but it's, it's an and can any sort of communications vehicle because it
trivializes even that, which is important, and therefore, to see, say, a
news item juxtaposed with an advertisement for soap or something like that
is a terrifying just positioning. So it trivializes, I don't know whether
one can call it mediocre as such, but it trivializes things to a point
where we've become insensitive and that's had a lot of doubt. That's
created a lot of harm and no doubt there's much damage to be seen in
society from it. But I don't think of television as a leisure pursuit as a
leisure opportunity. I've given you an example, I did that very
deliberately when I was speaking at the outset in a way showing a way in
which television and radio can be used very constructively for didactic
educational purposes and be highly successful. That open university system
in the UK, I mentioned, it's not just a minor, um, Thing in British Life,
there's something like 240 people involved in the whole activity, but they
are those people who are prepared to make the choice of being involved in
that activity and therefore going back to the whole crunch question of man
looking after himself, then ultimately makes the choice of what he is
going to do in terms of his leisure time himself. And if he cares to sit
in front of the television, sir, I wonder how beside legislating for the
things that paolo and other people would want, we could shift them from
that position, except there's every indication that he's bored bored stiff
by it anyhow and that public television itself is making some tremendous
inroads into a dull and boring system. In addition to public, Excuse me.
In addition to public television, I think, I think it comes back to the
issue of creating possibilities and opportunities. Now. Cable television
for a long time has been in a kind of uncreative um period initially was
considered having tremendous possibilities. It's now experiencing in some
studies and certainly in new york, a very significant change in
renaissance at any given time. I can turn on my television set and not
watch the trivia you're talking about. And not only have the opportunity
to look at public broadcasting, educational tv, but also see five or six
different cable shows, including shows that our public access shows where
anyone can go on cable and talk about any political issue, any art issue,
their artists, talking about their work, their poets, reading poetry. Uh
that in itself is a new, a new possibility. And I uh I for one feel that
that's going to expand enormously and the uh and be a source of a new kind
of creativity. I would also like to respond to that if I can't talk long
enough, it's not blood enough to reach my chin, but I think television
perhaps is too huge to even call it a mediocre. Its influence is so
overpowering. Um and it is not as I agree with mel, it is not necessary
that we see mediocre things on television. One of the issues of television
is the passivity of sitting in front of it even um as a point of physical
health and well being. But more than that, I think that
the main danger of television is the same danger that face is America
everywhere in that the powered is
one of
the people in power are not there to lead and the people in power are not
there to share their knowledge. The people in power are still a part of a
system I think is dying and we'll probably have to go till its natural end
of playing. I've got a secret and I know something you don't know and
everything I know that you don't know is going to make me more powerful or
richer. The opposite of that is here's something I know, maybe it will be
helpful. Um so that if we just turn the attitude around television can be
used the other way.
Can I make a commercial advertisement at this moment? Since we're talking
about television? Uh there is being established the Arcosanti Association
of Media ethics and aesthetics, which makes army, isn't it A. M. E. Have
you heard of this?
This is paolo Soleri's latest Brain baby. Um and it is meant to bring
together listen to this, bring together clergy, that's ministers of the
Kirk priests and the like clergy, artists and ecologists do you fit into
these categories because if so you better join. I don't know what the
subscription is, but that's part of the document. That's partly a joke.
But it's very as I understand, Solar is thinking it's he sees a type of
crisis. He says that religion in the form of those who practice as
professional teachers of religion, that these people should be coming to
arcosanti, that they should the media, people who have enormous power
should be coming here and those who are concerned with the environment
generally, he makes a play for establishing this is what he calls a
critical mass. I hope it isn't a critical mess Jack. Uh, a major center on
the surface of the earth for exploring new habits of thinking and habits
of living and habits of building.
That's the end of the commercial.
Yes.
Ask ask Carlos scenario because he's gone. It's all your next please.
Oh, come on. My friend and colleague from frescoes, Sam Henry. I'd just
like to make a few unpopular statements in response to some of the things
you've been saying. Uh, one thing is disturbing me is that you seem to be
comparing the kind of mind that a da Vinci or Beethoven has with the
average guy who's down bowling and expecting that my neighbor who spends
his time drinking beer and bowling and watching television should be out
producing or at least appreciating works of that quality. And I just like
to remind you about the bell curve that The Q of 100 is the center of the
curve. Which means that half the population fall below 100 now. What what
do you think of the I. Q. Test is rather irrelevant because whatever tests
we might devise we're gonna find out that a great mass of humanity has a
very low capacity. And I
I think that that fellow if I know him and I think I do know him doesn't
understand the difference between a joke to painting and the face he sees
on a Marlboro ad and furthermore, he's incapable of seeing that difference.
And I think genius has always been some tiny percent of the human race
who are in a very uhh have a very privileged capacity because of a great
nervous system that they have. And I would just like to not see us knock
the whole human race because they are not of that quality. Uh People are
going to use their leisure time in ways which we may disapprove. Perhaps
that's all the capacity they have. Um I'd like to just bring up a couple
of other points in relation to this. I also think that the discussion of
genius and the lack of genius in the 20th century is very misguided in
that I believe that there's a great deal of genius. For example, we're
seeing in this century at least two major societies which have tried for
the first time to create from the ground up an entire society. It's
economics, it's politics, it's culture and everything. I think they're
miserable failures. And I'm speaking to particularly of Russia and china,
but I I applaud or at least I'm in awe of this great effort because to my
knowledge, there's never been a time in history when people had the daring
to start and create something from the ground up in this way. And
I'm impressed with other kinds of genius that we see. I just reading an
article in which uh it said that one rocket can be sent from ah a point,
you know, several 1000 ft under the ocean and it can distribute fairly
accurately warheads in an area like boston to kill 20 or 30 million people
at once? That's an act of great genius. That's a monument to the genius of
mankind. No one has ever produced a monument like that before. It's a
horror, but it's a great piece of genius. The Bank of America. You know,
it's it's incredible what the Bank of America can do. Um If we were to
look at at the achievements in space, I mean, great, great acts of genius
that have occurred in this genius. Well, that's a whole other issue. If
you want to get into, Well, would you say for instance that Beethoven was
, was an individual piece of genius. I I know that Beethoven was standing
on the shoulders of hummel and uh heighten and Mozart and Beethoven on
this side as well. Some can burn about a okay, I'll put Bernard von Brahm
against Beethoven. I mean they're both they're both part of a team. Even
though Beethoven, his team is very interrupt this dialogue. Thank you.
Other people would like coming song
like a microphone here. We can't hear you saw
unfortunately not statistically oriented. If you used charlie Ames's
mathematical model, you would find out that in every field of human
activity that the increase in quality follows a parabolic curve.
Check that out. Mm hmm. And what are we gonna do about leisure time? Mhm
Uh huh. That's where we started. It emphasizes a lot of things. Human
genius comes from human beings and there are more of us and there are more
of us that are being subjected to more and more and more quality. Things
like this experience at arcosanti. You know, I mean this is Arizona, it
beats California all to help see. So, you know, it's that kind of a thing
that produces that genius that you should know about this stuff. This is
this is statistically wrong. Absolutely wrong. I deny this. Absolutely.
Look here. Look, well, I don't know what that means. Look, this is my
simple fact, 100% of the people of America, 200 something million people
can read and write. And in ancient Athens, 400 years before Christ a small
percentage perhaps 10 10% of the population of 300,000 to 50,000 produced
enormous quantities of Genius. How many geniuses coming out of the public
schools of England if you like for that matter. Damn little. It is not in
proportion. I just don't think you can measure it, measure it in those
terms. I really do. Yeah, sure. But
look, it's getting late and I would take one more question that we're just
gonna Mhm Yeah. With this panel continues tomorrow morning. So for those
of you have a lot to say or whatever. Come back. Yes, please.
Hard work.
Thank you. I'd like to thank the panelists and the audience for being here
can and we are going to continue tomorrow. You think people will respond
to that comment tomorrow? Okay, I think it's 10:00 AM. I'm not sure
that means. My name is jenny Gignac,
howard, woody Phyllis. Ian Pawlowski and chris
I've been chosen to start because I have a prepared text
and the text is not very relevant because I wrote it when I thought the
topic was art as event, meaning what was the Peculiar significance of the
happenings of the 60's
And in response to what I thought was going to be the topic I wrote
in the season of the Lord. When Earth people began to suffocate from
socially refined time and space. When folks began to freak in and out onto
a spiraling pad. When the system had spun out its length of rope, showing
the light at the end of the tunnel. and the part at the end of the rainbow
to be big jokes when the line curled to eat its tail and the rivers on
which we float evaporated, leaving us to learn how to free float or fall
when foregone conclusions lost their gravity and border surfaces crumbled.
And the only thing to hold onto was the hub of the vertigo. It's I the
only portal. The big picture began to be seriously revised
in its forced review. Everything became a clue slice the lemon anyway at
all and see the world blow up the cherry pit into inspirational
architecture, freeze a beat and find inside the rise and fall of infinity.
It was an irradiating examination. No one could just watch and that's
caught in the act. Some hid and some strut id some squirmed and some shown
some study their responsibilities, Some penetrated the possibilities of
new gestures so it's better to perform upon this pervasive stage. The art
angel stroll or strode or danced or tiptoed beckoning or teasing behind a
beam carrying his sector of the open frame, popping it about the shrapnel
in the wind catching times and minds that otherwise might be too big or
small or slow or fast to behold footsteps and fingers. Words and clauses,
causes and songs. Singers and flags, fires and pain. Flowers enjoy white
and black round and square, loud and soft on and off people in places,
houses and ours, cars and soap birds and toothpaste votes and puddings,
post guards and clouds the good and the bad, assisting the ancient revival
of all parts to the whole adding to the efforts of the Medicaid ear's who
were assuring the people they were free to expand or contract now and then
now or then it didn't matter they were part of the play anyway.
Mhm.
That is the end of my prepared statement. I'll pass the buck. Yeah. Mhm. I
guess hard act to follow I think however as we view events and
celebrations often the two of them kind of go hand in hand. From my own
perspective I think it's very delightful to free art from museums and from
confines and monasteries and the like to try to move out into the world to
go into places whether one is viewing it is parks or beaches or other
places where people are to have sort of participation, things whether
people can become part of it. I think this is part of the celebration
aspect. one is locked into some sort of Conceivably 8-5 Grand and when one
tries to escape it it is sort of in celebration whether it is to a beach
or to a fair or or whatever and trying to have the art, they're having it
a part of the the pleasurable experience is one aspect of the celebration
and I think trying to break down the so called guards at the entrances to
galleries who's saying hands off don't touch don't don't become a part of
it to a situation where you invite people in to become a part of it. Very
advantageous. I think once you try to relate to the spirit of the
particular time of day and the consideration of events or of celebration
is trying to relate to our own society today.
You see one of the problems we find, I think we're all in a court. So I
would like to some point that some of you, the audience will just maybe
give us a challenge also. So we can really make much more sort of
interrelation of all of us a celebration. It is in general when you say
celebration. I think that everyone thinks that a group of people, I think
that you can celebrate also on your own and it can be as meaningful as you
know with someone or with an enormous quantity. I think the best example
of celebration is what we are doing in these four days here in Arcosanti.
Whoever has experienced to spend the days here and really participate in
some way with all of us. I think it's just the best celebration we would
have in a long time maybe until next year. The
I think also celebration for me is sort of because it asserted relation
with a ritual listings, I work with fire and fire has very, very embedded
in rituals and magic and everything else. I think that that's why I
observe it in that way.
I think we have a fantastic artist at the end of the table that he does
really something with celebration. He's always you know, flying. He's
flags and that's you. That's my Us too.
Flags an old tradition festivity celebration. And I believe flags lift
people's spirit two. I feel happy and that's a good ground.
And they also did you can define the space where No, instead of work in
this.
So this ancient feeling of wind which is lifting. How is Yes,
physical gives us. Mhm.
Like
its people to them this when does is moving in.
I am
when when interest in flags
medium was always supposed to trying to get flagged the wind.
I mean, things have changed in people's mind to change something
perishable is Yeah.
Flags are Persian
i is an important.
Okay, I have a dispute. Good. We were worried that we'd agree too much.
But one of the traps is this either or um and its inherent in the way this
panel is described that we're supposed to champion all art that is
temporary and kinetic and new as being better than art in museums. No. Um
But the feeling was that you accept that Okay, good.
Is um that every time there's a new advent, it's better than what just
passed. Ah There were a lot of very appropriate reasons of why Things
started to change in the 60s. I tried to do it in the poem. I tried to
explain it as the way I thought, but in the whole the whole impetus of
motion and time um in the quick change of lifestyles in somebody's
inherent in somebody's statement that a new generation is now every three
years. Uh everything was images quickly following one another and the
frame around an event, which was one of the features of the happening
became very logical. Um, I worked for several years designing and
producing festivals and I retired from that to go back to just being a
plain old painter. Um so for me it's very hard to accept the importance of
one over the other.
Do you think that really since you have said that for me in a way, you
know, the best art is the future art. The one that is coming not the one I
have done and the one that's going to be produced. I said that no, I mean
for me, I'm saying that you know like, okay fine. The works are in the
museum. I think they have a place if those works somehow they would have
never been done. We were we would be doing them now. All right. Because we
have to sort of an escalation is a sort of evolution is a sort of a change.
So we need that thing like basics to go. But also I think celebration in
itself has always been done and you know, since I think it's either since
the start of times
this year. Yeah, I think a couple of things have, in a way disturbed me
about quote object art, which I enjoy still ah want to see occur. But to
me it seems that in many cases the, you might say enthusiasm in the
interest of the society of going to this dark controlled environmental, a
museum with guards and guns and the like the attendance rates in too many
cases have seemed to be declining the interest of the individuals to these
seem to be bordering on. Are they really relevant? I've heard numbers of
directors or whatever you know concern themselves with what can we do to
get people in etcetera etcetera. I think to a large degree as our society
maybe has become somewhat of a passive, you know, tv indoctrinated thing.
We sit in front of the tube and all the information comes on, one goes and
sees static paintings or sculptures or whatever and are we being really
energized and turned on by these. That one of the possibilities. One of
the advantages of the exploration in which one can hopefully
sort of like a magnet attracts people into it is to allow them to become
part of the activity to let them have some feeling that there can be a
celebration if you want a participation into it. Certainly it is more
ephemeral, it is not uh, concluding in some object, it is something which
like the football game of the valet or whatever. One simply leaves and the
memory is basically what is going to remain with those that viewed or were
participants. But I think to varying degrees, many individuals in our
society are challenging the relevance of some of the so called established
things. Whether it is museums are, are the uh, general, somebody in the
town square or whatever. And as we can try to relate to the side of the
society, capture their spirit. Uh, have them become sort of integrated
into it that there is a, an opportunity to become more of a very valid and
vibrant part instead of just this quiet thing that hangs on the wall.
Yeah,
celebration I think is an attitude.
Anything can be a celebration.
There's a book called the american Book of Days lists all of the holidays.
Every day is every day in the calendar has a whole list under it, of
holidays.
Um, I remember January six being
blessings of the sponge divers in Tarpon springs florida day. Uh, January
two is hat day, but every day is a holiday And in that way. Also every
moment of every day can be a celebration.
Um, so that celebration as a format is like most things that get titled
and pigeon holed. A very socially contemporary geographical constricting
terms. What?
Yeah. What is your jenny jenny? What jenny said about
if we didn't have everything in the museum's, we'd be doing it now there's
part of that, that I agree with them. Part of that I object to
every society is a culture in that it takes elements that are never
reproduced again to germinate and create words and pictures and rituals
and motions. Um, just because they have been done does not mean on the one
hand that they are any less important or any less valuable than what is
going to be done. Nor does it mean they are more valuable than that, which
we do ourselves. And it is true, every society does invent its own culture
and its own rituals, even though they're not very visible all the time to
us. But they're, they're nevertheless, um, I once almost did a project and
it's kind of relevant to that. The task was, it was at the last minute
wasn't funded, which was why I didn't do it. The task was how to create,
um, a cross section, how to take a small average town or city in the
United States and make it cultural or art conscious or creative. And the
way I wanted to do that was I wanted to create as a game, a moratorium on
all produced cultural objects and events, uh, imported, um, that perhaps
for the period of six months, all of the music, poetry, literature and
paintings and sculpture and events, etcetera, etcetera that the people in
that community needed would be produced in their locale. So that is
something of recognizing the necessity for ritual recognizing the
necessity for celebration. But what's been done is always just uh no
better. No worse than what will be done. Um
Also I wanted to comment on what somebody said about museums are having a
hard time with attendance. I don't think that one too because yesterday I
was sitting right here in a panel where mel roman on my left discussing
leisure time gave as an example of the opposite condition. The grandiose
enlargement of museum attendance statistics.
Um As proof that we're getting more cultural. Yeah. Mhm. You don't need to
be. Well I don't know. I think the most important thing I would like to
all of you to see if you have any ideas of what are your impressions that
you know I like to I'm much more in a 1-1 basis that you know to tell you
what. I think there's no response whatsoever. Yeah. There have been great
.
I think that's based nice of you to say that you know to have that feeling
for it. You but you saw it last night? Did you feel like celebrating you
know with something?
Yeah because you're renovating your, changing your you know. Yeah. Yes
it's an ever end. Have you seen the polls this morning watching them
because they are incredible. They are you know burned on the top and so
they make you know in a statement all themselves now the game.
That's fine.
That's right and that's a statistic. Yeah.
Mhm Well actually we are, you know, even when we get, you know when we die
, you know it's just a transformation even with just the physical part we
have the little worms for that.
So it would never end
anyone else. Come on. We if we know we are going to finish and then we
were we thought and do impossible love him he's here is because we want
for all of you to celebrate with us. Okay.
Actually you see for me right, and it's a very personal thing, people ask
me, what have I prepared what I mean with that truly absolutely nothing
said void. I know what the way I'm working with, I'm working with fire and
working with the flame. I'm using the fires and element completely in
itself. If I'm going to make it send a message to give something or having
a relation with other people, I want other people to just let them say
free look at it. I had the best comment last night, it was sort of dull
and I think that's great, right? Because that is the other extreme
everyone was screaming and so the other extreme was that one which I think
is fantastic. But at least they say something at least someone, you know
some people that give thoughts if I can just sort of make it look at five
the next time you see as much light it, you may relate with Arcosanti,
forget my name. I'm just one little person and millions of other person
that they have worked somehow. Water with fire and you might make a sort
of a ritual in itself is sort of being conscious of what you are, you're
accenting, that's all that's you know, that's for me, that's the fantastic
part. The other fantastic part. I like the idea of last in a very short
time, a light idea that they're not forever. You know that it's changed,
it's gone, I like that,
that's it now you are.
Mhm. Well for those of you who may not be familiar with what I'm doing or
did not have the chance to see the presentation yesterday. My activities
in sky sculpture and the launch of that will be tomorrow. I was commenting
today that it's almost like December 24. Tomorrow is christmas, I've got
this, this package all wrapped up, My response system is in there and it's
like sitting there looking at the tree and here's this box, you know,
what's going to be in it. Is it going to have, you know, something that I
really am going to get a good feeling out of a celebration if you want to
use the term,
it's there as a puppet almost waiting to be energized tomorrow when
christmas comes, I'll have a chance to take it out of the wrapping, so to
speak. They get out of the box, inflate it and have it ready to be poised.
It is a response element in that it is designed to certain sort of series
of potential action qualities. But it is directly relating to the uh air
environment. It will do just what the energy in the sky will have it do.
And I don't know what that's going to be, I'm going to be uhh you know,
sitting there on the edge of my seat saying a few good words, please God
let it do a real neat thing and then you know, it will be released or
launched. It will move with the air. I have no further control to it. It
can go up, it can do all sorts of Ballets or convolutions in the sky as
the 60-foot unit will go through a whole series of movements. The plane
will track it. Usually I have the opportunity of following it. So I feel
like I have uh my dog on a leash, so to speak is that the leash doesn't
have any control on it. I sort of go along and you have a chance to see
what it's doing. I should be sitting here on pins and needles until the
plane responds back and lets me know where it is gone and what it has done.
But it is, I guess you might call a sort of celebration of air in that it
is designed not to override the area. It is designed to totally respond to
it. Any chair structure is totally different. It's like having a number of
dice in a box and you're shaking and you throw it out on the table and it
could be any number of different totals as to how the numbers pop up. So
all of the energies are gonna come together in a unique manner and present
a flight which I can sort of give a generalization to myself mentally of
what it might be like but cannot at all give uh any real definite feeling
to myself. Just what it will be about. It's going to be about the air and
what the air, this invisible series of forces that are there. It is a
participation thing. People will be helping me then people will be
watching it In many cases are usually it'll be viewed across its
trajectory which could go anywhere from 10 to 100 miles or further. So uh
it's again this christmas package and I'm just sort of waiting to Lamar to
see what it's going to be about. And it's a thing which I enjoy having
people be able to relate and respond to and assist with. Mhm.
It's mylar, it's cellophane made clear by Dupont is a vacuum with a
aluminum surface. So it's a very high silver mirror finish which can
reflect both the visual color and light and quality as a sort of a sound
county impact as it will respond to the air and of course it's basically
time motion unit.
Yeah.
also responding to you, I got a lot of things to say responsive, excuse
the pins and needles aspect just struck me as perhaps one of the reasons I
stopped being in the festival business. Maybe that was the particular
aspect. I was ready to forgo for
a kind of timelessness in my work that was not pressured by on and off,
start and stop. Um
and I also thought perhaps before I tell you what I did as the kind of
work for which I'm probably here. Ah
I would tell you a little bit about what I went through to stop. I went
through a time in the 60's where I poo pooed visual art and I thought it
was just finished and I was involved in the importance of McLuhan esque
systems, talk and lasers and happenings et cetera and
I could not see any significance in a painting and I retired from new york
and went to Vermont and went through a series of years till I came to the
realization that it was my task because I had to do it in the panel right
before this we talked about leisure and my point of view being survival
tasks. If you if you pay attention to all of the things you really need
for survival in all dimensions. I had to paint and it was as simple as
that I so I finally transcended any social value or
coupons for redemption with it. What I used to do perhaps my media was
people if jenny's is fire and howard's is air. Mind you could say it was
people. Um, the first project I did um, Was something called the Hall of
Issues at Judson Memorial Church in New York City in 1960.
And the first man to champion my ideas is howard moody who is here today.
And it was, it arose out of an impetus to do something and for social
reasons without getting involved in politics or organizations. And I
evolved this kind of multi dimensional or multi media ah forum, community
forum. And very simply it worked that every sunday this hall, a room,
simple room that was given to us was open to anyone who had an issue two
post. And that issue could be a poem, a picture, a sculpture, a banner,
protest
a letter, anything, a newspaper clipping. And it was the way in which
people could share their most intimate causes without having to go out of
their way to get into some kind of organized system.
And it was
also something people could consume at their own rhythm. And so every
sunday, an environmental collage was created every Wednesday. There was a
talk where anybody who wanted to say anything, um, or perform. Uh, so that
uh, the forum went into other media such as dance and music and film could
happen as an agenda to the issues on the wall. And the,
the hall of Issues produced
uh the bread and puppet theater was that was their first forum and it
produced issues for the Mccarran act against them political issues. It was
the a debate forum for local communists, for the gay mattachine society,
which is what it was called in those days, for people who hated con Ed,
for people who hated playgrounds, for poets, for painters, for sculptures
, etcetera, etcetera. There was a movement at that time called the Angry
Arts and they contributed a lot, all sorts of visual protest material.
Um and I guess the next significant uhh thing that I did, but the Hall of
Issues idea, I have traveled with me through all of my festival and forum
activities just in the idea of the power of a visual forum. And I would
like to see a visual forum in any every town across the country because I
think it's such an obvious way for people to communicate at their own
speed and to make little causes easily communicable to the community in
which they live without having to be able to speak. A lot of people can't
get up at a town forum and speak. But I could go on and on about that. But
anyway, I guess the next, the thing that happened was what led to be
called the hoping happenings and that began And something that I produced
in 1964 called the culture's art follies um, at a place called Kutsher's
Country club in the Catskills, I was an art teacher and mr Kushner said
why don't you do an art festival? So uh with a lot of very impressive art
folks from new york. We produced one week of Slam Bang art, um steve
paxton and Debra Hayes, which were part of a very new dance approach
dancing with grass carpets on the golf course and nobody understanding
what they were about. And um Breckenridge and Warhol films and the Cusco
company. Did any of you ever hear of the US Co company, which is a sixties
revelation of they were one of the most important inputs in the sixties
and the new Multimedia where they had 12 screens. No they had they had
Like a cinerama of screens and they had 12 slide projectors and films and
a series of tapes and it was just a collage of slides, drawer slides,
motion pictures and sound effects. That was really the beginning of all of
the slide show, multimedia light show business that has followed it and
they of course have disbanded that. Anyway, it was it was a whole week of
very vanguard events and part of it was a group called Park Place. I don't
know if any of you have heard of Park Place Gallery in new york was in
downtown group that gave birth to uh chuck jennifer and Mark di Suvero and
uh Peter Farrah Kiss and whole bunch of other shining sculptors. And with
Dean Fleming and we designed
a wall of canvas that was Supported on steaks every three ft in the ground.
And a bunch of artists from the city came up to have a conversation in
words and pictures on both sides of this canvas that was stretched amongst
the trees. And at the last minute the thought arose, I asked what if what
if the Yes It's one of pain. And it resulted in a furious debate because a
lot of the artists didn't want this to happen. But when the event started
it was such a natural
follow up of what was prepared that it just it just happened and the
painting was beautiful but all the guests just got in it, you know because
nothing immense was required of any one person. And that that event was
the forerunner of the first thing that was called hoping is happening
because
it's funny how things happen. Someone had
I can I can make stories very long. But anyway it was part of the Museum
of Contemporary Crafts show called object in open air and I propose this
an event in open air as an object in open air. And so it was an extension
of what happened at cultures. It was 300 ft of canvas in back of the
Metropolitan Museum um also
uh huh on stakes in the ground that made a fantastic serpentine design
sometimes using the trees, sometimes using the stakes. Mhm and the canvas
was divided in three ft squares with a big black brush. So it gave
everybody that participated eight a feeling of boundaries that made them
more comfortable and also structured the pictures in a much better way.
And then of course there was a whole lot of organization
involved to arrange it so that anybody in the city that wanted to paint on
this could paint on it. And that was the beginning of what then evolved
into a series of park events where I was trying to teach thousands of
people at a time art lessons. The that particular thing got more
structured because the the painting in cultures was very beautiful because
it was a limited audience participation. But at the museum, the back of
the museum in central Park,
the painting reached a saturation point and then kept going until it got
money. You know, it was like there were certain amounts of people leading
at the time and you know, signals where they started and where they
stopped so that they couldn't stay there forever. And there's a whole uh
organism like a cafeteria of where you picked up your paints, et cetera.
You know, it required a lot of organization. But the painting at a certain
point got wet and it kept on going until at the end of the day. It wasn't
such a good work as the first one. So I evolved different means of
designing events that actually taught people and then, you know, Children
and adults played these art games, painting games. I had a series of
painting games and then after that first series of festivals, um the
festival's developed into other kinds of lessons so that we got into
celebrations of silence and sound and celebrations of seasons and
celebrations of holidays and climax with something you all may not know
about. So it's really history, the, the wedding. Um I finally like the
most natural way or the most natural way to use the parks of the city. It
seemed to me one of the most beautiful ways was to celebrate weddings
there. Um to let it be the way new Yorkers could have a garden wedding.
And
it was an enormous project where I could go on and talk all about the
wedding and all we had to do to arrange everything for a series of 10
couples. But what happened toward the end of it was that the church got
very nervous. Um we had, I'm taking up too much time
anyway. I'll stop now if anybody wants to know about it, I'll talk to them
about it later. But there's, there's some of the kinds of things that I
began how I got into the festival business.
I realized that
to add flags to celebrations. I don't incite people to a specialist
flags are
the mission before
lifting of the spirit, physical body in the celebration
and
should be used.
Either person. I have people who have like 78 flags and they like fly a
different flag every day or for a location. Even for a moment you can use
a flag, the colors of the flag. The significance of the flag course in a
wider sense for a festival
it becomes more of a flag environment. You
circle area with flags. So people feel surrounded by car
and the effect of the wind also the audible effect.
Somebody asked me morning if they designed a special flag for Arcosanti. I
don't think there is any specific designed for eco center. You can design
for each festival, the special flag special design but has the spirit of
Arcosanti is in a continuous developed.
The flags should
be developed each year differently and
be seen as a occasional that it should
former celebrate
any further thoughts for can respond to questions.
I don't think so except for national flag which are imposed on government
buildings and post up.
I think especially designed flags Can be used either one day 12 week
whenever you feel like it
clients who have personal sex, they don't fly it all the time. Even if
they are there. Some people say at the beginning when they ordered flags,
they all will this flag and I'll tell my friends when I was. That's not.
That's not the spirit of the flag. I think it's more you feel like toys.
There's a there's a book store in a town near where I live, brattleboro
Vermont and they do something very unusual with flags. I've never seen it
done before every day they hoist a different flag. Some are national flags
and some are other kind of flags. But it's part of their daily decoration
. I like, I like the way you describe this
community board but everybody can paste up is what if you see a notice in
the paper in the morning, you can pay for everybody to see. I have that
was a studio in cinema episode.
What? And different flags every day and perhaps sometimes not a flag. And
I wonder if it is still
uh huh It's your single
well the, you know to finalize I think that since we are celebrating
somehow each of us, maybe something different. But with us at least that
we are here in a way. You know some sort of uh arcosanti in itself. I
think that let's go all and join hands and just dance because that's one
way of celebrating all together. Okay, so let's go
rise to the UK.
Mhm Music.
Mm hmm.
We were, I can't sing.
Shall we? Mm
Walking down.
Oh
would you like some basketball? Stick your ears.
Oh
as the come on.
But I suppose you're my hearing
Peter you're chairman of the audience. You start. Well last time I did
these first.
All right, Allison, I'll start.
I think maybe the first time that everybody makes a statement. He or she
might introduce themselves. Um, my name is Peter Plagens and I am on a
couple of the buildings as an art critic. How
I think in most sets and a lot of people's minds, critics always come off
as being villains. I mean, if I see a panel listed about criticism the
arts, I figured first off there's gonna be a whole lot of bitching about
the negative influence that critics have on serious expressions in the
arts in whatever particular field. Jazz. I I can give you name, rank and
serial number and a lot of specifics about the art world. Um, I'm sure
Nori and Peter can about the world of architecture. Uh, maybe
we could start it off that way if anybody wants to talk positively or
negatively about the effects, tangible effects that the level of criticism
or critics are having in particular field of endeavor, They may want to
take that up. Some aspect of that. Some questions from the audience you'd
like to take it. I'm David Berge and I'm a concert pianist and teacher and
have been playing for about a quarter of a century around this country and
elsewhere. And the level of criticism
that I witnessed as a performer, but also reading about other events, the
, the level level of musical criticism in this country has escalated
enormously
upward in the last quarter of a century. I'm particularly concerned with
the performance of new music, which is an area that many people not
critics about. But I think that more and more critics are becoming more
and more involved in what's going on and no more and more about the
various styles that are available and are able to judge both the
composition and the performance. Which in the case of music is a
particularly difficult job. Um So it's my feeling that well let me give
you just a couple of quick examples, 1973 I gave the first performance of
a new work for solo piano. A big new work by George Crumb in a couple of
several first performance is one of them was in Washington D. C. And the
chief critic uh Washington post paul hume called me and made an
appointment to come see the score and talk it over with me before the
performance so that he could really be in on it. Uh When I gave the new
york performance, Donald Shanahan of the new york times came in one of a
free performance ahead of time and discuss the score. And it's not just
true in new york and Washington but I feel it's true elsewhere that more
and more critics are becoming more and more knowledgeable Now of course
the opposite is also true. There are still people being hired because the
papers or magazines run out of money, they're being hired from the sports
page to go out and listen to a concert. This is not good. But generally
speaking I think the level has he improved a great deal.
Uh wait a minute. Uh huh Get,
he's talking about the hot air is wonderful. I'm Bill Balcombe. I'm a
composer who plays the piano occasionally. And
most of the criticism I've had has ranged as David would have make you
imagine from intelligent criticism, not necessarily always favorable to
two rather stupid criticism, which is sometimes favorable. It's not kind
of compromise when you get a good review, which is poorly written and a
bad review which is well written. I think both things can happen. Uh,
there was a time and I think David has mentioned this that there was a
very low standard of music criticism. There were lots of sports writers
who somehow got into sports in music criticism. It wasn't expected. For
example, I think in many cases for the critic to know how to even read
music, to be able to have very much physical education. A few years ago, I
was actually attending a music critics convention at Lenox in
massachusetts outside of tanglewood. And they pulled the critics who were
there were everywhere from pretty good critics to people for the, you know
, horses crotch observer from Arkansas or something. And they found out
that the favorite piece that the music critics light was made of his
moonlight sonata and that's nothing wrong with the moon. I said now that's
a marvelous piece. But you would have thought by now they would have heard
a lot of other music that didn't necessarily, so you do have a very, very
wide swath of that sort of thing in England. Of course there is, I think a
large, a long tradition of very heavily trained music person becoming
critic. And you find often there, I think a good deal more of the kind of
thing that David mentioned when they knew crumb piece was done. It was the
kind of immediate kind of participatory interest people seeking you out.
Now it's starting to happen in the states, but it's still unusual and it's
enough unusual that it's worth to talk about what I really have questions
about,
especially cause we're talking about criticism mostly in newspapers. After
all, we're still in new york and the throes of a newspaper strike, which
is probably going to resolve by the time we get out of here. But maybe not
the reason of course being that it turned out that Murdoch couldn't fight
off the unions. He needed to have the money. And it's been immediately
apparent that all of the arts that one would imagine depended a great deal
on critics. Uh, that is to say theater and music particularly, which is a
momentary thing. Art critics of course, another story cause you're dealing
with a piece of work that's going to stay there for a while, but a play
can be down by a badge set of bricks, just like that. Well, there have
been several openings just about as many as there would have been without
the newspapers. The attendance has been about the same. In fact, it's been
practically no appreciable difference in having the critics or not. I
wouldn't say perhaps that as the critics have become more prominent, I
mean more competent in the United States. It's curious and paradoxical
that their influence has dropped.
Yeah. Could I ask you, could I ask David a question before that? Is that,
is that maybe though, that the, you mean me, I'm Bill Bill, I'm sorry. I
wouldn't,
personally, I wouldn't think that the function of the critic would be at
all the help to get people to the performance. And in the case of the
theater, it's true. You see now, of course you're an artist is a different
matter and so you'll have a different kind of response. Perhaps you said,
unless there's some sort of famous exhibition of some kind that everybody
might be presumed to go to like king tut or something. But in the case of
music or particularly the theater and a lot of my time has been spent in
the theater. I have had the experience of good work being down by critical
to balls. And then the same critics turning around five or six years later
when they're writing their history of that decade in the theater saying
wasn't that a wonderful show too bad. It went down having been the very
people who did it. Uh, you know, a little bit like the, you know, the
character Lewis carroll, e you know, the one who eats all the oysters, you
don't feel sorry for them afterwards. And there's the same kind of thing.
You do run into that. I don't know if you do that in painting, but we
sure have it and it's probably a little different for you. I know that's
our function because we're dealing with something much more momentary than
you are.
My name is Michael Mclean, but I'm a sculptor, live here in Arizona have
all my life. And I think what you're saying is I think it's very true
primarily because the critics that you're dealing with are working in the
same idiom as which the playwrights are that is the written and spoken
work. So of course, if you get somebody that's a little miffed and perhaps
that he figures he perhaps should have been the playwright or couldn't
show it into that and whatever, just like, just like the art critic that
thinks he's a better painter than the guy who's reviewing. So I think that
the criticism that both the the concert pianist or the the musician,
composer and the writing composer, the author comes under, I think is a
bit more severe than those of us that are affiliate with visual arts.
Although I'm sure Pete here can testify of some of the witch hunts that
critics of art critics of the government going after visual artists. But I
think what you have to say is very true. I think one of the sad things
that happened, uh, primarily with critics of dealing with the visual arts
is the fact that they try to be taste makers and say that this is good,
this is bad. And uh, don't wait, you know, saying that the real test for
this work of art is going to be time. It's readily apparent that they're
they're they're very good things. We've done, uh, very spontaneously, just
as mm spontaneous music and spontaneous spoken word and whatever the same
thing as being true in the visual arts. And I think it's all too sad that
when the, uh, critic finds finds his position instead of sort of means,
somebody trying to resolve things for the general public perhaps make
things better understood. He takes it as an issue of his job. Yeah, well,
we have to, we have to, we have people who would like to be taste makers.
We have people who really have excellent taste and who got awfully awfully
head up about things and who could be marvelously wrong. I'm talking about
a guy like Virgil Thompson, there's, you know, and, and Virgil could be a
meanie and he could be very close minded and so on. But you sort of
forgave him about it because the point of the fact that he himself was a
composer and a damn good one of a kind and he was bound to have his own
likes and dislikes and he was just very strongly prejudiced and that was
all there was to that. And that's all right. I don't mind that. But I've
seen people who are really politically minded and I've seen people who've
been dealing with that kind of thing and knowing maybe one very political
critic and there's another, maybe I won't name names of no need. But you
might say that right now in new york, there's probably three very
important kinds of critics. There's the kind who was rather rare. It was
just a kind of reporter who tells you basically what happened and make an
awful lot of taste judgments and is rather than all the whole process. And
and doesn't mind to tell you that he doesn't know too much about it. But I
want to let you know, at least here he was, he was the event this happened
or didn't, I'm talking about music now and then there's another kind who
miss a scholar who will go through all of the details and who will also
tell you about the background having done his homework and has done a
serious thing. I've had one of this case where a fellow spent a good three
days. I mean three pages on, you know, in a national magazine on my work.
It was not all favorable, but I was very happy with that because he'd done
his homework. He looked at my scores, He'd spent his time, he had, you
know, a mixed response, but I don't mind that kind. And then there's the
other kind who was really the politician who wants to work and that kind
of thing in France for many years. For example, there was a tradition is
still quite true and some of the major papers that the critic had to be
paid or you didn't get a good review. In fact, rather recently, a friend
of mine had that problem. He had a critic from the Figural came to review
his panel's recital and he got a terrible pan about it and he happened to
meet him at the party afterwards. Why did you give me such terrible pan?
You've always been very friendly says, well sir, you forgot to pay me. But
of course I don't think anything that open happens here, maybe it does. I
haven't heard anything about at least that's so that's so bald that at
least, you know, it's true and everybody reading it knows it too. So
there's another situation, but if you're dealing with is we have all these
kinds of kind of, what I really mean to say is that I'm noticing at least
in music, uh, and somewhat in theater that the influence the hegemony of
the critic, which was so strong 10 years ago seems to have abated
considerably. I'm sort of interested in that. I know it's true with you
guys, I know what this was. I just want to make some general observations
on architectural criticism. Um, there are certain styles that develop in
different fields of criticism and architecture is one of the fields that
is developed with the assumption from the beginning that it's written for
a large audience, whether it's written in professional magazines or
newspapers. Um, and I think that's interesting because that is also true
of theater and film and literature criticism on the whole, but not
generally two of our music. I think that's interesting. Um, mm another
thing is that professional journals in the field tend not to be critical
and this has developed and sometimes people give you economic reasons they
aren't really true. It is simply developed as a tradition. Whereas popular
could popular architectural criticism is often extremely critical. And
there, again, architecture is a little different from some fields because
when you write an architectural article, you can't ruin the career of an
architect. You can't stop something midway in the years that I've been
writing. I once had the effect of having a group reform an award system.
But no amount of writing about buildings will stop them from being built
will really change unless you really get people to think in different ways
over time. So it's very different from a theater critic who can open and
close the show. It's about the only one as a matter of fact, you're
talking about lumping lumping together music and art people. I don't think
that's right. And also architects don't need publicity quite the same way
to get art shows aren't going to be opened or closed by the review either
, but artists don't have immediate access so that while dealers are often
as important as art critics are, critics have a real kind of weight to
what they said, it tends not to, to an architecture criticism, it tends to
leave it more open not to play fourth grade teacher, you know, a plus and
this one c minus on that, but to get into real reasons for things and and
real developments and just Meteor articles become available uh, and and
necessary. Um another thing right now we're noticing is that there's a
good deal more architecture criticism in popular newspapers. I mean, new
york Times has been for a while, but that's only one generation old and
now you get things like the Milwaukee Journal and understood all kinds of
newspapers which aren't very well known. You're also beginning to get a
lot of Newsweek time. There's been some stuff in esquire, There is a long
article in the new yorker, not even by a critic. Horizon magazine has been
doing things month after month. It seems to be a general interest in this
which was once considered an esoteric subject that has never had the
following, that art has probably related to the environmental movement and
an interest in that kind of thing. Um excuse me, what is the function of
architectural criticism as you function of any kind of criticism is
education. But you're talking about it as they were quite different from
some of the other art is sometimes different because the field itself is
different. What our culture is, how clients are gotten, How decisions are
made is often quite different. How one thing it's large groups as opposed
to individuals. Second thing, It cannot be done without a buyer, which is
unlike most things is like theater, but it's unlike most other things. Who
is the criticism for, who is going to read it and have an impact depends
who What you're writing in. If you're writing in a newspaper, one hopes
anyone with any interest in any sort of cultural things or political
awareness will read it. Um If you're writing professional journals, one
assumes architects planners and people who are that much more interested
from the lay public will read it. Can I ask you a question and you write
differently? I've written for both. You write a little differently, Let me
let me ask you a question which is the reverse that you might have because
architecture deals with um big bucks projects and it does deal with large
group decisions. What about the effect of the industry on the critic and I
can give you an example. They used to be a real good writer and critic
named john past year who used to write for the L. A. Times for a while and
he was a real good architecture critic. And the times, you know, was and
this thing is becoming a major newspaper in the in the in the full sense
and he got bounced and I I don't care if I libelous or what, but the but
the word out on the street was, but he just started messing with downtown
redevelopment in downtown redevelopment was the baby of the chandlers and
the Chandler zone the Times. So it's goodbye art architecture critic. I
doubt whether in the field of art you could run up against a kind of No,
but you can as a normal newspaper writer very easily to criticize anything
to do with grocery stores runs you in terrific trouble because those are
major advertisers etcetera, etcetera etcetera. There's a lot of ways in
which newspaper cannot have integrity. This is one of uh, as to whether it
affects architecture critics. Hands on the medal of the human being. I
don't think we see large changes over time and personal.
No, but it's a big bucks thing. I couldn't see the times art critic
getting fired because he panda show that you could see some very serious
things happen to the urban affairs editor. That's who the architecture
critic. Well, theater critics get that because sometimes newspaper people
have put money into a show and then that gets banned by the same. That's
got to be a pretty crummy little paper. Did that happen to new york times
? Pretty but
also don't you find go into details, But it did. But also don't you find
that sometimes a hostile criticism might be the best shot in the arm that
play or perhaps even a show, whatever could get. I've often found that a
little sophisticated for newspaper editors to think, I don't know about
that. But what is to what you're saying? The other thing you run into far
more than the old vested interests thing. What you run into is the fact
that everybody thinks they have opinions on anything to do with the arts.
Because God knows it's not technical. God knows there's nothing tricky to
it. It's like everyone has taste. And so you get an editor or another
reporter or something who has a better opinion. This happens at movies and
art and everything else. And that can become serious conflicts. You see
your copy rewritten, people get changed around
movie critics that don't like really trashing movies getting it's more so
in movies because more people have opinions on movies, but it's true in
all of it. And it's pretty common.
Let me say, let me just say one short thing in favor of critics in a
particular field, which is the sort of art gallery, art field. I think
that one of the big differences between and having been in l a most of my
professional life is one of the, one of the great differences between Los
Angeles or southern California and new york in terms of the intensity and
the weight of the art scene, which was much greater in new york. I don't
think there's much argument about it. Uh you'll get arguments about is it
a good thing or is it bad? But it is, is the presence of critics? I mean,
God knows, there are enough artists in southern California there just
there hanging out. You know, they're hanging by the rafters. And what has
always separated the kind of intensity of the scene in Los Angeles from
the one in new york is simply that there wasn't anybody out in southern
California writing seriously about art. Maybe one or two people and it
wasn't enough to stir the pot. Well, it's obviously why? Because it's not
the marketplace for like new york is That's right, yeah, simple as that.
But there were hardest there, but there wasn't a market for it. So yeah,
What the buyers have to know what's in Dubai don't, especially if they
have a lot of, a lot of people have more money than taste. It takes a few
very few people who walked in and bought a lot of things just because they
felt they were right and in the end they were vindicated. But the average
buyer is really quite timid soul and wants to know he's got himself a nice
investment and that's where the investing is done for the local people who
go to new york to buy it there because then they think they're getting the
genuine article. Well, sure, David has something to say. I had no harm.
Right.
Mm.
There are better reasons than that.
The city's major war. Well, one thing I might say on that is that a lot of
cases, especially in the case of large public sculpture, there's no
individual uh, patron or collector. They can afford to buy a large culture
stable or di Suvero uh kinetic piece or whatever. But I think I think from
my own personal experience with a lot of the uh people that I'm dealing
with here in the southwest, as far as my own career goes that I've gone
into some homes where people are starting to acquire my things not only
for investment reasons, but uh for for the pure aesthetic aspects of it,
I've just had my head spun by going in and seeing Jackson Pollocks and de
kooning's and and Rothko's and and and things. These really big guns in
these homes and people and these people are continuing to collect young
artists, not only young and and unheard of, but but other established
masters and lesser works. And I realize you gentlemen are not from this
area and perhaps don't realize that there is this perhaps mushrooming
market here and the people from new york that have the seasonal homes here
that do have these large collections that are continuing to acquire work
on, on quite a large scale. And they would even even if it's true because
I know enough painters and buyers in new york to have some sense of this,
even if it's true that in a large part of the big buying things seems to
be government and municipal things, those aren't the taste makers, the
ones who are the ones who are buying the smaller people, they're the ones
who eventually have a great deal to do with who has bought in, you know,
in Prudential Plaza and like that, that's really how it comes out. So they
are really, even though they're a small part of it, they are the ones that
make the difference. There's a there's another side of the business, the
function of critics besides the kind of intermediary between the artist of
whatever discipline and the market. And when I said the difference between
the intensity of the new york art world in that in southern California, I
wasn't referring specifically or even in large part to the business of the
flow of the market. I was talking about. It is a generality, the art in
new york and the artists were a little sharper, a little heavier dealing
with a little more important issues a little more ahead of the time. Why?
Because they had the pot kept continually boiling because you had Barbara
Rose and Rose Cross and Michael Freed and Peter Sheldon data, data data
and about 25 names all at the same time saying, I think this body of work
means this and some artists saying, Oh that's terribly full of sh it, I'm
going to go out and do something against it. And the thing was kept moving
, whereas in in L. A. That kind of thing, it's a little more laid back and
what the artists have to turn to our themselves and this probably goes
against the grain of a lot of individual artist kind of mythology. I'm an
artist. I probably rankle at it as much as anything, but
most artists need a little bit more than them just themselves in an empty
room and time to think, you know, there is some kind of cultural tumult or
whatever, you know, and I think it's the one thing that critics in an
urban area supply,
they were all what go on, understand the world and they were getting
smart. Yes,
good job briefing
11.
Well, there's such heart new york. Everything
right
and possible. Well what, that's what a credit card right before. Uh huh.
Yeah.
Well before I think, yeah,
we get I'd like to hear from Dennis because this is yeah, you know, you
want to hear from me. Yeah, I'm listening to this debate with some
interest, it's really sharp by the way this Dennis Sharp founder editor of
the architectural association quarterly. And I was thinking how different
all this is from the magazine that I have run for the last 10 years in
which we never ever pay for a single contribution or even a photograph the
contributions coming in great bundles every quarter. Um We're a magazine
entirely devoted to ideas, history, philosophy of architecture. And we
keep away like a red rag from a bull from the commercial guys. Because I
think the trouble with architectural criticism and architectural publicity
on the whole, it's concerned with either career development of an
architect or self emulation. Some of the other architectural magazines I
worked for in the UK often find that their desks are can piled high
littered with architects trying to get their work into architectural
magazines. So much of what you see, I think this is even true of the
United States, much of what you see in architectural magazines has not on
the whole been pre selected carefully by editors because it has certain
qualities, but simply because there's a pressure from the firm or from the
client or from other people to get it published. So we find that we can
only publish without advertising. And that really does bring in some
commercial considerations,
Dennis eric, I would take exception from the experience that I've had. Yes
, that all these things are sent into architectural magazines constantly.
And yes, many of them are published, but not that a magazine is really in
a position to be pressured. I've never known an advertiser to really give
a damn what is actually published. Um and I have known one of the things
is that all these things have very small staffs and very small budgets.
And what it tends to be is what one knows is to a fair extent, a result of
what comes across one's desk. I think it's all that more innocent and
harder to cure. I think that there's a great difference in the way we
publish. I'm thinking very much of the english weekly is when we have a
lot of english weekly architectural publications which are specialist
publications which purport to be critical Vehicles. So, again, it differs
like the J-like building design, building magazine there about five of
them and two of them, there's the largest circulation architectural
magazines in the whole world. I mean, they're into 30 or 40 copies each
week. So, the situation is different in that case. Mm hmm. Okay, Can I do
this? Because there is one one very extraordinary thing that happens in
architectural criticism in this country. Uhh, and that is that the people
who who exert the greatest pressure on the magazines, All those lovely
liberal um broad minded people who believe in complete freedom of the
press and so on. Namely your friends and mine, the leading architects of
the world, who will penalize any magazine that so much as dares to publish
anything critical of their work. I'd like to mention names. Although I
think I probably shouldn't. The All right. I will mention one name.
Specifically Paul Rudolph who was a very old friend of mine Did a
building at Yale in which was completed in the Middle 60s called the Yale
School of Art and Architecture. And it was given a tremendous sort of puff
review by my magazine, the architectural forum at the time. Um And about
three or four years later we found that the building did not work at all.
And we then did a very, very thorough job written by Ellen Parade at
Berkeley, photographed again showing how the school is actually falling
apart. That was being destroyed by its students who found it unworkable,
who found it offensive in many ways. And we did very, very honest piece on
this building. After that paul told me, first of all, he didn't speak to
me for several years. But prior to the fact prior to stopping um talking
to me, he announced to me that no magazine that I would ever be connected
with would ever again be permitted to publish any of his work. And there
are architects today, including people like um well some of them, I will
not mention any more names who write into the contract that they have with
their clients, that they will control the publicity on any building that
they designed. It is the most incredible piece of totalitarian censorship
being exercised by any group of artists in the world today. And these are
not merely american artists, but also architects, but also one of the
leading british architects. Uh the so the real censorship has not come in.
My experience from um advertisers, but from architects whose work is so
important that no magazine can really survive without being in a position
to review their buildings. If for example, if if uh power scenario were to
decide that a magazine that I I edited uh had some said something
offensive or something critical of his work and were then to decide that I
would never be again be permitted to publish any of the buildings that he
designed. We would be very badly hurt. Our credibility would be very badly
affected. And so it's the architects who are the worst offenders in in
doctoring the press in in managing the news and managing criticism and in
stifling criticism. And I think this should be said rare that it seems to
be on that committee. I think Peter one thing you can mention is one of
the places this at least in modern times started was Frank Lloyd Wright,
who never let one word be published about him without total approval of
copy. And and this is the right now. It's a kind of interesting problem
because, you know, city officials also don't like being criticized a whole
lot. What's happened is the architectural press and it may be built into
the situation has not figured out how to get around it when you do
political articles and I've done, I've done straight newspaper work. You
can always say these facts. These facts. These facts, these facts. So and
so no comment. So and so refuses to answer questions relating to this
subject. You can embarrass them politically. And if you really want to get
hold of a statement from them, you can say, call them up and say, I am
writing a subject on thus and thus, and thus my conclusion will be these
horrible things which will fry you in the face of the public. Do you wish
to say something? So, you've got them? Um at least it's right in front of
the public. What actually happened? Nothing happens in the architectural
press to indicate that paul, Rudolph will not be published in this issue
or further issues because he is throwing a fit of pique. Yeah. And we
haven't figured out a device the way journalists have the among the things
, you know, these incredible nixonian plots that go on among architects to
manage the news. Um there are some architects, including some of my very
best friends in England and in this country who will see to it that the
photographs that you get are they retouched that they are cropped in
certain ways, that only the best side or the better sides of a given
building show. Um that are in fact, so pre selected that it's almost
impossible to do a decent job of covering the building and really showing
it in its context. I I have seen a great many photographs by my friend Jim
sterling, which were doctored heavily censored heavily before being
released publication. I've seen many photographs by my friend Marcel
breuer which was airbrushed to change the architecture to change the
buildings. In fact, after the fact and this is, you know, these are some
of the leading lights of the liberal left um among architects today. I
just couldn't, I just wanted one more exactly along those lines. I
recently published a building by eventually and we didn't use his
photographs because they'd all been recently published. He only had a
handful. And so we used our own and you just furious. And the reason he
was furious when you got all the way down to it was because the
photographs had been taken from various diagonals as opposed to straight
on shots and the position they were taking was that there were only five
good photographs of any building and that you have to look at his
buildings straight on. You can't look at them from a dangle and you were
really tempted, I was quite polite instead. But you really tempted to say
, you know, bob do you have Arthur Murray dance steps at the building for
when you take people to look at them for people to stand in that close
your eyes until you get to this point and close your eyes. But again like
that, that's cute. But this did not strike them as an absurd sense and
they're not that unusual. What Peter says is absolutely true. I think what
you're talking about is something that any one of us has ever been
interviewed has had terrible moments about. And that is seeing what you
said in print. Um, I think that you see aside from having been a composer
and sometimes pianist, I also have been an accompanist for my wife, joan
Morris. And we're fairly often interviewed by all kinds of people. And
it's not necessarily a wonderful experience. It's often rather dreadful
one because the terrible day comes. You see all those things you were
purported to have said over the phone or with the critics sitting there
scribbling down what you're supposed to have said. And at first when I
began to see these dreadful things coming back in print, I began to think
, well, now, just a darn minute did I really say that? I probably didn't,
I didn't say that, that man is putting words into my mouth. And sometimes
with a lesser critic or West, no less? Well, uh, intention. Critic, one
who has a sort of a mean streak in him. It's true. They will look at all
the nasty things you say. But you know how it is when we're sitting here.
Uh, Peter just mentioned a couple of people. And if I were a bad critic, I
would sit there. Well, peter blanket just lambasted X and Y critic. You
know, these are all terrible people and that's the whole thing. You're
going to read the words. That's the thing that the critic picks out. We
all tend to editorialize as writers. I think of having been a bit of a
writer myself. I know what it's about. You can't help but do it. You
editorializes as a photographer. We all editorialize, you can't help it.
But to be able to come out with an absolutely straight simple interview,
even with a person with a tape recording right down there in front of you
find yourself doing an awful thing. You find yourself editing yourself for
print as you go and you realize that this is happening. You're you're
doing this for two reasons. You're doing this because you don't want
people to get the wrong idea. Number one, number two, you've found
yourself having to say there's several Things over and over and over again
after the 27th interview with the same kind of subject with a different
kind of people. You find yourself repeating yourself, inevitably, you find
a nice way to say it and there it is and why bother. You know why I say it
all over again and with all of this happening. The candidness. I think of
the old interviews begins to go by the reason I'm mentioning this is
because I'm sure maybe venturi might know may have an image of himself as
an architect doesn't agree with with what people see when they see a
picture. He probably was shocked. Maybe he knows his own elevation
drawings better than he knows the picture of what is, you know, what
building looks like that. I think we all had this sort of odd thing. We
never do see ourselves as others see us and that's sort of given and it's
very it's very humbling and almost humiliating experience to see your own
words come back. You get angry at your own kind of colloquialisms. You
begin to say I didn't really mean that person any harm but there isn't
cold print, that's so final. You know, it is a terrible thing. It's quite
a different thing from sitting around and having beers and says, oh I
don't like the music of X, Y, Z. But to see somebody having put it in
print, then the guy reads it and then then then then we don't talk for six
months. I mean that's that's a different matter. That's the that's the
finality of print. And I think that's part of the function of the critic.
They do tend to have this sort of marvelous written in brass quality does
have that. We think that we're making something final about that. I
remember that whole flap about the art and architecture building because
it happened when I was at Yale. But the point of the fact is that now this
10 years past, it's been forgotten and the buildings. No, it has. No, no,
it hasn't everybody else. It has. It's now appearing in the textbooks is a
classic example of the only you people know about that, what I'm saying
about that. I used to think about the terrible flaps between me and other
musicians and I think we've all had our own little kind of little
brannigan and this all happens for a while. As I'm saying, the general
public was aware of that. And I, and I sort of remember all that little
kind of interesting uh puritanism going around. I'm not I'm not an
architect, what I'm telling you is what we remember as non architects. Now
, I haven't heard about that whole flat for years. You may still be
talking about it. We sure aren't. And all the things that happened to us,
or maybe a momentary interest to the general public. And I've forgotten to
bad ideas that have been developed from that in similar situations are
part of the public understanding of art. That's a major case. That's
scarcely a personality. People uhh Yeah, I think the trouble with the kind
of thing we've isolated here is that, on the whole, architecture is, as I
said at the outset, still very much a thing which is dealt with in terms
of viewing the buildings as they go up at any specific time and there's an
enormous lack and maybe the other architecture critics might come in on
this is an enormous lack of real straightforward architectural criticism.
Um publishing a building when its current recently produced by an
architect giving all the technical know how on that building is all very
well. I find certain internationally there's a terrible paucity of
criticizing buildings as such in Britain certainly we don't have an
architectural magazine that on the whole covers buildings in a way which
enables you to understand their place in time and in society at the point.
And they're built. In fact, the best architectural magazine on british
architecture at the moment has to come out of Tokyo of all Places and it's
called Architecture and Urbanism. I think it's one of the finest magazines
I've ever seen, but it's most odd to see it in that context. The other
criticisms usually historical. Yeah, I think that's that's true and I
think that's unlike literature. You think of the new york review of books
, They criticized books. You think of art magazines, they criticize shows
that's very specific, I think has a lot to do with what Peter was talking
about. But this is the dilemma that's arisen in this discussion that were
popular, you know, the the architecture critic as an equivalent of the art
critic, the drama critic, that dance critic is simply not there, the
commentator on architecture and the promoter of particular architects
buildings is there. But the actual critic as an independent voice
specializing very much. I mean there are exceptions, notable exceptions.
We have one here mrs huxtable and others also exists in that category, but
they're very, very few and far between and they're certainly not
consistently criticizing in the architectural periodicals and
international Davies. Well, one thing that I would like to say in defense
for myself and my fellow visual artists, I'm in very deep sympathy with Mr
blake about the situation that he has faced with with this magazine with
architects of holding back, you know, writes and photographs and
intimidation by uh, advertisers and whatever. But you must realize that
when you're dealing with with architects and architecture, you're not only
dealing with an individual talent, however great it might be, but you're
dealing with his office and you're dealing with his corporate backers,
whoever they may be. And whereas in the case with the, with the uh
playwright or the painter or the sculptor, uh, art critic comes out and
can outrightly vilify and peace a visual artist unless he's really got
some bucks, he has no means of fighting back. And I find that to be a
really a pitiful state. Uh, what's going on today? Another thing too, is,
uh, and usually the building gets criticized after the fact after has been
built. And even if it is with public funds, how are, how are they going to
turn down, tear down our vastly remodel a public building after so many
million dollars has been expended on it. So there's there's the architect
has a certain defense in that respect, whereas the visual artist unless
he's like I said, it has a lot of bucks is virtually defenseless. Another
thing that this is really, I don't know how peter feels about this, but
also after an artist dies, the situation with the states of the artist.
And oftentimes critics are often asked having befriended a particular
artist and here I'm gonna get on a soapbox and take a stab at Clement
Greenberg uh particular instance was the work of the late David smith.
Where Greenberg here or stamos and I believe I can't remember the critics
uh attorney's name in Washington D. C. Were entrusted with this man's
legacy. And uh here Clement Greenberg who is so profoundly praised smith
during his career. And while he was alive, as soon as the man was, man had
not been in his grave more than a year or two at the most. Uh Mr Greenberg
took it upon himself to uh go into smith's studio of bolton landing and
take some of the pieces that he had left in a semi finished state. Uh
They've been down to the primary and smith was very adamant about his work
and having been tampered with by others. I won't go into it. But there's a
very well known case uh dealing with a piece of sculpture. His that was
repainted after a client had purchased it and he wrote an open letter to
art news branding it a vandalized ruin. But Mr Greenberg took it upon
himself to take these pieces, some of which had the primary autumn, the
under painting in some cases the actual painting that smith had put on
them and it started to decay and actually had them sandblasted, rusted and
varnished. And I think this is a great travesty on the part of you know,
smith rolled over in his grave, I'm sure when that happened, but uh I
think it's a great travesty on the part of critics and I think this is one
of the reasons why artists tend to really distrust them and how they've
gotten their, their their villainous image is by acts such as that and and
uh you know, being, being totally two faced about what they're, who they
are. Uhh Clement Greenberg probably serves as well as anybody else does in
the role of villain One, a very rich and powerful men and two, he has been
for a long time probably since the, since the public peak of abstract
expressionism and all through the 60s. And he still carries a lot of cloud
, the closest thing to an absolute taste maker that you could get. But and
I want to lead into something. All critics are not Clement Greenberg or
even in the position to do those kinds of things. Should they have that
kind of temperament and what I would like to come back to and ask a
question over there is in a minute is who are the architecture critics and
how do they get to be that way and how do they get those, those jobs? And
what you're thinking about answer, I want to say, I want to point out a
kind of paradox that exist at least with art magazines. And I would
imagine the situation with architecture magazines and somewhat the same,
which is that if you pay an art critic a couple of 100 bucks an article
Like that and they support their own production costs, let's say they had
a couple of 100 bucks an Article 2, 300, maybe $400 an article. And you
run some articles like that in an art magazine is a monthly. Then you've
got you end up with a substantial budget and you have to cover it. You
have to cover it by selling advertising and that sort of thing. You sell
advertising and then you're at the pressure, you know, you're at the
pressure of the galleries. I've been in that situation once where for one
lousy little line in the story that I wrote in general about going to new
york, where I described as sculptors work in the context of his gallery,
marlborough, which is very powerful gallery, which is involved in the
Rothko State. And I said the stuff in that gallery looked like money lying
in state because that's what it was. The Marlboro, which used to put the
back cover on art forum, you know every month and had a contract and that
was what, 15 $1600 a month for the backup withdrew it. The guy said, well
, since you feel that way I saw the letter about our gallery, we choose
not to, you know, so you're in that situation if you go the other route
and you don't. And I was interesting what Dennis had said, if you don't
pay your your contributors much or something like that and you can publish
without advertising and go low budget, then you end up with another kind
of tricky situation, which is that your criticism gets to be artists part
time artists dealt artists being part time critics and delving into
criticism and writing about friends or enemies you get you get academic
professors writing, you know, things that help their publication records.
There was one of the things that's wrong with art criticism, the United
States today is that and maybe deserved critics simply don't get paid much
or regularly or whatever. And it's always relied on, we'll look at
everybody wants to publish, we're doing you a favor by putting you into
print. And the other thing is is in most parts of the visual arts now.
Shut up with this is that is that there aren't any training programs I
know of only one which is that U. C. San Diego, which is giving an M. F. A.
In art criticism. But most art critics end up being. And it's the classic
thing, you know, the frustrated artist or the part time artist or the
Academy Mission or the historian who wants to jump into something a little
bit more contemporary. So this business of paying them and not paying them
and how you support your publication is very crucial. So what I'd like to
do is turn it back to the architecture critic side of thing and asked who
are the architecture critics, how did they get to be that way and how do
they make a living? I have one question to them too, by the way, how often
does an art critic or an architecture critic have to write a christian
have to write a criticism per month? How often, how many articles are they
expected to turn out in the given amount of time vis a vis what we have.
You know, what, what music and theater people have to do? Well, certainly
just taking this point about who the architecture critics are the
architectural journalists are. Well, I suppose, up to about 19 fifties,
mid fifties, most of the architectural critics were architects. What we've
noticed, certainly in the UK, and I think it's also prevails here, is that
now many of the people who are critics or journalists on the specialist
magazines are professional journalists. That's been an incredible change.
And in some cases, failed academic historians, or highly successful
academic historians like Raina Burnham, Who actually, in terms of his
involvement in England with the architectural review brought in a new kind
of critic and did a fabulous job in the 50s, So there's been a distinct
change there certainly the great established magazines of the 19th century
, all run by commercial firms who employed architects as editors for their
architectural magazines. The famous Story of Mr raffles, Davidson, who
used to knock on the doors of houses in the northwest of England and say I
am the british architect
and he was always allowed in and he would cover their building.
Mhm. We've been going at it pretty hot and heavy up here. Is there
anything complaints, criticisms, questions from the audience at this point
? Yeah,
Yeah,
Okay,
that's good.
So
are we?
Mhm.
Everybody wants to be listened to thank God, I'm not a critic, you're
saying?
Yeah,
Yeah. Uh huh.
Well, let's ask for us, is anyone going to stand up against it? Nobody.
Mhm. Usually, most magazines there's a there's a column and they're called
Letters to the editor. Yeah, that's where this sounds like, how about
being an absolute rotter, Absolutely terrible, duplicitous critic. I
mentioned that one case of the guy in the figure out in in paris who was
out and out about it and there's a long tradition you pay the critic and
uh so there so you know, it's kind of a reverse integrity, but it works
because, you know perfectly well, he's going to be absolutely grew up, so
at least, you know, there's no question about David
louder, please.
Yes.
Huh.
Mhm.
That's right. Well, now I have one of the questions about integrity of
criticism. You're talking about that very thing. There's another thing too
, I don't know how often an art critic or an architecture critic is
expected to write per month peter. How often do is a particular writer
have to turn anything?
Yes. I mean, to stay alive, I'm talking about his economic situation when
I when I'm right for new york magazine would right, Yeah. First I wrote
about three columns a month, lovely. Um and I think that probably paul
Goldberger rights twice a week for the new york times, I guess. Um It was
hard, but I think there's one column, one sunday column that's about the
average, but the
of course critics are right for architectural publications uh work in a
very different way. They may do a couple of major stories a month plus
short stories which are not signed, which may be news stories and so on.
You know, the I don't think there's any rule of thumb, then a lot of
people write for. Um Well, don't I have a I have one question to pursue
before a little further. I mean, and then maybe you can answer me and he's
going to stand right. Well, you know what I'm basically asking is have you
noticed any problem in an architect having I mean, an architectural critic
not having enough time to do his or her homework on an art on a thing or
is it sort of more or less expected they will really have enough time to
do their basic work on a thing. I mean simply because they do have only
maybe one a week of peace. I mean, do they have the time to do what they
really ought to come out with a thoughtful article? They don't have the
time pressure. In other words. I think it's the the question should really
be, are they qualified to do it because a great many architecture critics
, architecture is not a pure heart, as everyone said, but it does have a
great deal to do with some very technical problems which may or may not be
answered. And there are some Yeah. Right. Well, basically what I'm finding
out is what you've told me basically is that uh, you're not having to deal.
I don't think nearly as often as music or play critics are with the time
pressure. How about art? Is that the same? Uhh I've known a couple people
who didn't last at it very long. I don't mean they quit being art critics
, but they quit on that level who for brief periods of time in new york
when there was enough fodder for their criticism to keep them going. We're
trying to make livings as critics and it wasn't what they couldn't do it
economically, but it was something like it took about four articles a
month. I mean you can figure it out if you can get 3 400 bucks a month. I
mean an article and you get like that to 1600 bucks and in new york, 1600
bucks a month isn't going to take you terribly terribly far. And it was a
burnout situation. The two people doing that, what they'd have something
going in the studio, I mean something going into art form, something for
art in America on the line, you know for later, something for arts
magazine here and trying to do it, couldn't, couldn't keep that, couldn't
keep that kind of thing up. And so most of them end up taking a step back
from trying to get a part time teaching position. Um mm I just want to
tell you a harvest story has to do with one of my very, very best friends
who has been on a has been a critic for one of the new york papers for
about the last 34 years. He was drafted in the situation because the head
critic at this paper Uh took sick and wasn't able to criticize that called
him up because they knew he was a general writer basically on musical
comedy and on many other things are not really a standard music critic,
but a general education. We define guy. So we picked up about three or 4
jobs a month to start with as about a 2nd and 3rd string critic. These
paid 45 to $50 a shot, His taxi was paid to the, to the concert and back
he was in there was picked up and so and so forth. He had put his article
in and he got $50 Later, he became a second string critic and began to get
$75 and $80 a criticism. Now we're talking about New York that certainly
doesn't make very much money. So in the last few years he's had to become
all between 1st and 2nd string critics uh when his wife retired of a baby
, he was doing six jobs a week At maybe 80 or $90 now after a while he's
quit now of course, partly because the post has gone down, but I mean
partly because I'm not just going down, but all the papers are closed and
I think you're going to find a different lineup when they do go back again
because the very fact that six times a week after a while you're turning
the plaster, nobody can listen really that intelligently, Here's a man who
did a lot of background work on everything he wrote. He finally simply
could not do it. I think that this must really have a great to do with the
whole business of how good criticism and how valid criticism is. May I may
I add to that eric Salzman when he was with the new york Times, very
respected, respected critic. I thought you were going to tell a horror
story, but that isn't a horrible story at all. Eric Salzman wrote about 20
reviews a week. You have to go three concerts today. That's how he made
his salary. No extra pay. That's all that's with the deadline. Usually
either 15 minutes after or 10 minutes before the end of the concert,
depending on how long the last piece was actually actually say bobby the
same problem and he was going to three conscious today too. So there will
be six nights, three afternoons and so would be about the same as the
worst. Just one might mention that Mac and a various intrigues and
politics, such as being mentioned by you at the other end of the table,
really don't let her in when you're operating. However, at this pace, you
get very good at at hearing a certain thing that you're after. You don't
worry about who it is, you just just do your job as best you can. However
, it doesn't give enough time to look into what's happening uh in the case
of new music, which is what Bill and I are particularly interested in. And
so it kind of lost out. So when we do find people, as I mentioned, the
very beginning who are willing to take the time to look into it while it's
wonderful. And I do think there are more and more of these and there are
more and more trained critics and music around the country situation isn't
great, but the terrible stories you're telling. I I don't know anything
about music, maybe they exist. Let me say one thing just very short to the
gentleman out there who's who's the sculptor and you're talking about
integrity and I'll just give you this and you can think about it. And
probably another question will come back in my personal experience with
criticism and with other art critics. The lack of integrity has always, I
can't think of an exception at the moment. Always been on the favorable
side. In other words, it's people that the integrity thing has always been
people writing pumps about artists that they wanted to get in good with or
maybe hope that they say, see this, this person wrote an article on jules
Nowitzki, you know, and then you get some of the grandeur of jewels,
litsky rubs off or maybe the guy like enough to trade you a piece or
something someday. It's always lack of integrity has always been on that
side rather than dumping on somebody for political reasons in my
experience.
See where?
No, it's not. But I said it's always been No, it's not. I said the lack of
integrity has always been on that on that side undeserved puffs for in
other words the corruption went towards saying something nice because they
got something for it rather than saying something nasty.
No, no, nobody said that. I have one question which really has something
to do with it all. One of things I did say is that when we had the
newspaper strike in new york, it was noticeable that all the arts, for
example, that were the most immediate sort of sort of short term ones such
as theater. And, and there was there's a concerts over, you know, that's
something uh there was practically no appreciable difference in the size
of crowds or any other kinds of things or even in sort of a general
aggravation of what was happening around them is now, let's imagine that
all of a sudden there were no criticism in art or in architecture. What do
you think would be the difference is those of you on the other side of the
table. What happened there were all of a sudden you're magazines were over.
Look, I may, I may I just make a comment because I think you're totally
wrong about the new york scene. Last two months. Uh, the all performing
arts in new york were regularly reviewed by the new yorker new york
magazine, The Village Voice, Daily Time by Newsweek by any number of
suburban papers which we've taken a terrific amount more of power they
once had because those little cities, not necessarily, I think that uh,
there were three, three papers that go out of business and six magazines
that continued to function as And, and cover the New York scene completely
, Jack can't cover 10 openings. The only covered what was there? And it's
a very few kind of things and there's an automatic kind of selection of
which gets reviewed. That's, that's the difference between a weekly and
daily. I'm saying that the daily criticisms had a lot to do with an awful
lot of people's uh small careers. I mean, the main thing about, you know,
somebody who's in Newsweek already, I mean when you'll be opened,
everybody knew about you begin to be opening. For example, when somebody
does get into weekly, these are people are already established artists,
the daily people, the Daily, you know, the pianist who gets his debut
finally in town hall, he's paid all his money to get the darn thing going
by norman Seaman, just put his money and all the rest is a very sad story.
The poor guy's sitting there putting his whole back on the darn thing. No
review. That's the that's the people I'm talking about. Of course, it's
quite true that one review would make no difference. If he'd known better
, he would have saved his money, but they don't know that, but never mind
about that. What I'm talking about is the daily reviews for the small guys
, the burgeoning people, the people are just starting their they are
certainly having a different time. How was that being affected? I want to
say one thing about regionalism, which came up to is that I was, this is a
long time ago. I think the policy is sort of still in effect, if not
specific, I was living in texas at the time and writing for art forum and
somebody had an interesting show and I wanted to write about, I thought
about. So I called up the editor and I was right, you know, I said how
about a piece on this? And he said, and I think this is probably echoed
throughout different forms of criticism. He said, well will run an article
on a known artist in an unknown place and we will run an article on an
unknown artist in a known place, meaning somebody who's new and who comes
to new york. But we don't really want to run an article on an unknown
artist in an unknown place. And I think that this is probably and this was
a pure kind of business decision about circulation and advertising what
would be of interest to the readers and blah blah blah. But I mean, it's a
problem you run up against so an unknown artist having a show in san
Antonio texas is didn't stand much of a chance of getting international
magazine also. I think this uh falls back on, I think the responsibility
of the art periodical periodical, I think it isn't so much to be uh
playing up the already established people. I think when the functions of
the magazine just like the critic is that of education and and I think I
especially enjoy and I think of art forum or or whatever the publication
might be saying, uh, somebody that I never realized was working before.
See, here's something new, you know, and instead of the the same same
routine that you're so used to seeing. And I think this is one of the
biggest shortcomings that the periodical has. Yeah, I think all magazines
that deal with us, we've got to have some sort of revelatory factor.
How do we learn about what we're competing against or how do we learn
about what's going on? Faith? This conversation is getting a bit beyond me.
It seems to be concerned with job opportunities and mechanisms of how you
produce articles in certain magazines. I thought, well, that's interesting
that you should point this out because my experience is a composer and
having had enough experience, at least with performances of my work in
England at least. Uh, and also knowing the fair number of english
composers. I don't know what it's like with english, our candidates are
just like that. But there's a different kind of thing. You have a much
stronger situation. These are these earning capacity. I mean, I know
composers who make no bones about writing movie music and there's no
stigma about it. You do that sort of thing in the States, you're
automatically put down about it for years. Uh, there are lots of people
who've done this sort of thing. There are means of making money as a, as
an artist in England, which don't simply exist here. So you're thrown upon
other things to make that sort of thing. That changes your whole
particular perspective. You have more help in certain areas that we simply
don't have. Yeah, but what sort of levels of criticism we talking about in
these? Well, basically, in in America the point of that is that America
criticism basically, to do with buying and selling whatever it has to do
with it. Whereas criticism in England can afford to be a good deal more
disinterested. No, you don't you don't buy a performance after after it's
over. Surely. I mean, what you've been talking about earlier was very much
concerned with what critics thought of your work or Well, that's well,
what that had to do with whether you're going to be able to make a living
vis a vis your heart
very simply talking about the bottom line, that's it.
Any more from the audience out there. Any more questions or comments. I'd
like to have something really?
No, I think what you were talking about, you were complaining about those
, there's probably a whole area of criticism that we really haven't
addressed. And it's probably with a lot of critics themselves think about
which is the critic as interpreter and saying this body of works and try
this kind of idea. And I think this kind of idea means this and putting it
in a philosophical perspective and using the art almost as grist for the
mill to write a creative piece. Almost. Somebody told me that once I said
something, I was really afraid that I'd been unfair to the artist. And
editor said, your only job is to write an interesting, provocative piece
of writing. And and and the art should be to you as the writer. No more
sort of inviolable as the tube of paint was to the painter. It's a kind of
a heavy thought, but it's got some some merit to it. Mhm. Um I think
that's true and I think that makes it always more important with the
reasons why a point of view,
but this Okay.