Fall 1983
In a piece of writing entitled "Notes Along the Way", George Orwell mentions the cruel trick he once played upon a wasp. "I cut him in half", wrote Orwell. "He [the wasp] paid no attention, merely went on with his meal ...Only when he tried to fly did he grasp the dreadful thing that had happened to him!" Now, if like me you can see the wasp, rebinding itself with the help of all the jam on Mr Orwell's plate, you will then, like me, be totally non-plussed as to why there should be this continuing poor reception of modern Formalist art in the U.K., and especially in England. Formalist art once elicited a better public response than in present-day wasp-dominated Great Britain.
One explanation put to me is that there is a lingering suspicion in some quarters that formalism of any kind requires piety. And we don't like piety in this country. Moreover, Formalism is believed to lead inevitably to intellectual domination and bigotry, and reaction against it, for which Clement Greenberg is said to be responsible. Although Modernism has been declared dead, the truth is otherwise. Modernism is alive and well and, despite its discontents, has never been more vigorous.
In the recent past, Formalist art has had a very different reception among intellectuals and the public. Among the Poles and Russians and among the French and Americans [who, on their own admission, are very like the Germans]. Among the British, there has always been a tradition of suspension of belief, resulting in a vigorous creative life at all levels, high and low.
Witness the daring of the contemporary theatre in this country. The contemporary practice of Formalist art has evolved, with established rules, right down from Cimabue, through Cezanne, Matisse and the Cubists, Mondrian, to Hans Hofmann, and is as much an international phenomenon as Punk or Neo-Expressionism. Contemporary Formalists remain classical in intention and express their individual freedom within those rules. In my eyes, the others are romantics, but that is a matter of taste.
In his catalogue essay of ten years ago, "Four Scottish Painters: Douglas Abercrombie, Alan Gouk, John McLean, Fred Pollock" [Fruitmarket, Edinburgh, 1977]. Clement Greenberg speaks personally to me when he says; "You may want to go for Bacon ...but have to go for Olitski instead ." And I would add Darby Bannard, Peter Bradley and Larry Poons. Greenberg claims to know "how they, and not they alone, perceive, and don't at all take decisions of taste". Put another way, these four Scottish painters intuited that what the common eye likes, and taste encourages, doesn't necessarily bespeak authenticity, the fit will look right, but of discomfiting familiarity. Difficult and important new art tends not to engage us immediately; kitsch does.
Formalists believe in or act according to rules. Individual expression can run riot within the confines of the dictates of the given disciple. It is what moves and enriches art and culture. Formalist art is disadvantaged for the simple reason that it is almost always hard on itself and indulges in rigorous self-criticism, within the given discipline alone. Painting never gets mixed up with literature. And to me the practice of painting [and sculpture] within the boundaries of Formalism provides a setting in which I am able to test and ultimately prove my own freedom. Herein lies the distinction between a cultural idea and the display of social justice, which includes happiness among the highest goals of civilisation, yet does not provide one with purely intellectual satisfaction.
The only London-based, or British artist [not the same animal according to some], who ever gets mentioned consistently in the context of the international Formalist circle is Anthony Caro. Ask yourself why this is so, and why Caro choose to live and work among us here in London. The fact is, it's exciting and challenging to work in London, Turner's town, and the pressures of the weight of British tradition is exhilarating. And the likes of Clement Greenberg and Ken Moffet know this, yey pronounce very little on the activities inside the studios of their friends and admirers here, in sharp contrast to antics reported by the media-orientated outriders like Matthew Collings, former editor of Artscribe International . This may well be a logistical problem. We are an offshore island. Doesn't this aggravate our isolated and entrenched position even more?
Anthony Caro is the greatest living sculptor in the world, and when we speculate why he chooses to live and work in London, we must accept it can't be an accident that most of his mature pieces developed within the limits of abstract Formalism. [Welded and painted steel stressing the pictorial over the haptic drive, an area involving the aesthetic distinction of what turns one on in art and which painters used to consider their sole province.] Following Caro's lead, a generation of artists making sculpture - all of them respecting the canons once thought of as "Greenbergian" -moved into premises at Stockwell Depot in 1967. In 1969, eight of them exhibited their works jointly. The four Scottish painters that Greenberg wrote about also either worked at or were connected in some way with Stockwell Depot. This multiple work space - and there are others in Wapping, Greenwich and elsewhere - contributed some of the lively energy that sustains British painting and sculpture, not the market , despite the talk of our living in a market economy.
To begin with, there is much less abundance of material available to these British artists. And their paint and supplies are expensive and of suspect quality. Out of necessity, the materials are used sparingly, if not always from taste and inclination. An obvious influence is Helen Frankenthaler, early Olitski, sometimes Ken Noland, but continuingly Jackson Pollock, Barney Newman, Clifford Still, and the wonderful scope of Hofmann's works, which are nevertheless less protean than some mistakenly believe.
It would be easier, if presumptious, to name the bad artists, rather than the good. But I would prefer to point to such shinning examples of the good as the four Scots named in Greenberg's essay, Mali Morris, Geoff Ridgen, Steve Lewis, Sally Lewis, David Rhodes, David Gittings, Jeff Mowlam and Tim Coppard, who unfortunately haven't yet much of a public.
Today, we no longer look to the avant-garde for manifestations of a new culture, as was foreseen by Greenberg and others. The self-proclaimed avant-garde has become pessimistic and academic. Rather we look to the universal traditions of abstraction and formalism for the preservation of what living culture we have presently.