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AMERICAN ABSTRACT ARTISTS |
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Resnick/Reinhardt Debate New Years Day, 1961, at The Club by Geoffrey Dorfman Excerpted with permission from the book Out of the Picture: Milton Resnick and the New York School, Midmarch Arts Press, March 2003 (ISBN: 1877675474) part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4 | part 5 | back to Texts page Elaine de Kooning: I'd like to ask one question about it. If you're so against the artists who appeared in Life magazine, how come you were posed so carefully with seventeen other men in 1951? You were very carefully posed - Voice: pantheism - about three years ago. Reinhardt: Are you implying that we posed ourselves? Voice: The deities were set up at that time. That's a mild corruption that rubs off on everyone. Reinhardt: That's right. It was a sin. I have to admit - (laughter) (clapping) - I think that was a very ambiguous time and there were two or three artists, for example, who swore that they would never appear in Life magazine. Now, I never thought about it that way - just like that - but they absolutely swore that they wouldn't - and they Voice: The deities were set up at that time. That's a mild corruption that rubs off on everyone. Reinhardt: That's right. It was a sin. I have to admit - (laughter) (clapping) - I think that was a very ambiguous time and there were two or three artists, for example, who swore that they would never appear in Life magazine. Now, I never thought about it that way - just like that - but they absolutely swore that they wouldn't - and they showed up too; now I - Voice: They wanted to have a little fun, I guess. Reinhardt: Well, I don't know what it was. It was the activity of two galleries. You know, it's become a kind of symbolic picture, a symbolic activity. Perhaps going back ten years before that - that was 1950 - in 1940, the American Abstract Artists picketed the Museum of Modern Art. I think that was a very important gesture. Voice: Representational artists picketed it last year. Reinhardt: Yeah. That only goes to show that even attack and protest is a problem. I think we indicated before that, even in the general situation, the people who write the most devastating attacks on society now are people who spent twenty or thirty years on the staff of Time and Life. The guy who wrote the book, "The Operators," or something like that. He was a Life editorial writer. There's a book called the "Waist High Culture," and it was written by a Time - now, that's curious. Now, of course, protesting and attacking can be a racket. I don't know how many careers have been built on artists hard to get dirty. You know, just biding your time; not showing, waiting and suddenly cashing in; well, that's an old stock market trick. Voice: Why are you doing it? Reinhardt: Not selling until the right time. You're always faced with that. Resnick: The question is why are you doing it? What are you doing? (Laughter) What are we doing?! What did we just do? Reinhardt: One thing we know is that both Milton and I are trying to articulate something we think is not right. It's something for all of you to think about as much as we've thought about it. Milton has also said to me, we're involved in discussing this thing, not only between ourselves but with our own selves. The fact that we're human like any other artist doesn't make it any better or worse; that's like bringing up the same question before. I guess we're involved in the same things other people are, but at least Milton and I are not very happy about it - Resnick: Miserable. (laughter) Reinhardt: - and we decided not to clam up about it. Voice: But hasn't there always been corruption in periods of intense activity? You read Benvenuto Cellini and - Reinhardt: Of course, but that doesn't make it any better. Voice: What's that got to do with great art or not great art? I don't think it makes it any better but why is it so important? Wolf Kahn: I think we want to sound a dirge - Reinhardt: Anybody who gets tired of talking - Milton and I are going to talk here anyway for a long time. Now, if anybody wants to go they're perfectly entitled to go; they're perfectly welcome to go because we're not here to entertain anybody. Voice: Is there a question and answer period? Or have I made a mistake? Resnick: No, you have to know me to get anywhere. (laughter) Louis Finkelstein: You've attacked the situation by talking freely. What would happen? What do you envision would be in terms of your success? How would you know if you made any headway? What would you produce? What would occur? Resnick: Well, maybe we shouldn't do it if that's the point. Finkelstein: I didn't say you shouldn't do it. Resnick: Well, you sure put it in a funny way. (Iaughter) (exclamations) Voice: No he didn't. Resnick: I don't know what l could produce. What could I produce? Finkelstein: Under what circumstances would you be less miserable? Resnick: I don't know. I give up. Finkelstein: Ad? Reinhardt: I brought up once the Thirties, but I didn't bring it up as an ideal situation, or the work that was being produced particularly, or that I wanted everybody to be on the W.P.A. again. But there was a very light feeling in the Thirties that artists have something to say about who they were and what they did, so that there was a better debate, a better feeling among artists then. Now, I'm not suggesting a return to any period in the past. If things get worse and worse there isn't any place to return to, any golden age. There are a number of people now thinking of the early Forties as a golden age as if everything that was corrupt started last year. That means younger artists. That's become a real racket among someone. Everyone thinks, well, there is a kind of a parroting going on. Hess, for instance, has talked about history as a full kind of racket - I can't say that he, himself is free of it, however. That comes up all the time and it's a ticklish thing to deal with. Resnick: I have an answer. (to Finkelstein) The thing I can produce is contrast. I'm suffocating. It's all the same. It seems as if it's an endless amount of disappointment. If I can produce some contrast wouldn't that be worthwhile? Finkelstein: Well, you were saying that you would like conscious talk, open difference, exploration, and you laid the lack of it, by implication, to some sort of conspiracy in which everybody participated by following their own motives. it seems to me that part of the serious discussion of why there isn't that kind of talk you want might also regard things other than corruption itself - Resnick: Yes. Other things than corruption. Finkelstein: - which are probably very much in the matter of painting. I just asked the question to elicit whether you thought - Resnick: I don't know whether I quarrel with Ad Reinhardt about the word, corruption. Because it's his word for it. Now, I do agree with Ad Reinhardt. That's why we're here. So I don't want to be the guy who picks up the word and throws it back and has some fun with it. I want to be the guy who's a little artistic about something or other. And I know more about that - this getting rid of things. I'd rather just leave it alone. I said the other day when Larry Rivers spoke about, "What are we supposed to be doing?" I mean, as if, I don't know why it occurred to me that I hated him for saying it, because that seems like a very sensible question. It could be said with a spirit and we could - but the way he said it, boy, - I could've smacked him. There is the nature of what I am supposed to feel like, or be like. It isn't a matter of being deprived, or living in a system that I don't like. I think it's much more true about feelings around art that you could leave almost anything. Easily. It wouldn't occur to me that I couldn't. Except that I would have to find a place for it. When I was living at home, a boy, art seemed to be something I'd like very much to do. When I couldn't do it because my father said, "You can't be an artist as long as you live in my house," it seemed very easy to leave. I like the idea that he said that, as a matter of fact; after all these years of bitterness, I feel that he was a terribly wonderful man for sticking to the ideas he thought he wanted. But I left because he didn't become a mealy-mouthed sonofabitch who wore me out, who gave me a car or some other shit that I didn't want but forced me so I couldn't leave. Now, I want to do something so that it's possible (pause) it's possible to leave corruption. It should be easy. I'm not swallowed. I'm suffocating - Voice: That wouldn't stop you. Resnick: Fuck yourself, you sonofabitch! Other voice: What you're saying - Resnick: Fuck you, too. You rotten egg! Reinhardt: You want to say something? Kyle Morris: Other than these petty attacks; I appreciate what you've both been saying. I think what it comes down to, in very specific terms, is like we're here to say "uncle". Art - abstract art - abstract painting, has been accepted. We have to give our own individual insights into what we're doing. And this is the next step, for clarification and identity. That's very important and that's all I wanted to say. Insight is the next step. 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! Hess: -corrupt. Resnick: Not enough room, huh? You mean there's only so much room? 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) Hess: What are you saying? Resnick: A Republican in art; that's what you are! 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. Hess: What's wrong with that? Resnick: Nothing. You're not an artist. 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) 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. 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) part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4 | part 5 | back to Texts page
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American Abstract Artists |
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