooning or somebody sees girders in my work. That’s his problem. I’m already busy with the picture I’m going to do tomorrow.

Reinhardt: But that isn’t true. I’m sure you don’t work that way. You don’t have idea after idea and you let the paintings go and anybody can do what they want with them.

Woman: Why? My kid says, “Jesus Christ, ma, that’s great!” I think he’s a great critic!

Reinhardt: Well, then already someone’s influenced you, already! (laughter)

Resnick: Are you waiting for your children to tell you you’re all right? Are you spending the rest of your life waiting for someone to tell you that? Never mind!

Reinhardt: Suppose a curator of a great museum bought a picture of yours?

Woman: Well, I just wouldn’t tell that story.

Reinhardt: Well, I just think you’d have to think about why somebody would like it that much.

Woman: It doesn’t matter what he thinks.

Lucien Krukowski: I’m dispirited about all the involvement we’ve had in these panels with the question of the socially corrupt business around art. Not that I don’t think it’s important but somehow, especially the way Ad plays with it, it seems that you have a very clear idea of what is not corrupt in art. Then you are somehow free to talk about everything that is corrupt around art. I’m not so sure that all of us are so clear of what is corrupt in art, or at least, not as clear as Ad. The question is—if we assume that what we really should be talking about is art—painting, how would one go about that here? How could we get away from this stuff? Really start talking about painting; how can we do it?

Resnick: Everyone ought to have his conditions, everyone makes his demands. Whoever has anything to say about art from now on ought to demand what he lays down as the minimum condition for painting, or art, or sculpture, or anything he likes to have. And stop acting as if he doesn’t get it. As if that’s the end of it all. That’s really what I mean; that artists ought to know and think and say what they’re doing. Artists ought to make their demands on themselves, and then on their friends, and then tell what their demands are as well as they can. In order to get someone interested—because if they can’t say it, then no one’s going to get interested. If someone who isn’t an artist feels there’s something wrong and is interested in art, it would be easy for him to set up conditions for art that he feels are important to him—and say so. I would like to see a few demands made upon me. It may suit or may not. It may occur to me to change, or not. I would have a chance!