KRAMER’S CRITERIA

By Paul Henrickson, Ph.D. © 2007

In 2002 Hilton Kramer the well-respected art critic published an article

entitled “Does abstract art have a future? [ I imagine the typesetter followed
the instructions of the editor to minimalize the importance of the words in
the title as a subtle way of illustrating the nature of the article itself.]
Perhaps, if the borders of art forms and forms of communication continue to
be blurred it will be possible for the reader to rearrange all the letters himself
to suit his needs and fancy, and one might come up with:

When I read Kramer’s statement that the question concerning abstraction,

[whether or not it would survive], had been raised before, I was in full
agreement.

The term had been a socially pejorative term for many generations and is
still largely so. But when I came upon the statement that it was probably as
old as abstraction itself which Kramer estimated at 90 years I became quite
perplexed and briefly wondered whether he had been influenced by the
Russian mathematician, historian and social commentator Fomenko who
maintains that our understanding of historical chronology is off, that is, in
error, that is, too long, by a thousand years and that Solomon’s Temple is
really Hagia Sophia.

To underscore this basic misunderstanding that abstract painting had its

origins in the second decade of the 20thcentury is to overlook the basic fact
of what is involved in the act of painting…painting anything on a flat surface
or not. The term abstraction describes the activity of moving, or removing,
something from someplace and, usually, placing it in another place. and that
is all that it means whether the term is applied to whatever activity.

The fact that for at least a century people have been using the term
incorrectly and causing a great deal of anti-intellectual and unintelligent
behavior has been a source, by whose design I cannot imagine, of a
mishmash of analytical thinking. Acceptable to the reader, or not, careful and
continually refined analysis of all of man’s behavior is an essential ingredient
to man’s spiritual development.

There has been some attempt to justify the term’s use , the term “abstract”,
that is, in some special fashion when the subject matter is art, especially
modern or contemporary art and that the word’s definition is, or is expected
to be, a defining modality. While the word tells us what something is, it also,
by implication tellsus what it is not. A legal abstract does not alter the
substance of the original and a summary of something does not allow
editorializing the content. Why, in discussions on art, this detrimental
freedom of expression should be tolerated I do not know. Nevertheless, it is
tolerated and I would suggest that it is the one act that lies at the root of
generations of increasing confusion regarding the production of art.

Incidentally, I came across the realization of this confusion when in the

middle of an ad lib lecture in art history I caught myself using the term in
seriously conflicting ways and stopped speaking--right in the middle of a
word--which caused the class of teen-age young women to really pay
attention to me and right then and there I used the occasion to demonstrate
what the relationship between thinking and speaking rightly aught to be.
When it comes to the “nitty gritty” if one doesn’t use words properly, the
person you are talking to won’t know what you are saying, even if he knows
what the words mean…unless, of course, both have the same
misunderstanding. The obviousness of this truth is what some believe
accounts for Ludwig Wittengstein’s now being considered a genius who, at
one time, stated the obvious that definitions were needed for communication
to take place.

At the risk of really confusing the reader, at least temporarily, I would

venture to suggest that what most people identify as a “realistic” work is in
point of fact a highly developed abstract work and that there is more
abstraction going on in the painting of Wilson Hurley, the 20th century
pastichist of 18th and 19thcentury aesthetic than, for example, even in
Rembrandt, Rubens or Caravaggio. I would go a step further to suggest that
the work of Hans Hoffman, Sam Francis and , the self-taught (a situation, it
seems, which has reached its apotheosis these days) in one Billybob Beamer
where there has been no attempt to represent, that is re-present, objects
from the so-called exterior world, but rather presents a world of real events.
That is to say, those visual events which take place on the painted
(manipulated, altered) surfaces.

Whatever stand before us is the real stuff that produces the real sensations
in a real observer. Although, the “reality” of those responses may not be
transferable from one person to another and it is at this point, that the role of
the art critic is critical.

There is no way that the work of Wilson Hurley can possibly compete with
the works of these others in the area of reality. For Hurley is so abstract,
there is little but remembered visual sensation that can be referenced as
having contact with experience. And it is at precisely this point that the role
of aesthetics comes into play. The only appearance of an aesthetic
response in a Wilson Hurley painting is the result of a remembered occasion
triggered by the purposeful arrangement of associated symbols intentionally
designed to evoke that feeling of awe one experiences when confronted by
something out of the ordinary such as a bog sky, air view of a rocket being
launched or the eroded landscape of Utah. These are all examples of images
capable of arousing aesthetic responses in most viewers, BUT, the
experienced observer knows the difference between the power of those
images and the aesthetic power of a work of art. In the case of Wilson Hurley
the observer should not mistake the use of canvas and paint to make the
judgment that these works are, therefore, works of creative art.

For those who are erotically inclined a Hurley thrill is something like getting a
thrill out of a work by Vargas or, depending upon one’s taste in such things,

the uncommon aspects of the Venus of Willendorf. The sexual

reference is beside the point when a theoretician is discussing aesthetics. The
sexual reference may touch or move the groin, but the aesthetic reference moves
the mind and that mental response is fully as real, if not quite as immediate, as the
groinal one. In this later case it is entirely possible that most modern men are more
moved by the assemblage of forms than by their sexual significance, and that is the
point at which the Venus ceased to be a cult figure and became a work of art.

There was a time, a few years back, when the Los Alamos National
Laboratory in New Mexico invited Wilson Hurley to speak on the subject of
creativity. In the minds of those who had conceived the idea there must have
been some degree of confusion, or, at least, a high degree of
misunderstanding as to how, as technically excellent the work of Hurley
really is, it could possibly have been confused with creative effort unless, in
the minds, the undeveloped aesthetic mindsets of some atomic scientists.
More probably, those matters were left up to someone more concerned with
the politics of aggression [Wilson Hurley’s father was Admiral Patrick J. Hurley of WW II
fame and was, later the United States Ambassador to China] than with the more
academic definitions of creativity. It is entirely possible, of course, that since
Hurley was a painter it may have been thought he was, therefore,
automatically, a creative man and should know what he’s talking about. He
may, actually, know what he is talking about but separates that awareness
from its practice in front of the canvas.

Wilson Hurley: “Oh, Beautiful for Spacious Skies”

Wilson Hurley:
“THIS PIECE HAS BEEN HAND-SIGNED BY WILSON HURLEY” This
preceding statement was copied from an internet ad and forced me
to ask myself two questions: isn’t a signature usually made by the
hand and to what level audience is this statement directed?
Wilson Hurley: “The Utah Suite” (shades of Aaron Copland and “The Grand
Canyon Suite”

By aesthetics I do not refer to the symbolic referencing to second hand erotic

suggestions such we find in those works we traditionally labeled “realistic”. I
do refer to the aesthetic experience of neural responses directly stimulated
by what one sees as an event on the flat or otherwise non-flat surface, not
one that owes its existence to remembered things not immediately present.
In that regard I would hope the reader might detect the aesthetic difference

between the three following works:

This experience may be similar to that of an experienced chess player

looking at the board where two others are at play. If he is polite he says
nothing, but in his mind he sees several alternative plays and their
alternative results . This process is an action of the mind brought on by both
knowledge and experience and might well bring the observer a considerable
amount of pleasure.

When Bernard Berenson said that fine art can be a “life-enhancing

experience” I believe this is the sort of thing he
had in mind.

The manner in which the artist orchestrates the

visual material under his control is the real
subject of a work of art and when the 18th
century Madame de Stael commented that those
people who could not see more in a painting than
the subject matter were, sadly, not experiencing
the art. She is also credited with saying ”Genius is
essentially creative; it bears the stamp of the individual
who possesses it.” And this

characteristic is an essential ingredient to an

aesthetic response and I doubt that there are any two
creative artists who respond the same way to any
stimulus, and that might be said of art critics as

Bernard and Mary Berenson

well.

Madame de Stael

However, it is because of the general cultural absence of this ability to finely

distinguish one’s aesthetic responses that we have enriched Andy Warhol,
Jeff Koons, Roy Lichtenstein and that English fellow who cuts up photographs.
David Hockney. Oh , yes, and Paul Brach, in which case I have had the
advantage of a personal encounter which serves to make my insights more
secure.

It may be surprising to some were I to state that Wilson Hurley and Paul
Brach stand at the same level of aesthetic sensibility and possess the same
amount of depth of offering. They may stand holding hands together as
imperceptive artists facing an imperceptive audience and this, in outline, is
the tragedy of American leadership in art and an illustration, I fear, of its
misuse of wealth. But, perhaps, the is the corrupting nature of wealth.

It seems both too light a comment and somewhat unfair to state that Paul
Brach’s creative activity seems to have been characterized by his being
compelled to being endlessly circular. Regrettably, those circles are
insufficiently variable to offer even the least demanding observer sufficient
food for rewarding contemplation.

Paul Brach’s circles

In contrast to:
Bradford Hansen-Smith’s circles. At this point I think it important to
emphasize that “creative growth” is the issue…not whether one person is
more creative than another. Although, I do admit that is a difficult distinction
to maintain. In these cases, it seems to me that one person is content to be
patterned in his behavior while the other breaks patterns in order to push
boundaries out.

Bradford Hansen-Smith started this aspect of his work by folding paper

plates, and, so, in a very real sense Brach and Hansen-Smith started on the
same level. The difference in societal approval, however, as measured by
academic status, publications, and financial rewards is remarkable and, as
some observer has commented is due entirely to the public relations
network.

One might, I suppose, feel compassionately toward Brach should he finally

realize that his only valued characteristic in the estimate of some is his
ethnicity. Even Leo Steinberg was hesitant to award him significant accolades
when he issued the following statement in describing Brach’s work: ‘The
invisibility of an encompassing undifferentiated homogeneity”, in
short, “Baby, there is nothing there.”

I hope it is clear to the reader that the extent of change and development of
a concept in the work of Bradford Hansen-Smith is significantly greaterthan
that in the work of Paul Brach. The significance of this difference in terms of
its effects on the American educational system can be clearly understood
when it becomes understood that while Brach was Chairman of the Art
department at The University of California at San Diego (La Jolla) the primary
requirement for being hired at a member of the faculty appeared to be that
one was a Jew. This ethnocentrism has its dangerous and debilitating
consequences on the quality of education. While I was visiting the
department at that time I was vicariously humiliated on behalf of the only
non-Jewish member of the faculty (a Scotsman, I believe) who happened also
to be a markedly “traditional realist”.

As Madame de Stael noted it is not the subject matter that makes for an
exciting work of art, but evidence of the way the artist has behaved with his
medium. In that regard the following artists have contributed a minimum
(pun intended) to the field of aesthetics:

In 1950, at the instigation of Barbara Sessions who had been Berenson’s

Librarian when her then husband, Roger, “the only American composer Europeans truly
admire”—John Galea and the Aaron Coplands were at the same time studying in
Europe. I visited Berenson at I Tatti in Florence and received an observation
from him concerning the geographical routes that are followed by artistic
influences. I had recently read the anticipation that renaissance-like
aesthetic development would in the next years continue to the North of
Europe and give Scandinavia its opportunity.

Berenson’s, patiently gentle (he was 83, I was 21) comment “It usually” he
said, “follows money”.was how he had advised me. Well, now, he was both
right and wrong. He was right in so far as it seems to require financial
resources, or power, to bring things about, but what is brought about is a
matter of perception, taste and understanding. I have met two individuals
who collected works of art who appeared to also have a knowledge about
what it was they had collected, one of them was a lady in Rhode Island
whose name I have regrettably forgotten. It was, I think, something like
MacDonald.

What she had in her collection was an unfinished Cezanne which had really
attracted my attention and it was the fixed focus of an 18 or 19 year-old that
had attracted her attention.

The second was the well-known Henie-Onstad collection, then in Oslo,

Norway where Niels Onstad, Norway’s answer to Greece’s Onassis, gave
every evidence of a superior awareness, perhaps only academic, of the text-
book collection he had brought together and later together with an additional
value of $40, million donated to the nation.

Basically, Berenson was right, that aesthetic developments do tend to be

highly correlated with financial resources. Unfortunately, we cannot draw
from the supposition that wealth also implies understanding. It does not. At
this point I grant that there can be plenty of room for variation in the area of
understanding.

To use a rather amusing illustration of that. Dorothy Pillsbury Rude of

Minneapolis and a member of the flour family spoke to a group of art faculty
assembled at her home for a reception of a retiring member of the faculty. In
the tour of her collection she mentioned, as though in abundant
unimportance that a George Braque they had had recently sold was replaced
by another work by a local painter which was getting ready to be shown in
Sao Paulo. Somehow, the implication was that because the Braque was no
longer in her collection it ceased to have a value. I eventually, but not
quickly enough, came to the conclusion that this woman was constitutionally
unable to make an aesthetic judgment separate from her egotistical
requirements which were dependent upon her perceived social status.
Berenson was proved right again, but also proved wrong, for her judgments
had little to do with the aesthetic and creative accomplishments of George
Braque and Dorothy Pillsbury could not approach the understanding of
Madame de Stael, but was adept in her attempts to bludgeon public opinion.
Dorothy’s husband was a sculptor on the faculty of the University of
Minnesota at the time and not too long after this episode Dorothy suffered a
fatal jeep accident in the sands of the Sahara.

It is at this point, perhaps, that I should begin to be forthright and to

straightforwardly state that the history of art as it has been taught in most
western universities has very very seldom made even a passingly intelligent
comment regarding the aesthetic developments which were the results of
critical observation that in differing ways artists throughout history have
chosen, or by chance happened to see, in a neutralreality.

To assume and to make judgments regarding the traditionally assigned

“realistic movement” in art, and to provide this period with beginning and
ending dates is not an act characterized by intelligence. Such dates and all
the conclusions derived from them are, in relation to the reality of the
situation, arbitrary fabrications. That habit continues generation after
generation and because of our training , which tells us that in order to
succeed in life, we must believe and to, at least superficially, agree with what we
are told by adults or other representatives of power. All this in dangerous
denial of our own native sensibilities an action which, I maintain, could well
be the source of depression….serious debilitating depression.

I do think ,,and I do strongly believe, that in addition to its being a rather

exciting intellectual performance a rewriting of art history from the point of
view of the creative artist rather than the politicized and well-trained but not
well educated historian would be an important contribution to world
civilization. Such an event might well upset several groups of people such as
gallery directors, museum directors and academicians of all sorts. It might,
however, be applauded by book publishers and educators who possess a
degree of excitement about how people learn.

If technical proficiency as measured by the standard of what many consider

to be “realism” how does the objective observer account for the
achievements illustrated in the works illustrated below? In rows A through E
try to arrange the items in what you believe to be their chronological order in
terms of degree of realism, that is, from the least to the most “realistic”
A

or:

or
C

or:

or:
E
Many years ago as a Professor at Radford University in Virginia I noticed that
most of the members of the class were using the names of artists to
determine what they thought might be the acceptable response to matters
of aesthetic value, that is, relative “goodness” and that there was very
nearly a perfect correlation between that and their inability to recognition
“goodness” in the art work. In short, they recognized the name but could not
distinguish aesthetic value.

When given the names of 10 artists and asked to arrange them in the order
of their “goodness” the name of Rembrandt was almost universally placed at
the top, the number one “great artist”. When asked to judge the “goodness”
of works by these artists which were not well known the name of Rembrandt”
appeared at the bottom. From this information I believe I justifiably arrived at
the conclusion that our students were very obedient to what they perceived
to be our “wishes” and “expectations” and were steadfastly unwilling to
make their own judgments known…if, indeed, they had had any. In short,
while they might be able to tell us, in a rote fashion that Rembrandt was
great they lacked the ability to recognize in his work why he was great. That
situation is intolerable.

I am, of course, aware that the original proposition was more than ridiculous
but what I was attempting to assess was the attitude these students had
toward famous names and to determine whether in their assigned judgments
they were using aesthetic values as criteria. They were, of course, using
aesthetic values as criteria but NOT those of artists. From this experiment I
concluded that there is not a shared culture between the producers and
scholars of art forms and the general public. This constitutes a serious
cultural fracture. I am not looking for a uniformity of opinion, but rather a
general body of perceptive awareness.

When Bruce Chatwin, as one in a group of individuals who daily are exposed
to several hours of looking at art, is notable for his unusual ability to
recognize a genuine work from one that isn’t and to do so within a matter of
minutes, or seconds, as the story is told, we are dealing with a mind that
quite thoroughly recognizes the language of excellence and genuine
aesthetic character from among a group (of professionals) that doesn’t. This is
one of the abilities that should be a standard among art critics upon whom
the general public depends for guidance. Although, it must be stated at the
outset that , as in all fields, that sort of ability is achieved through
considerable effort together with the willingness to accept when one is
wrong.
The following comes from a document file I have saved on two American artists,
one, Alex Katz, and the other Jacob Lawrence: the text in brown are my
comments to selected comments published by the museum
KATZ,ALEX

Alex Katz one of the most influential American artists of the past 50 years,
What has this person influenced? And in what ways?

presents many of his celebrated portraits

who has celebrated these portraits that are distinguished from those of a child only
in terms of their neatness. I do not mean to suggest that the work of a child is
lacking, that would be an interpretation going in the wrong direction. The work of a
child is generally the best expression he can make at that moment. Can the same be
said of Katz’s work.. I think not.

and of his distinguished circle of friends, including poets, writers and artists
I guess Katz has a lot of friends, and a great deal of company so he simply lacks the
time to grow as an artist and since his friends, presumably, all support him he has
not motivation to grow, a situation which might explain why those artists who do
tgrow aesethetically and creatievely are often found to be difficult companions.

views of the city, with its famous Manhattan sky line and Modernist architecture.
I suppose one cannot argue with “famous” but modernist is another matter
especially since the advent of Dubai

made up the artist’s circle of friends and whose names constitute a veritable who’s who of
New York cultural life.
Someone has not been looking in the right direction.

He became widely known internationally following a large-scale retrospective at the Whitney

Museum of American Art in 1986 and a print retrospective at the Brooklyn Museum of Art in
1988. These were followed by major exhibitions of portraits and landscapes at the Saatchi
Gallery, London, 1998, Galleria Civica di Arte Contemporanea, Trento, 1999, and Kunst und
Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Bonn,
Even Germans, or, perhaps, most especially Germans,might be forgiven for their
perfected perceptions since it would be an extraordinary effort since 1945 for a
German to be at all critical of a Jew

The exhibition is curated by Juan Manuel Bonet, independent curator, consultant, art historian
and former Director of the Reina Sofía National Museum of Modern Art, Madrid, who curated a
major exhibition of Katz’ work at the Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno (IVAM), Valencia, in
1996, and Rachael Thomas, Senior Curator: Head of Exhibitions, IMMA.
Well, Juan Bonet has the distinction of having been a curator at The Reina Sophia National
Museum one can only wonder why he left. One might suppose that that

Contact IMMA
Museum Contact Details

Irish Museum of Modern Art

Áras Nua-Ealaíne na hÉireann

Royal Hospital
Military Road
Kilmainham
Dublin 8
Ireland
Telephone: +353-1-6129900
Irish Museum of Modern Art
Áras Nua-Ealaíne na hÉireann

Royal Hospital
Military Road
Kilmainham
Dublin 8
Ireland
Telephone: +353-1-6129900
Fax: +353-1-612 9999
Email: info@imma.ie

The unedited text follows:

Alex Katz is one of the most important American artists of our time, and his impressive body of work constitutes a
unique aspect of modern Realism. In 1992 Alex Katz donated more than 400 of his works to the Colby College
Museum of Art with the understanding that a wing would be built to house them. The Paul J. Schupf Wing for the
Works of Alex Katz, which opened in 1996, was made possible through the generosity of Colby trustee Paul J.
Schupf, who contributed the naming gift for the building. The Schupf Wing makes the Colby museum one of the few
in the United States with a wing devoted solely to the work of a living artist.

Alex Katz is one of the most important American artists of our time, and his impressive body of work constitutes a
unique aspect of modern Realism. In 1992 Alex Katz donated more than 400 of his works to the Colby College
Museum of Art with the understanding that a wing would be built to house them. The Paul J. Schupf Wing for the
Works of Alex Katz, which opened in 1996, was made possible through the generosity of Colby trustee Paul J.
Schupf, who contributed the naming gift for the building. The Schupf Wing makes the Colby museum one of the few
in the United States with a wing devoted solely to the work of a living artist. Alex Katz is one of the most important
American artists of our time, and his impressive body of work constitutes a unique aspect of modern Realism. In 1992
Alex Katz donated more than 400 of his works to the Colby College Museum of Art with the understanding that a wing
would be built to house them. The Paul J. Schupf Wing for the Works of Alex Katz, which opened in 1996, was made
possible through the generosity of Colby trustee Paul J. Schupf, who contributed the naming gift for the building. The
Schupf Wing makes the Colby museum one of the few in the United States with a wing devoted solely to the work of
a living artist.

Alex Katz is one of the most important American artists of our time, and his impressive body of work constitutes a
unique aspect of modern Realism. In 1992 Alex Katz donated more than 400 of his works to the Colby College
Museum of Art with the understanding that a wing would be built to house them. The Paul J. Schupf Wing for the
Works of Alex Katz, which opened in 1996, was made possible through the generosity of Colby trustee Paul J.
Schupf, who contributed the naming gift for the building. The Schupf Wing makes the Colby museum one of the few
in the United States with a wing devoted solely to the work of a living artist.

Beach Sandals (Museum of San Francisco)

 “Boy with a Hat” (Museum of Modern Art)

“Ada” (Addison Gallery American Art.Andover, Massachusetts)

“Vincent and Tony” (Art Institute of

Chicago)
“Jessica” woodcut (Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, Chicago)

“Striped Jacket” (Currier Gallery of Art.

Nashua, New Hampshire)

I have tried to make as broad a selection of Katz’s work as have been currently available to me without burdening the
intelligent reader with the tremendous weight of visual boredom Katz creates…in those of us who have the
opportunity to explore the choices given us within “arts and leisure”.

I have put that currently popular expression in quotation marks in order to draw attention to its inherent stupidity. I
also have used that word carefully giving attention to the fact that its intendedmeaning is to describe a behavior that
normally would not occur with a person using his intelligence. Newspaper reporters and writers of exhibition
catalogues are, I believe, normally considered to be among the normally intelligent, but there are many occasions
when it would be impossible to prove by what they produce.

Perhaps in the case of Alex Katz and their public relations judgments of his work they are a subgroup of intelligent
people who have never learned how to look, or to understand what they are looking at. However, it occurs to me that
after one has achieved twenty years of normal education and have been employed as curators at prestigious
university museums and write blurbs for the public, (a public which is evidently thought to be incredibly imperceptive)
that at least a limited amount of shame and a bit of modesty might accompany their publications. But there is neither
as evidenced by those quotations printed above.

The only justifiable conclusion that might be made regarding the popularity of Katz’s work…and I suspect that a “real”
popularity of his work doesn’t, in fact, exist and that his whole reputation is built on the intimidation many feel that
should they be honest in their criticism they will be labeled as anti-Semite which is certainly a process which feeds
that sentiment.

It is merely a matter of social pressure, money, ethnic promotion and the tax structure that allows those with extra
funds to donate museums to educational institutions and tax-break worth a great deal and for the absence of which
from the tax income of the country, and/or state, the ordinary, less affluent, and gullible, public must payout of tax
money’s they have provided to the national coffers. In addition to that outrage, insult is added to injury in the form of
a relatively worthless craftsman assuming the status of genius with some one with less influential contacts is ignored.
This is the age of deceit and what it means for future historians, if there are any, especially if there are any honest
ones, their jobs will be extraordinarily difficult BECAUSE history, to a great extent, is controlled, governed, and limited
by what is called “documentary evidence”. Someone is making sure that some documentary evidence is handy.
Thank God for DNA which provides us with some more refined evidence of fatherhood. On the other hand, how many
have gone to the gas chamber on the early evidence of the lie detector?

Personally, I probably wouldn’t complain were the results of such sacrifice worth the benefit to even 1% of those who
visit galleries and museums, but in the case of Alex Katz there is so very little to offer that the effect upon the general
public and its meager resources is similar to a double-edged hari-kari sword, It is a societal suicide committed all for
the glory of an individual who has cynically chosen to be a smidgen above incompetent, just enough so slip under a
raised bar.

JACOB LAWRENCE ‘S WORKS

“The Street” 1957 “Pool Parlor” and “Ironers”

“The Pool Game” “Café Comedian” “Forward”

If I were to be pressed into making a one sentence conclusion concerning my response to

the Katz and Lawrence experiences, that is those experiences they provide their viewers, I
would say the following with no excuses or explanations whatever. “Katz is boring, cynical,
manipulative and destructive; Lawrence, is instructive, entertaining, and caring as well as
graphically inventive which is one of the more legitimate reasons for being an artist.”

Yet, Lawrence does not have, to my knowledge, a museum at a university setting housing
his (unsold) works at some unannounced reapportioned cost to the U.S. taxpayer, and of
the two he is the one who deserves it. But then, the Jews and the Blacks have always been
at each other’s throats. One wonders why.

History does not always appear to make the playing field more level for those artists who
have been largely ignored during their life times. Both Katz and Lawrence have received a
great deal of notice and published acclaim. Whether history will judge that
Lawrencedeserved it and Katz did not will ultimately make little difference as to the degree
of economic comfort, great or small, either of them were able to enjoy during their life
times. Little comment is ever made, these days at any rate, on the established,
accomplished or potential aesthetic value these works have had or will have on those who
see them, but for the record I think it important to indicate, at least, a starting point where
having some contemporary judgments made about these cultural contributions to our lives
might be found.

This programmed cultural deceitis not limited to the arts, and as we have learned, to
political pronouncements as well, but we even find it among those august academicians who
maintain the reputation of being the intellectual leaders of all humanity. From some points
of view they stand even taller than Presidents, Kings and prime ministers and certainly taller
than the artists in the community. A recent appearance of a glowing report of a new
master’s degree being created at The University of Malta with one John J. Schranz being
labeled by the reporter Massimo Farrugia of the Times of Malta as the mastermind. Nine
years ago Alexandra Dingly told me of her desire to do precisely that and a year or two later
I offered to help her. I wonder what happened to her? I also wonder from where these
academic intellects got their ideas when these ideas appeared in published form more than
forty years ago under the names of E. Paul Torrance and Paul Henrickson. I had thought all
along that what the academic were all about, if nothing else, was the perpetuation of truth.
Well, even the underwater zoologists are learning that what they thought was extinct, isn’t.
In regard to the general category of what I have called “cultural deceit” , or, to be more
generous perhaps we might call it cynical cultural humor when we see the public works of
Claes being placed in prominent places through the cities in the western world. For example
these illustrated here.

One is tempted to ask the question why? Why might these works be more acceptable as
sculptured works, public or not if they were reinterpreted as non-objective geometric forms
such as the following drawings might illustrate.

Perhaps I have prematurely injected a value decision that such would be the case for
everyone. It would be more acceptable to me than the affront I experience with the subject
matter of a discarded apple core and an image of a spoon barely supporting a cherry.
Perhaps Oldenberg wished to suggest that man’s (societies’) need for self-pride, personal
achievement needs some conceptual revision and that an apple core and a spoon and
cherry, as unimportant as they appear, sort of underscore the lie we tell ourselves when we
apportion effort and expense and fame to public works. If that were Oldenberg’s intent, I
find it too removed from mutual contact points to reach very many, if any at all. The non-
objective and in Kramer’s terms, the “abstract” is much more pertinent, applicable and
enduring as works of art.

Using the same elements as in Oldenberg’s spoon and apple core I have tried to re-
emphasize the importance of clarifying the difference between a visual reality and
an aesthetic organization. the drawings below represent only 2 minutes, at the very
most, of “variations on a theme” that moves the banal imagination of Oldenberg
(which may have been, although I doubt it, his cynical comment about his view of the
public’s ability to perceive aesthetically into the realm of aesthetic potential…and
from there we might take a giant step into considering what the natural world has to
offer in that regard.
 By way of contrasting
attitudes the work of Reuben Nakian, offers
the viewer more aesthetic material to
which to react than does Oldenberg and Oldenberg seems, by contrast, to be rather
superficially attracted to the pubescent fascination with the commonplace and
arrogantly expects applause from the equally mindless. At the very least Oldenberg
cannot be defended on the grounds that he deals with any degree of sophistication
with aesthetic matters. Nakian is an artist, albeit, at times, some what flippant,
Oldenberg, like the Norwegian painter Nerdum, is common.

The aesthetic value doe not lie in the technique, but in the focus.

Nerdrum Nerdrum
Nakian
"The more minimal the art, the more maximum the explanation."
Hilton Kramer (1928-), The New York Times art critic, in the late 1960s, referring to minimalist art which
was in vogue at the time. I was amused by this comment which someone sent me (I believe to provoke
me so I would not succumb to boredom). My correspondent was insightful. The comment provoked me to
amusement in that I thought I recognized Kramer’s cynicism and it is really to that I would like to address
myself.

I would suppose Kramer’s cynicism is rooted in his observation that there is a great deal of pretence
present in the increasing mystical mist that surrounds the importance of art in “these latter days”. If
Kramer has in mind to call the reader’s attention to the absolute need of linguistic support for a crumbling
sentience characterized by a community of response I can only applaud him. What is so productive of
frustration is that a cult of believing loyalty has arisen among all the Babel that it often resembles the
offensive belligerence of many evangelists as though theyand no on else, had the “right” concept of God.

Speaking of this mystery of “the kingdom of heaven is within you” in terms of a creativeness in art, a
matter which concerns a few people, I see the artist’s effort to “find himself” which means to evolve into a
form (of expression) that transmits with a similar conviction the essence of the meaning when an
individual as of whatever moment, proclaims loves you.