introduction at the close of the last century of art
the period from the industrial revolution to the present day is without doubt the most turbulent in the entire history of art. after a relatively slow course of development, the process accelerates sharply after the french revolution, moving in a direction that for a long time seemed obscure. today there is no doubt that it was the direction of dying. the first symptoms of this process appeared in england, but they soon spread to those countries that were undergoing the changes later defined as the most decisive revolution in the history of labour in general.
although the first signs appeared in england, the process was most clearly visible in france, owing to the effects of the french revolution. paris became an artistic mecca for foreigners, who made pilgrimages to it, and still do, from all the countries of europe and later from other continents as well.
the process itself is very complex, but not so complex that it is impossible to isolate some of its basic elements:
- the centralization of the instruments of ideological and commercial power. paris, its galleries, exhibitions, museums and magazines become the absolute arbiters of art.
- the cosmopolitanization of art through parisian models. it is carried out persistently, even with delays of up to a hundred years, depending on when a given country entered the phase of industrialization. (at first sight – but only at first sight – this argument runs counter to the main thesis about the role of industrialization.)
- the dying out of national and local models of art, which wither away under the pressure of the concepts of the world metropolis. national metropolises soon take on the role of branches (london, berlin, munich, moscow, sydney, rome, new york, san francisco, são paulo, hong kong, shanghai, etc.).
- the progressive acceleration of the so-called developmental process of pictorial form. this accelerating succession of pictorial concepts is proportional to the distance in time from the industrial revolution in england and france. it is accompanied by the characteristic battles between the proponents of particular concepts, battles between groups, scandals, polemics in the press, protest actions, etc.
- the parallel emergence and deepening of the historical rift between art and its audience, that is, society.
- the parallel development of the products of machine civilization, whose use seemed perfectly suited to the construction of artistic creations on a new level, and to the renewal, the revival, the new renaissance of art. the thirst for renewal will be constantly present in this process, and here an almost-institution called the avant-garde has played an outstanding role.
– – – – – – – – – – *
representatives of the youngest generation of explorers of the social domain that is still called “art” have appeared in public over the past several years – appeared and been active, either independently or in group actions. the profile of these groups differs from that of groups from the more or less recent past. where a group has formed, or is forming, its informal character is declared in advance. “disconnectedness in the declarative sense. activity with the emphasis on individuality.” – this is the opening line of the collective statement of the group that has for several years been active in the form of “exhibitions-actions” (demur, jerman, martek, m. stilinović, s. stilinović and f. vučemilović). although they most often act together, they categorically refuse to be placed within any kind of framework, even that of a group name, which used to be indispensable. in contrast to the traditional framework of earlier groups, this generation, again categorically, refuses to formulate any common framework programme. what might look like a programme they regard as a kind of necessary information about their initial premises:
“the character of the criteria has shifted from the position of evaluating the artwork to the position of evaluating the work.”
“exhibitions-actions are non-compact entities.”
“information about the individual work is given by the work itself as well as by our participation.” yet despite their proclaimed anti-homogeneity, their works, exhibitions, actions, interventions, and even in part their statements, include several common features decisive for a new approach to the problems of what is still “art”:
“such activity excludes theoretical and programmatic principles” (from the introductory information in this catalogue, as well as from the catalogue of the recent exhibition at the gallery of the student centre in belgrade).
“the mode of presentation includes our practice (direct work).” so much for (non-)homogeneity. (certain contradictions, as well as certain ambiguities, are less important than the attitudes that manifest themselves in one way or another.)
– – – – – – – – – –
what is usually called a generational problem appears today to be least of all that. the degree to which the attitudes of the youngest generation have changed, compared with those of previous ones, points to a shift in consciousness not seen in the entire historical development of our art, from karas to račić and in the half century after račić. the belated romantic rebellion of the young račić, expressed in the words “manet hat nicht so gemalt”, grew in the consciousness of our painting ideologues and critics, led by krleža and babić, to revolutionary proportions. today, in the light of the recent attitudes of the youngest generation, this račić–krleža revolution has been reduced to its proper measure: to the dimensions of a modest wish to come closer to one’s own time. leaving aside the delay of roughly half a century, the practical consequences of this račić cult were paid for with another half century of one and the same belated “scraping” of canvas on the easel.
it turned out that the revolution was brought by the “long-haired men”, and that it took seventy years after račić for it to happen. the very same “long-haired men” who until recently were hunted down by our honest citizens through their representatives in government, and whose hair was shorn like sheep’s. both the haircutting and the growing of long hair are attitudes. and behaviour. the former need no explanation. but of the latter it has not yet been sufficiently established that they were a revolution. after an unknown number of centuries, a revolution in human behaviour. and therefore also a shift in consciousness, and perhaps one of the conditions for the great progress that will find expression in a (near or not so near) revolution of thought. but let us return to the practical attitudes of the young, still art. let us try to summarize their basic principles in the briefest strokes:
- the rejection of the system of aesthetic evaluation and the introduction of the criteria of the work process. in practice this means rejecting the painting as an artistic painting. aesthetics has been lost entirely, together with the “spiritual” values of the work of art.
- the most decisive, and the newest, element in the attitude of this generation is its relation to work. all accents come down to the work process.
- the exhibition of art works conceived and prepared in advance is rejected as a display of goods for sale. instead, the exhibition is at the same time an action in the course of which the works are made. the emphasis is placed precisely on the process, the action.
- a (partial) abandonment of the artistic way of thinking, insofar as the basic principles of artistic speech – illusionism and symbolization – are rejected. there are thus no longer any metaphorical intermediaries of communication, but direct communication between artist and medium – and the mode of presentation includes practice (direct work).
- connected with this is an attitude of openness to new media, with the emphasis on photography and film.
- the principle of identification
- and the final consequence – the identification of thinking and practice.
– the painting that was at the same time regarded as a picture of the world no longer exists. the picture of the world has been abolished. definitively. at least as far as history is concerned. paintings are no longer painted… “… those paintings formed ambients,” says boris demur, “in which colour was subsequently applied. i rubbed the finished paintings with sand, washed them with soap, rubbed the painting with paint for 20 minutes, blackened 20 sheets of paper with ink, etc. …” (b. demur, interview). the painting is no longer even called a painting. it is called a work. “in these works the emphasis is on the working procedure…” (b. demur, interview).
elsewhere in the same interview demur describes his method in other words: “the pictorial inevitably results in an aesthetic object, whereas i insist on the very course of execution, which is analytical in character, while the result as an aesthetic object does not interest me. the course of the execution of the work is engaged in the work, and the emphasis in it is on action alone.”
demur used the entire catalogue of his solo exhibition at the gallery of the student centre in belgrade as information about his relation to work. since these attitudes are largely shared by ž. jerman, the stilinović brothers and f. vučemilović, they may perhaps be quoted as common ones. the attitude to work is applied insofar as work is no longer an intensely “spiritual” effort of a higher order, valuable only for its result, which is of the highest order: the picture of the picture of the world, sancta art. one of the candidates for a future religion, an integral part of many religions, and a candidate for the very religion of the future.
however questionable this may be, for the “action workers” work itself comes first: the work process, and “the analysis of work as the identification of thinking and practice…”
the next principal attitude of demur’s, relevant to all the “action workers” and to the art generation of “seventy-seven”, is the principle of excluding the premises of illusionism and symbolization: “with this work all premises of illusionism or symbolization by means of idea or material are excluded.” perhaps the new generation is not aware (and it should be) that this attitude is a “hawthorn stake” for artistic thinking. perhaps it is not aware – and it should be, because the consequences of this attitude lead to a showdown with the art they still produce, and to an exit from the circle of the social elite to which they either, by their work, still “firmly” belong or which, by their length of service, they are only now approaching.
some may say that this song about the identification of thinking and practice is not new, and that it has been sung solo and in chorus from the classics of materialism to “praxis”. this reservation would undoubtedly be correct if anyone in the trade, from g. courbet to m. stilinović, had ever thought along these lines at all. but no one did. the attitude that “thinking and work are identified” implies the basic line of social development in general, and for the artistic way of thinking an already visible end.
thesis 1 – manual and machine work are two historical phases of human work
the history of humankind
knows
two different
phases of work.
manual work
and
machine work.
manual work
characterizes
social production
from prehistory
to the industrial revolution.
manual work
is
also
the basic condition
of the artistic or naive
way of thinking.
the machine
revolutionized
human work
by mechanizing it.
the appearance of the machine
in the work process
brought about
numerous consequences
from the level of work itself
to the level of consciousness.
thesis 2 – on the artistic and the functional way of thinking
(the way of thinking is determined by the mode of production)
the historical
appearance
of the machine
brought about
the most decisive changes
first mechanizing
work and production
and then
or in parallel
the way of thinking as well
which began to take shape
on the system of functioning.
on all levels
from the individual working of a machine
to the social use
of mechanization
and industrialization.
thesis 3 – the basic quality of the artistic painting is the manual mode of production
the artistic painting
was produced
for millennia
by the technology
of manual work.
for all that time
the whole of production
was carried out
in the same technology.
the manual mode of production
conditioned
for all that time
a corresponding way of thinking
shaped on the system of emotions.
produced for millennia
on this basis
art was subject
to change only conditionally
in relation to that basis.
when art
after the middle ages
inherited religion
as the domain
of the highest possible
reach of the “spirit”
it was only
a revolution
of the secularization
of emotions.
the place of the soul
was taken by the spirit.
thesis 4 – on the break in communication between art and society
the history of modern art
would be nothing other
than the history of a rift
between society (of the 19th and 20th centuries)
and its art
if that art
were its own.
that would be an absurdity
but it is not.
the history of modern art
is the history of a rift
between society
and an art
that
is not
its own.
the history of modern art is
only the history
first of the resistance
of an industrial society
developing
under conditions
of ever more advanced
mechanization and industrialization
against
a primitive manual technology.
the history of modern art
is at the same time
the history of the resistance
of the new
functional
way of thinking
against the old artistic one
and its consequences.
in trying to explain
the causes of the rift
between society and art
historians
have overlooked the fact
that the producers
of artistic paintings
remained with the technology
of manual production
which proved to be
historically
outdated.
thesis 5 – introductory thesis on the principles of functional thinking
the first machine
is
the first
model
of objective
and functional
thinking.
the first (photography) photo-machine
is
the first model
of an objective
and functional
way of seeing
(perception).
thesis 6 – on photography as a model of the functional way of thinking
the industrial revolution
which inaugurated
the social use of the machine
in the work process
brought about numerous changes
in the field of social events.
machines
began to produce
new machines.
among others
a machine for producing paintings
was produced.
the painting produced by a machine
opened up new problems
in art and around it.
demanding new definitions
the painting produced by a machine
demanded from society
new definitions
of culture
and a different structure
of so-called cultural life
outlining the contours
of an entirely
new
civilization.
photography
and the manually produced painting
have one and only one
point of contact.
both are pictures.
the differences between them
however
call into question
their kinship.
the technology
and the function
of photography and of the artistic painting
indicate
that two different phenomena are at stake here
belonging
to different
civilizations.
indicating at the same time
different origins
in the ways of thinking
that conditioned them.
photography
is one of the first indicators
of functional thinking.
photography is at the same time
one of the first phenomena
of a new way of seeing.
objective perception.
photography as a picture
is
the result
of a total
absence of emotion.
photography is
readable
by everyone.
it neither requires nor presupposes
an intermediary
in order to achieve communication.
photography does not “represent”
anything other than
what it is
and everyone sees that.
photography is
not only an expression of functional thinking
nor only its result
but an instrument of thinking
(of seeing).
photography shows
a specific
relation
to
time.
touching neither the past
nor the future
it exists practically
only in the present.
from this point of view
certain dimensions emerge
that have not yet been registered.
photography
is not a phenomenon of art.
it does not function
as an artistic painting
just as the photo-machine
does not function as an artist.
the artistic use
of photography, film and tv
is a misconception
of a transitional period.
thesis 7 – the character of the mass media is non-artistic
photography
film
and television
are not media
of art.
they are the result
of machine technology
and functional thinking.
the claim is not true
that the mass media
use art.
the opposite claim is true:
art uses
the mass media
changing
and distorting
their functions
in this transitional period.
the proper functioning
of the mass media
is intended for
the second civilization
of which society knows only
the machines that took over the function
of the labour of the hands
and photography film television
the computer.
* the broken line marks passages omitted from the full text
catalogue izložbe-akcije, cefft, zagreb, 1977