Modernist
Richard Francis
Dore Ashton's problem is that there are too many artists in 20th-century American Art to deal with them properly in a relatively short book. The result is an in- felicitous catalogue in which individuals are given one or two sentences to justify their inclusion. For example: 'mixing both recognisable house-forms with abstract figures, Shapiro does more than measure out space. He qualifies the spaces with sub- tle allusions whose content cannot be ig- nored' is supposed to inform us about one of the most significant American sculptors of the Seventies. It is pure Art Speak, dis- informing, and can only serve to confuse an audience unfamiliar with Shapiro's work. (Don't try and look up Joel Shapiro in the index: his name does not appear).
The first part of Ashton's book is a precis of her excellent volume on the life and times of the New York school. She is on secure ground here and writes with scholarly preci-
sion, although she is not entirely comfor- table at this length. She acknowledges throughout the book the economic and literary climate and this sometimes provides the best analysis; her description of the changes in Olsen's and Ginsberg's poetic are used to provoke a discussion of the parallels with the art of the period. Her in- clusion of the history of the exhibition, as a work of art, acknowledges its importance in the history of art.
Economic information is displayed con- ventionally at the head of chapters, (like a school text book), where it serves as a reminder of the market forces. On one oc- casion, in the final chapter, she steps out and reveals her distrust of sponsorship by attacking the Whitney Museum and a ma- jor sponsor, Philip Morris. She has detected (and cites the veteran critic Rosenberg to support her) a depressing tendency of artists and institutions to forego their morals in the hope of making money. Her concern is justified to the extent that art is made only for sale to corporations (ar- tists make art for other reasons) and the museums fail to continue to make intellec- tually sound exhibitions.
Ashton's 'moral' dilemma is, I think, her own and not the artists' Throughout the Seventies (universally acknowledged a doldrums) she chooses the underdog. Must we assume that American art of the Seven- ties will be represented by Deborah Rem- ington, Paul Rotterdam, Power Booth (pp 158/9) or Margia Kramer (p 198) rather
than younger artists like Jenney, Bartlett, Schnabel, Salle or Hunt? It is as if Ashton s adherence to modernism as taught by Greenberg and made by the Abstract Ex' pressionists must be kept alive although the flame is almost out. The work she chant" pions is old fashioned in this sense and whilst she does not say so, she clearlY distrusts the new 'pluralistic' approaches. This has led her to denigrate all of perfor- mance (from Acconci to Wilson) and miss or ignore the resurgence of painting at the end of the decade. This sceptical tangential view leads her to Tschumi rather than the New York 5 or OMA when discussing vl" sionary architects, to include (at some relative length) the work of the English ar- tists Walker and Tucker and to write off Robert Wilson and Joseph Beuys as the works of one 'surpassing showman' after another. Perhaps I am protesting too strongly and should welcome an individual point of view, a discussion of artists that the author has reviewed or knows well. That IS welcome in art journalism and, as an eX' hibition organiser, you know who will res- pond to what. It is not satisfactorY; however, when presented as an historieo) survey of an important period. Dore Ashton does nothing to prepare the reader for her personal view in the philosophical introduction, and at no point acknowledges that much can be found just off her route. The jacket biography might have played OP her role as art critic and played down her
professorship of the History of Art..
Nor has she been well served by her pic- ture researcher; too many examples come from one or two institutions or from dealers' galleries. To take two examples: both Brice Marden and Joel Shapiro are discussed using illustrations from later ex- hibitions when their work had changed and Frank Stella's Six Mile Bottom is shown on a squared-up black background which Makes it look an entirely different work. You could not accuse Phaidon of short- comings in the production of Diane Waldman's handsome volume on Anthony Caro. Scholars may find Blume's catalogue raisonne more useful as a record of Caro's astonishing output, but the quality of reproduction and choice here make it an ad- mirable record. Waldman's text is easy to read and the information she has added from interviews is well used. My only com- plaint is that its tone is too laudatory, and, like much of the criticism of this artist's Work, lacks analysis.
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