Arts
Tate Occasion
Giles Auty
The Hard-Won Image (Tate Gallery till 9 September) Tf reading omens is part of an art review- er's job, my guess is that The Hard-Won Image, a current Tate Gallery exhibition, may prove uncommonly significant. While such significance is partly due to content reasonably well described by the exhibi- tion's subtitle: 'Traditional Method and Subject in Recent British Art' - it owes still more to the rationale underlying the whole enterprise. Among other things this articu- lates a view, widely held outside rather than inside contemporary art's seats of power, that the most durable and signifi- cant art of a period may not necessarily be that of its avant-garde.
In itself this view may not seem especial- ly radical and it is simply its source, on this occasion, which makes it so. For, over the past 25 years, the Tate Gallery in the persons of its decision-taking staff has played a highly influential role in focusing attention on (and thus dignifying) certain art of rather dubious merit largely on the grounds of its innovatory nature.
It should be accepted that forming and updating a major collection of modern art is no easy task - not least through an imperfect understanding of what modern art embraces - and there are many pres- sures which militate against overall sound- ness of judgment. It is thus tempting to operate what could be described as a museum rather than a true art gallery policy. By this I mean collecting items because they are historically different rather than necessarily of quality . . 'We've got one of these already, but we haven't got any of those.'
If it appears to artists or others that difference is the major key to acceptance, then this becomes a green signal for that wrong form of artistic novelty which is formal innovation conceived for anything other than a genuinely expressive purpose.
'I hear they're endangered — they probably move too slowly.' The distinction between a public collection 'buying what is being done' and artists 'doing what is being bought' is evidently a crucial one in the forming of truly repre- sentative collections.
Under these circumstances courage as well as vision becomes a key quality in curatorial decisions. A truly vigorous cul- ture would confine appointments in in- fluential bodies such as the Tate Gallery or Arts Council to those best equipped to resist the blandishments of fashion. That we have not done so is largely due to the climate of emotive and often wildly inaccu- rate language in which the activities of contemporary art take place. More or less the entire vocabulary of Modernism carries a kind of 'positive' loading (consider 'ad- vance', 'development', 'progressive' etc) whereas there is as yet no description for an 'un-modern' position which is not pe- jorative, often to a damaging degree. Thus to be spoken of in contemporary art circles as traditionalist, anti-modernist, reaction- ary or even academic has generally meant that the one so described would shortly be sharing the career prospects of the dodo.
It is against such a background that we should approach this current Tate exhibi- tion and peruse its excellent catalogue. This, in time, may become something of an historic document marking a degree of official recognition that a shift of con- sciousness with widespread implications has been taking place. Like much of the work of Richard Morphet, Assistant Keep- er of the Tate's Modern Collection, the text is at once cautious, complex and courageous and finally reads rather like the thesis of a Jesuit picking a path through a theological minefield. Nor is this analogy inapt, for artistic Modernism - a creed of supposedly liberal tolerance - has fre- quently imposed its own dangerous and stifling orthodoxy.
That at least some of the artists featured in The Hard-Won Image have openly rejected such orthodoxy makes their career achievements doubly praiseworthy. For, like swimmers against a powerful current, They have had to expend much of their energy simply in staying afloat.
Accepting the catalogue explanation that the scope of the exhibition was gener- ally limited to living artists already in the Tate's collection, it is certain inclusions rather than omissions that amaze. Why Hamilton or to a lesser extent Blake and Hockney are among the 46 chosen artists is unfathomable, since part of the exhibi- tion's theme centres on the values of tradition in artists' head-on confrontations with perceptual reality. Such values •would encompass the work of included artists such as Coldstream, Freud, George, Greenham, Gross, Uglow and Wonnacott whereas a vision relying more heavily on the metaphysical or archetypal is repre- sented by such as Bacon, Bellany, Collins and Moore. Work in either category is certainly hard-won while art which cleverly side-steps perceptual or inner confronta- tions easily lapses into a bright and breezy modishness which is seductive to the eye but ultimately unsatisfying. During the climate of latter-day Modernism, such modishness or `style' seldom went unre- warded and often gave its producer a flying start in the imaginary 'art-race'. However it was no less eminent an art historian than Sir Ernst Gombrich who remarked, 'There is no such race, but if there were we should do well to remember the fable of the tortoise and the hare.'
For many of the artists featured in The Hard-Won Image, recognition has come late during lives in which they have reg- ularly witnessed the elevation of ephemera to apparent artistic 'status' and seen their own more traditional values rejected or ridiculed. Small wonder that some, tortoise-like, have grown tough old shells to encase them for the long, hard plod to the finishing line. While openly recognising the courage of such artists pursuing un- popular goals during the heyday of Mod- ernist idiom, the author of the catalogue nevertheless wrings his hands in innocent dismay at the continuance of what he describes as 'adversarial' attitudes in Brit- ish art.
As one of two writers singled out in the catalogue as making some positive con- tribution to contemporary debate while basically belonging to the 'adversarial' camp, I can but try to imagine what kind of reply some of the 'adversarial' artists might give. I suppose many might point out that art does not take place in a vacuum nor generally within the comforting protection of ivory towers. Down at the sharp end where the giving or withholding of profes- sional opportunity is vital, where bills must be met from irregular earnings and integri- ty maintained in the face of long-term neglect or indifference, a battle is being waged in which it is unfortunately impossi- ble (and impractical) to hold diametrically opposed viewpoints simultaneously. Being wholeheartedly for some things in art, will inevitably cause an individual to be against others. But such attitudes are by no means synonymous with a closed mind or intoler- ance.
While polemical himself, Richard Mor- phet seems to suggest that the art criticism of others should be confined largely to neutral description of whatever is upon the walls, without excessive intrusion of per- sonal viewpoint. However, in urging read- ers to visit and celebrate The Hard-Won Image as a belated fillip, if not yet a triumph, for artistic sanity, I humbly point out that most of the work in this exhibition speaks for itself.
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