London Art Worlds: Mobile, Contingent, and Ephemeral Networks, 1960–1980 9780271081366

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London Art Worlds

LONDON ART WORLDS LONDON ART WORLDS LONDON ART WORLDS LONDON ART WORLDS LONDON ART WORLDS LONDON ART WORLDS LONDON ART WORLDS LONDON ART WORLDS LONDON ART WORLDS LONDON ART WORLDS LONDON ART WORLDS LONDON ART WORLDS LONDON ART WORLDS LONDON ART WORLDS

Mobile, Contingent, and Ephemeral Networks, 1960–1980

Edited by Jo Applin, Catherine Spencer, and Amy Tobin The Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park, Pennsylvania

Supported by a Publications Grant from the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art. Library of Congress Cataloging-inPublication Data Names: Applin, Jo, editor. | Spencer, Catherine, 1985– , editor. | Tobin, Amy, 1989– , editor. Title: London art worlds : mobile, contingent, and ephemeral networks, 1960–1980 / edited by Jo Applin, Catherine Spencer, and Amy Tobin. Other titles: Refiguring modernism. Description: University Park, Pennsylvania : The Pennsylvania State University Press, [2018] | Series: Refiguring modernism | Includes bibliographical references and index. Summary: “Examines the rich networks of international artists and art practices that emerged in and around London during the 1960s and 1970s. Discusses diverse practices, movements, and spaces, from painting, sculpture, and film to performance, conceptual, and land art”—Provided by publisher. Identifiers: LCCN 2017009261 | ISBN 9780271078533 (cloth : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Art—England—London. | Art, Modern—20th century. | Artists—England—London. Classification: LCC N6770 .L6495 2018 | DDC 709.421—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc. gov/2017009261

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List of Illustrations vii Acknowledgments xi

Introduction

6. Taking the Trouble to Sound It:

Jo Applin, Catherine Spencer,

Mediating Conflict in the Work of Rita

and Amy Tobin 1

Donagh Catherine Spencer 115



1. Everything Was Connected: Kinetic

7. Circulations and Cooperations: Art,

Art and Internationalism at Signals

Feminism, and Film in 1960s and 1970s

London, 1964–66

London

Isobel Whitelegg 21

Lucy Reynolds 133

2. A Porous Entity: The Centre for

8. Project sigma: An Interpersonal

Behavioural Art at Gallery House,

Logbook

1972–73

Andrew Wilson 151

Antony Hudek 39

3. Mapping the City: Felipe Ehrenberg in

9. The Artist as a Speaker-Performer: The London Art School in the

London, 1968–71

1960s–70s

Carmen Juliá 55

Elena Crippa 169

4. Restoring Some Period Color to Roelof

10. File Under COUM: Art on Trial in

Louw’s Pyramid of Oranges (1967)

Genesis P-Orridge’s Mail Action

Joy Sleeman 77

Dominic Johnson 183

5. Collectivity, Temporality, and Festival Culture in John Dugger’s Quasi-Architecture, 1970–74 Courtney J. Martin 95

Bibliography 201 List of Contributors 213 Index 216

Contents Contents Contents Contents Contents Contents Contents Contents Contents Contents Contents Contents Contents Contents Contents Contents Contents Contents Contents Contents Contents Contents Contents Contents Contents Contents Contents Contents Contents Contents Contents Contents Contents Contents Contents Contents Contents Contents Contents Contents Contents Contents Contents Contents Contents

Illustrations Illustrations Illustrations Illustrations Illustrations Illustrations Illustrations Illustrations Illustrations Illustrations Illustrations Illustrations Illustrations Illustrations Illustrations Illustrations Illustrations Illustrations Illustrations Illustrations Illustrations Illustrations Illustrations Illustrations Illustrations Illustrations Illustrations Illustrations Illustrations Illustrations Illustrations Illustrations Illustrations Illustrations Illustrations Illustrations Illustrations Illustrations Illustrations Illustrations Illustrations Illustrations Illustrations Illustrations Illustrations

I.1

Front cover of the International Times, February 9–23, 1973. Cover design and photograph by George Snow. Photo courtesy of the International Times Archive and George Snow. 2

I.2

Rose Finn-Kelcey, Here Is a Gale Warning, 1971. Black bunting and silver tissue, 670 × 900 cm. Originally shown as part of Art Spectrum, survey exhibition of London Artists, Alexandra Palace, London. Photo courtesy the Estate of Rose Finn-Kelcey. 6

I.3

Cecilia Vicuña, Libro Tul Rojo, from 12 Books for the Chilean Resistance, 1973–74. Purchased in 2014 by the Tate Americas Foundation courtesy of the Latin American Acquisition Committee. © Cecilia Vicuña. Photo courtesy England & Co., London. 11

I.4

John Dugger, Chile Vencera Banner in Trafalgar Square, 1974. © John Dugger. Photo courtesy of Banner Arts Archive. 16

I.5

John Dugger, The Great Martial Arts Banner (Wu Shu Kwan), 1976. Dyed-canvas, sewn strip banner with soft rigging (seen here installed at the Flaxman Sports Centre, Lambeth, London). © John Dugger. Photo courtesy of Banner Arts Archive. 17

1.1 Front cover, Signalz: Newsbulletin of the Centre for Advanced Creative Study, June 1964 (facsimile edition published by Iniva, 1995). Photo courtesy of the Stuart Hall Library, Iniva (Institute of International Visual Arts), London. 23

1.2 Photograph taken during the installation of the exhibition A Quarter of a Century of the Beautiful Art of Alejandro Otero: 1940–1965, Signals London, January 20–March 19, 1966. Photo © Clay Perry, courtesy of England & Co. Gallery, London. 27 1.3 Photograph taken during the installation of the exhibition A Quarter of a Century of the Beautiful Art of Alejandro Otero: 1940–1965, Signals London, January 20–March 19, 1966. Photo © Clay Perry, courtesy of England & Co. Gallery, London. 28 1.4 Invitation card for the exhibition Soundings Three, Signals London, August 25–September 24, 1966. Photo courtesy of Isobel Whitelegg. 30 1.5 Catalogue for the exhibition Venezuela, Midland Group Gallery, Nottingham, May 27–June 24, 1972. Photo courtesy of Inspire—Nottinghamshire Archives. 35 2.1 Stephen Willats, West London Super Girls outside the Centre for Behavioural Art, London, 1973. Photo courtesy of Stephen Willats. 45 2.2 Stephen Willats, The Artist as an Instigator of Changes in Social Cognition and Behaviour, Centre for Behavioural Art, London, 1973. Photo courtesy of Stephen Willats. 46 2.3a Stephen Willats, Survey of Distance Models of Art, Images sheet 1, Centre for Behavioural Art, London, 1973. Photo courtesy of Stephen Willats. 49

2.3b Stephen Willats, Survey of Distance Models of Art, Images sheet 2, Centre for Behavioural Art, London, 1973. Photo courtesy of Stephen Willats. 49 3.1 Felipe Ehrenberg, A Stroll in July, or One Thursday Afternoon, or Half Day in London, or (The) Afternoon, or . . . Topology of Sculpture, 1970. Photo: Fondo Felipe Ehrenberg, Centro de Documentación Arkheia, Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo, UNAM. Courtesy of Felipe Ehrenberg. 59 3.2 Felipe Ehrenberg, A Stroll in July, or One Thursday Afternoon, or Half Day in London, or (The) Afternoon, or . . . Topology of Sculpture, 1970. Photo: Fondo Felipe Ehrenberg, Centro de Documentación Arkheia, Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo, UNAM. Courtesy of Felipe Ehrenberg. 60 3.3 Felipe Ehrenberg, A Stroll in July, or One Thursday Afternoon, or Half Day in London, or (The) Afternoon, or . . . Topology of Sculpture, 1970. Photo: Fondo Felipe Ehrenberg, Centro de Documentación Arkheia, Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo, UNAM. Courtesy of Felipe Ehrenberg. 60 3.4 Felipe Ehrenberg, Tube-O-Nauts’ Travels, a Voyage Under London, 1970. Photo: Rodolfo “Laus” Alcaraz. Courtesy of Felipe Ehrenberg. 62 3.5 Felipe Ehrenberg, Tube-O-Nauts’ Travels, a Voyage Under London, 1970. Photo: Rodolfo “Laus” Alcaraz. Courtesy of Felipe Ehrenberg. 63 3.6 A Date with Fate at the Tate, or Tate Bait, 1970 (from left to right, Stuart Brisley, Felipe Ehrenberg, Sigi Krauss, and John Plant). Photo: Philippe Mora. Courtesy of Felipe Ehrenberg. 64 3.7 Polygonal Workshop, Garbage Walk, 1970. Photo: Fondo Felipe Ehrenberg, Centro de Documentación Arkheia, Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo, UNAM. Courtesy of Felipe Ehrenberg. 68 3.8 Polygonal Workshop, Garbage Walk, 1970. Photo: Fondo Felipe Ehrenberg, Centro de Documentación Arkheia, Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo, UNAM. Courtesy of Felipe Ehrenberg. 69 4.1 Roelof Louw, Soul City (Pyramid of Oranges), 1967. Tate Gallery, London, presented by Tate Patrons 2013, T13881. Installation shot from the Tate Britain exhibition

viii  Illustrations

Conceptual Art in Britain, 1964–1979, 2016. © Roelof Louw. Photo © Tate, London, 2016. 78 4.2 Arts Lab, London, membership form and proposal by Roelof Louw, 1967. Collection of Biddy Peppin. 79 4.3 Roelof Louw, sculpture for the Arts Laboratory, October 1967, from Studio International 177, no. 907 (January 1969): 35. © Roelof Louw. 80 4.4 Roelof Louw, Holland Park, 1967. © Roelof Louw. Courtesy of Richard Saltoun Gallery. 82 4.5 Roelof Louw, Square 4 (Red / Light Green), ca. 1969. © Roelof Louw. Photo © Tate, London, 2016. 84 5.1 John Dugger, Pavilion Dugger (a.k.a. People’s Participation Pavilion), 1972. Installation at the exhibition documenta 5: Befragung der Realität—Bildwelten heute, Museum Fridericianum, Kassel, Germany, 1972. © John Dugger. Photo courtesy of Banner Arts Archive. 96 5.2 John Dugger, Biomass Installation, 1971. Shown at the exhibition Pioneers of Part-Art, Museum of Modern Art, Oxford. © John Dugger. Photo courtesy of Banner Arts Archive. 100 5.3 John Dugger and Lorenz Dombois, architectural plan for Pavilion Dugger (a.k.a. People’s Participation Pavilion), 1972. Installation at the exhibition documenta 5: Befragung der Realität—Bildwelten heute, Museum Fridericianum, Kassel, Germany, 1972. © John Dugger. Photo courtesy of Banner Arts Archive. 105 5.4 Graham Stevens, Inflatable, 1972, atop the People’s Participation Pavilion. Installation at the exhibition documenta 5: Befragung der Realität—Bildwelten heute, Museum Fridericianum, Kassel, Germany, 1972. Photo courtesy of Graham Stevens.  106 5.5 Arts Festival for Democracy in Chile, Royal College of Art, London, 1974. © John Dugger. Photo courtesy of Banner Arts Archive. 110 6.1 Rita Donagh, Evening Papers (Ulster 1972–74), 1973–74. Oil, pencil, and collage on canvas, 140 × 200 cm. British Council Collection. © Rita Donagh. 116 6.2 Rita Donagh, Reflection on Three Weeks in May 1970, 1971. Oil and graphite on canvas, 152.4 × 152.4 cm. © Rita Donagh. Photo © Tate, London, 2016. 118

6.3 Rita Donagh, “taking the trouble to sound it,” 1970. Oil, pencil, and colored pencil on hardboard, 91 × 122 cm. Arts Council Collection, Southbank Centre, London. © Rita Donagh. 121

8.4 Project sigma—Public Relations—List of People Interested, sigma portfolio 17 (London: project sigma, December 1964). Photo: Andrew Wilson. Reproduced courtesy of the Estate of Alexander Trocchi. 159

6.4 Rita Donagh, Bloodstains, 1971. Pencil, gouache, and collage on paper, 51 × 76.5 cm. Private collection.  123

8.5 Jeff Nuttall, ed., My Own Mag 15 (April 1966), showing list of addresses. Photo: Andrew Wilson. Reproduced courtesy of Jill Richards. 160

7.1 Cinema Rising, “Directory of U.K. Independent Film-makers,” 1972. Courtesy of British Artists Film & Video Study Collection at Central Saint Martins. 135 7.2 Sally Potter, The Building, New Arts Lab, 1969. Photo: Sally Potter © Adventure Pictures Ltd. 138 7.3 Sally Potter, Annabel Nicolson, and Barbara Schwartz (now Ess) at the London Filmmakers’ Co-operative ca. 1970. Photo courtesy of LUX, London. 141 7.4 Reel Time film performance by Annabel Nicolson, North East London Polytechnic, 1973. Photo courtesy of Annabel Nicolson and LUX, London. 143 8.1 “Hands Off Alexander Trocchi,” declaration signed by Guy Debord, Jacqueline de Jong, and Asger Jorn, October 7, 1960. Photo: Andrew Wilson. Reproduced courtesy of the Debord Estate / Alice Becker-Ho. Rights reserved. 154 8.2 “Resolution Concerning the Imprisonment of Alexander Trocchi,” published in Internationale situationniste 5 (December 1960). Photo: Andrew Wilson. Reproduced courtesy of the Debord Estate / Alice Becker-Ho. Rights reserved. 154 8.3 Project sigma—Public Relations—List of People Interested, sigma portfolio 17 (London: project sigma, December 1964). Photo: Andrew Wilson. Reproduced courtesy of the Estate of Alexander Trocchi. 158

ix  Illustrations

8.6 Jeff Nuttall, ed., My Own Mag 15 (April 1966), showing list of addresses. Photo: Andrew Wilson. Reproduced courtesy of Jill Richards. 160 10.1 COUM Transmissions, Omissions (Kleiinie Spielinie), Kiel, West Germany, June 1975. © BREYER P-ORRIDGE. Courtesy the artist and Invisible Exports, New York.  186 10.2 Genesis P-Orridge, untitled postcard (front), 1975. Mimeograph of collage on postcard as reproduced in the publication G.P.O. v. G.P-O.: A Chronicle of Mail Art on Trial. © BREYER P-ORRIDGE. Courtesy the artist and Invisible Exports, New York. 189 10.3 Genesis P-Orridge, untitled postcard (back), 1975. Mimeograph of collage on postcard as reproduced in the publication G.P.O. v. G.P-O.: A Chronicle of Mail Art on Trial. © BREYER P-ORRIDGE. Courtesy the artist and Invisible Exports, New York. 189 10.4 Photo taken in foyer of the Highbury Corner Magistrates’ Court, London, April 5, 1976. Left to right: Richard Cork, Colin Naylor, Genesis P-Orridge, David Offenbach, Pauline Smith, Peter (Sleazy) Christopherson. Mimeograph of photograph as reproduced in the publication G.P.O. v. G.P-O.: A Chronicle of Mail Art on Trial. © BREYER P-ORRIDGE. Courtesy the artist and Invisible Exports, New York. Photo: Barbara Reise. 193

Acknowledgments Acknowledgments Acknowledgments Acknowledgments Acknowledgments Acknowledgments Acknowledgments Acknowledgments Acknowledgments Acknowledgments Acknowledgments Acknowledgments Acknowledgments Acknowledgments Acknowledgments Acknowledgments Acknowledgments Acknowledgments Acknowledgments Acknowledgments Acknowledgments Acknowledgments Acknowledgments Acknowledgments Acknowledgments Acknowledgments Acknowledgments Acknowledgments Acknowledgments Acknowledgments Acknowledgments Acknowledgments Acknowledgments Acknowledgments Acknowledgments Acknowledgments Acknowledgments Acknowledgments Acknowledgments Acknowledgments Acknowledgments Acknowledgments Acknowledgments Acknowledgments Acknowledgments

This book would not have been possible without the

go as well to our wonderful editors Ellie Goodman and

kind generosity of many individuals and organizations,

Jonathan P. Eburne for their support and wise coun-

for which we are very grateful indeed. The genesis of

sel. Many thanks also to Hannah Hebert for expertly

London Art Worlds: Mobile, Contingent, and Ephemeral

shepherding the book into production. Siona Wilson and

Networks, 1960–1980 was a conference at the University

another anonymous reader provided invaluable feedback

of York in 2013 funded by the Paul Mellon Centre for

and advice for which we remain very grateful.

Studies in British Art, together with support from the



British Art Research School and the Centre for Modern

chapters, both London in particular and the United

Studies at the University of York.

Kingdom in general were considered places of refuge



and tolerance that could hold space for and give space

In particular we thank James Boaden, Guy Brett,

For many of the artists discussed in the following

Genesis BREYER P-ORRIDGE, Sally Child, Andree Cooke

to a diverse international group of political and cre-

and the Estate of Rose Finn-Kelcey, Rita Donagh, John

ative voices. That very diversity is now being placed

Dugger, Felipe Ehrenberg, Jane England, Barbara Ess, Hilary

under increasing threat, as a politics of retrenchment

Floe, the International Times Archive, the Leverhulme Trust,

continues to dominate the political landscape and

Roelof Louw, LUX, Nigel Mckernaghan, Mike Manzi at

the movement of people around the world. With its

Adventure Pictures, Sally Potter, Annabel Nicolson, George

emphasis on the contingent and precarious, on the

Snow, Lisa Tickner, Sarah Victoria Turner, and the UCL

international networks of solidarity and relation that

Slade School of Fine Art.

the sixties and seventies produced, and on the critiques



of imperialism, patriarchy, racism, and neocolonialism

We thank our contributors for their scholarship,

intellectual rigor, and continuing enthusiasm for this proj-

mounted by many of the artists who appear in its pages,

ect. Without their hard work and good cheer our editorial

London Art Worlds feels especially prescient and politi-

task would have been far less pleasurable. Thanks must

cally pertinent.

Introduction Jo Applin, Catherine Spencer, and Amy Tobin

In a 1970 article entitled “Artists in Revolt,” published in

of counterculture, communication, irreverence, and

the Times, the writer and curator Guy Brett summed up

internationalism that began to emerge in this era.2 Its

the negative response among artists and critics to the

pages featured original and often provocative artwork,

controversially conservative exhibition British Sculpture

including cartoons and photo collages, combined with

out of the Sixties at the Institute of Contemporary Arts

commentary on contemporary political events. One cover

(ICA) in London: “It seems to me that if there is any

from 1973, for example, designed by the photographer

justification at all for a backward look at British art of the

George Snow, features a pixelated version of the iconic

sixties, it should at least be to explode the official line, not

International Times logo, depicting the silent-film actress

repeat it.” Taking up Brett’s challenge nearly fifty years

Theda Bara, above a photograph of the Bogside area in

on, one place we might look to see this “official line”

Derry (Londonderry), a flash point for the violence that

being “exploded”—and to get a sense of the compet-

erupted in Northern Ireland in the late 1960s (fig. I.1).

ing social and political countercultural assays made by

The walls of one house are daubed with the words “You

artists, writers, activists, and commentators outside the

are now entering Free Derry,” demarcating a nationalist

officially and institutionally recognized art scene during

republican zone that for several years existed outside

the 1960s and into the 1970s—is the London-based

official state and police control, forming a vivid rejec-

International Times newspaper, launched in 1966. Initially

tion of a coherent “British” identity. The headline above,

known by the zeitgeisty sobriquet “The Longhair Times,”

“Bloody Sunday: Ireland Twelve Months On,” registers the

the International Times encapsulates the intersection

continued reverberations of a particularly violent incident

1

Fig. I.1 Front cover of the International Times, February 9–23, 1973. Cover design and photograph by George Snow.

activities of the Independent Group, which ran between 1952 and 1955 at the ICA, together with artists including Eduardo Paolozzi and Richard Hamilton. The activities of group members continued during the 1960s, becoming part of the burgeoning Pop movement and its contribution to, and absorption of, mass-mediatized culture. As Lisa Tickner has argued, Pop artists did not just use the images and icons of vernacular forms of entertainment in their works but were themselves submerged in a new and dynamic field of value that was economic, cultural, and symbolic: “artists steeped in consumer culture in turn inspired it. . . . Signs and motifs are contagious, spreading from hand to hand, sloughing or absorbing earlier referents, sliding into irony and fashion.”5 An example of this is seen in the collision of Brutalist ruin and candy color in Eduardo Paolozzi’s series As Is When (1964–65), which merges high and low culture together with imagined future technologies and obsolete kitsch, on the single plane of a screen-printed surface. Pauline Boty’s semiabstract canvases, meanwhile, pair painterly shape and color with images of celebrity culture, fusing together one and the other without hierarchy or value judgment. during the so-called troubles, when the British army shot

Seen from this perspective, works by artists like Paolozzi

dead thirteen civilians. As a forum for both the collec-

and Boty are less about taking from the world outside

tion and dissemination of information about festivals,

than entering into a new, vital cultural stream of dialogue

performances, artworks, commentary, community action,

between art and its surrounding environment.

and politics, the International Times was part of a dynamic



visual and conceptual field, from which many artists drew

very different from the more familiar Pop works associ-

inspiration and in which they actively participated.3

ated with the early 1960s. Indeed, the London art world



of the 1960s has typically been considered either in terms

The fluidity of references caught in the pages of

The practices uncovered by this book, however, are

the International Times expanded on the “long front of

of a hermetic history with its own internal currents and

culture,” influentially identified by the critic Lawrence

lineages or, conversely, as an art scene indebted to its

Alloway in 1959. Alloway had been a participant in the

international, and specifically American, peers, against

4

2  L O ND O N ART WOR LDS

whom the work of London-based artists and practices

the establishment of alternative publications, to public

has often been pitched as somewhat provincial. While

protests and new pedagogical models in London’s art

this book does not intend to ignore the very real differ-

schools. Often these activities occurred outside of, or

ences and particularities of the London art world that

in tension with, established institutions and venues for

were frequently, and significantly, tied to the specificities

art and its display. The London art world was no longer

of place, time, and circumstance, it does seek to loosen

contained within the familiar galleries of London’s

that world’s boundaries in important ways. Even in the

West End and major national institutions, nor was it

case of Pop art produced in Britain, for example, many

tied to a specific medium or “movement.” Rather, new

works figured their own complex economic, social,

and constantly shifting networks and transient sites of

and political relationship with the fantasy of postwar

collaboration, exhibition, and action emerged. Groups

consumerism and popular culture in ways that were

of international artists, many from Latin America and

wholly distinct from American Pop, while simultaneously

recently decolonized countries, mobilized politically in

engaging with an increasingly globalized mass media and

the capital around issues relating to gender, sexuality,

a wider Cold War imaginary. Proceeding from this per-

feminism, and democracy. London Art Worlds traces

spective, London Art Worlds examines the extraordinarily

the many informal, impromptu, and experimental

rich and underexplored networks of international artists

relationships that exist alongside and fragment more

and art practices that emerged in and around Britain’s

established institutional histories of British art in this

capital during the 1960s and 1970s, although these dates

period. The chapters address the diversity of practices,

7

are necessarily porous by several years at either end.

movements, and spaces across the sixties and sev-

In particular, this volume seeks to link the activities of

enties, from painting, sculpture, and film through to

artists across these two decades, in contrast with much

performance and conceptual works. Feminism, activ-

of the literature on art in Britain during this period, which

ism, and the rising internationalism and politicization

treats the 1960s and 1970s as separate moments with

of the art scene are also foregrounded for their radical

very different casts of characters and almost opposing

challenge and reformulation of the “art world” as it had

socioeconomic contexts. By bringing together the two

previously been understood. Under these pressures,

decades, we want to make new connections across a

and as a result of a new emphasis on process, collabo-

broader field of cultural production—to invoke the work

ration, and exchange, the “art world” was transformed

of the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu—and to suture some

into “art worlds.” This shift in terminology encompasses

of the divisions fissuring the way in which this field has

the interactions and participation of myriad artists,

been mapped to date.

and the contingent artworks that circulated as a result,



on national and international scales. We envisage this

6

8

9

The 1960s and 1970s witnessed an explosion of

new media, attitudes, and approaches to making and

period as one of multiple and overlapping spheres,

thinking about art, from the rise of cybernetics, through

rather than a coherent system.

3  Introduction



Activity in London needs to be approached as

London during this period, but also because it undeniably

part of a wider range of burgeoning endeavors in sites

and inevitably formed an important site for many artists,

and venues throughout Britain during the 1960s and

whether the city was a permanent residence or a staging

1970s. Ikon in Birmingham (founded in 1964), the

post.12 Even when they were reacting against it—such as

Museum of Modern Art, Oxford (1966, now Modern

when the Mexican artist Felipe Ehrenberg moved from

Art Oxford), the Fruitmarket in Edinburgh (1974), Side

London to Devon to establish the Beau Geste Press, as

in Newcastle (1977), and Site Gallery in Sheffield (1978),

Carmen Juliá shows in her contribution to this book—

among many others, formed points of activity across

London remained a significant psychical and conceptual

the United Kingdom. To take one example, the Richard

site to be navigated and negotiated, rejected as well as

Demarco Gallery in Edinburgh acted as a point of

embraced.13 When the Brazilian artist Hélio Oiticica trav-

contact between artists working in the United Kingdom

eled to London for his exhibition at the Whitechapel Art

and those in Soviet Bloc countries. Through a series

Gallery in 1969, he also visited the University of Sussex

of physical exchanges, artists could visit partners in

in the south of England, where he worked collaboratively

different countries and political systems, until inter-

with students to create a series of “Nest-Cells,” provi-

ventions by Soviet states excluded Western visitors,

sional spaces that individuals could inhabit with found

while the Edinburgh Festival provided a platform for

materials.14 The impact of this work in Sussex can be dis-

artists like Allan Kaprow, Joseph Beuys, Tadeusz Kantor,

cerned in his later constructions in New York, underlining

Marina Abramović, and Carolee Schneemann. Adrian

that London was not the only environment that proved

Henri, a painter and member of the “Liverpool poets”

important for Oiticica during his time in England. The

during the 1960s, notes in 1974 that while the London

essays collected here offer fresh understandings of work

art world “has tended to promote safe, easily saleable

produced by a range of practitioners passing through the

commodities,” outside of the city, “for financial and

capital, allowing us to complicate rather than confirm the

social reasons, it has been more possible for small,

binaries of center and periphery.

self-sustaining groups of artists to create multi-media



works in a localized context. There is a strong provincial

Oiticica emerged from the experience of geographic

tradition of contact with avant-garde groups in other

movement and interchange, while emphasis on that

countries: in Edinburgh, Cardiff and Newcastle it is pos-

mobility was often conditioned by the processes of

sible, via letters, little magazines and exchange visits,

emigration and forced relocation. Such displacements

to relate to an international movement and be free from

encompass the experience of political exile, together

fashionable London attitudes.”

with more local evictions and the growing squatters’



movement.15 The “internationalism” of the 1960s and

10

11

This book, however, remains focused on the capital,

The activities of artists such as Ehrenberg and

not only because extensive work remains to be done on

1970s, forged as it was during decades of decolonization

recuperating the alternative practices that effloresced in

and the arrival in Britain of diaspora artists from newly

4  L O ND O N ART WOR LDS

independent countries, and exemplified by initiatives

central, and northern England, as well as Scotland,

such as the Caribbean Artists Movement (1966–72),

Wales, and Ulster (Northern Ireland)—divisions that

differs significantly from the current globalization in

reflected the nationalist and colonial geographies that

the art world. Such difference resulted in works and

underlay and punctuated this period of British history.

practices reflecting unique understandings of mobility

Art Spectrum London was the largest exhibition, filling

that anticipated, but were distinct from, contemporary

the Great Hall of Alexandra Palace with 115 contrib-

concerns. This is by no means to suggest that the pres-

utors. Many works included in the show manifested

ent volume aligns “internationalism” with an automatic

the dynamics of mobility, contingency, and ephemer-

assumption of fluid and easy exchange. As writers and

ality invoked by our subtitle. From Rose Finn-Kelcey’s

artists such as Rasheed Araeen have pointed out, the

flag, flying above the palace and emblazoned with the

discourse of internationalism has often been infused

words “here is a gale warning” (fig. I.2), to Gustav

16

17

with imperialist dynamics. Many of the contributors

Metzger’s environment of newsprint, radio, and televi-

to this volume approach art in Britain from a distinctly

sion Mass-Media-Today, the exhibition showcased the

transnational perspective, building on postcolonialism’s

experimental and political outlook of a diverse group

embrace of hybridity, investment in cosmopolitanism,

of artists working in relatively close quarters.19 Yet it

and movement beyond the model of the nation-state as

was not just the works on display that were significant:

a demarcation of identity. This position offers a valuable

the London show also came to act as a vibrant meeting

alternative to the imperialist inflections of “internation-

place. Despite receiving sponsorship from the then Arts

alism.” Yet we preserve the latter term here, precisely in

Council of Great Britain, the exhibition at Alexandra

order to retain a sense of the problematic unevenness

Palace was not affiliated with any one institution. This

with which it was imbued during the 1960s and 1970s

site, popularly known as the “people’s palace,” allowed

and because an acutely critical awareness of such

artists to express their discontent with the current art

imbalances directly informed many of the practices

world and its systems, which would have been harder

considered in the following essays.

to do in the context of an institutional exhibition or

18

at an official meeting of the Arts Council.20 Margaret Harrison, whose work was not included in the show, Alternative Sites and New Alignments

nonetheless cited Art Spectrum London as a key factor in the formation of the Artists’ Union during 1972: “this

The kinds of changes and disruptions encompassed

was the first time for many years that artists in London

by the chapters in this book are exemplified by the Art

had been brought together in a large exhibition. It led to

Spectrum exhibitions of 1971. Art Spectrum was a large

the discovery of shared problems concerning minimal

and sprawling initiative consisting of seven exhibi-

survival and the inevitably divisive effect of competition

tions surveying contemporary art in London, southern,

for limited funds, with women artists in a particularly

5  Introduction

Fig. I.2 Rose Finn-Kelcey, Here Is a Gale Warning, 1971. Black bunting and silver tissue, 670 × 900 cm. Originally shown as part of Art Spectrum, survey exhibition of London Artists, Alexandra Palace, London.

forced numerous London galleries to close. This loss of potential commercial support was matched by the emergence of new art practices—such as performance—which both national and private funding bodies struggled to keep abreast of.23

Art Spectrum London was, then, an important cata-

lyst for the formation of alternative networks that built upon and reacted to the events of the 1960s, complicating established institutional histories of this period. As the opening passage from its catalogue states: “The London art community is more fragmented than is generally thought. . . . London does not have an artistic quarter, nor even generally recognised meeting places for artists. . . . The ‘art world,’ has no real existence. vulnerable position . . . culminating in an open meeting

There is a real dissatisfaction now with the notion of

at the Camden Studios at which working parties were

the art ‘scene’—a word much used in the days of Pop.

formed.” Unlike the unruly group meetings and dispa-

. . . The present art situation . . . is that a large number

rate political aims of its New York–based counterpart,

of people are making art with only a limited outlet for it,

the Art Workers’ Coalition, the Artists’ Union sought

with a meagre chance of making a living out of it, and

Trade Union Congress ratification. The artists of the

with no common centre.”24 Here we find articulated with

union did not merely associate with the figure of the

particular force the emergence of the “art worlds” con-

industrial worker as members of the coalition did; they

sidered by this book, as well as their often-precarious

acknowledged the differences between their working

nature. During the 1970s in particular, the art-world

conditions and those of waged labor, particularly the

system that had propelled many young artists to

precariousness of working without a fixed or perma-

celebrity in the 1960s faltered, and newly politicized

nent contract. As such they sought to align work in the

and diverse groups set about testing and protesting its

visual arts with that of musicians, actors, and designers.

limits. Spaces such as John Kasmin’s Mayfair gallery

Issues covered by the Artists’ Union included the fair

had cultivated transatlantic contact between artists

remuneration of artists, the resale right, and changes in

often working in large-scale abstraction such as David

art-school education, which had resulted in the loss of

Hockney, Morris Louis, and Kenneth Noland. As Tickner

part-time jobs providing artists with an income as well

has argued, the Kasmin Gallery became an important

as time to make their work. Union policy also responded

site for artistic interaction in the late 1960s, before it

to the economic downturn of the late 1960s that had

was forced to close in 1972 due to the financial strain of

21

22

6  L O ND O N ART WOR LDS

keeping a Mayfair gallery space.25 As well as suffering

gave artists access to international publications and

from the economic downturn of the 1970s, these kinds

magazines but also acted on many occasions as an

of gallery spaces became increasingly problematic for

alternative arts venue in its own right, including during

artists who sought to challenge what they saw as the

the 1966 Destruction in Art Symposium.28 Artist-run

market-driven power structures dominating artistic

organizations like Acme, which opened in 1971, and

production and reception.

Space, founded in 1968—along with entities like Arts



Instead, a variety of alternative spaces started to

Lab (which ran between 1967 and 1969) and 2B Butler’s

facilitate, both consciously and inadvertently, collab-

Wharf, which began in 1975—incorporated studios and

oration between artists living in and traveling through

exhibition areas that fostered interaction, exchange, and

the capital. These incorporated existing institutions,

multimedia experimentation, in addition to supporting

including art schools and universities, as well as newly

artists practically.29 A number of collaborative projects

established sites born out of collaboration.26 Galleries

also emerged around shared investments, including the

like Signals, founded in 1964 by Paul Keeler and the

pedagogical experiments by students at the Hornsey

artist David Medalla, exemplified this approach. Signals,

College of Art, the London Filmmakers’ Co-operative—

discussed in this volume by Isobel Whitelegg, was

the focus of Lucy Reynolds’s chapter—the women’s

instrumental in giving many Latin American artists,

postal-art event Feministo, and the Hackney Flashers

including Mira Schendel and Sergio de Camargo, solo

photography collective.30 Initiatives like the Exploding

shows in the United Kingdom. As Whitelegg has written

Galaxy and Alexander Trocchi’s project sigma, dis-

elsewhere, Signals fostered “an openness; an interest

cussed by here Andrew Wilson, meanwhile, functioned

in artistic praxis as a collaborative phenomenon not

to connect disparate individuals and groups in loose

bounded by ideological, formal or geographical lines.”27

national and international alignments.31 At the same

Although Signals only lasted two years, until 1966,

time, alternative spaces including clubs, cabarets, and

the receptivity and collaboration it encouraged fueled

squats fostered the exploration of identity and the cre-

other initiatives. These included the Indica gallery and

ation of new interdisciplinary art forms as well as activist

bookstore and Gallery House. The latter, opened in 1970

organizing; in 1974, for example, the South London Gay

by the German émigré Sigi Krauss, provided a venue for

Community Centre began as a squat in the Brixton area

the highly experimental work of artists including Stuart

of South London, becoming a focal point for political and

Brisley, Marc Camille Chaimowicz, and Gustav Metzger.

cultural activities.32

That Gallery House features in several of the chapters in



London Art Worlds attests to its importance in this period.

nated with the spirit manifested in Harald Szeemann’s

Other significant points of contact included Gallery One,

1969 exhibition Live in your Head: When Attitudes

Art Meeting Place, and Bob Cobbing’s Better Books

Become Form: Works—Concepts—Processes—Situations—

bookstore on the Charing Cross Road, which not only

Information, which transferred from the Kunsthalle

7  Introduction

The works produced at these sites and spaces reso-

Bern to the ICA not long before British Sculpture out of

large institutions, many of the artists discussed in this

the Sixties but offered a dramatically different take on

book were peripatetic, and the work they created was

sculptural production. In the catalogue essay he wrote

correspondingly impermanent and transient. In lieu of

for the London iteration, Charles Harrison observed

fixed spaces that dictated stylistic affiliations, artists

that “virtually all the artists represented would appear

began to form, beyond the established coordinates of

to share a dissatisfaction with the status of artwork

the institutional art world, peer-group collaborations

as a particular object in a finite state, and a rejection

that emphasized the process as much as the product

of the notion of form as a specific and other identity

of making. We invoke the term “network” to respond

to be imposed upon material.” It was precisely the

to this diffusion of practices, which is illuminated by

existence of these new “attitudes” that would in part

the work of sociologist Manuel Castells, whose early

incite Brett’s critique of British Sculpture out of the Sixties

theorization of social movements argued for the impor-

in his “Artists in Revolt” article. The earlier generation

tance of the network for collective mobilization against

of sculptors in Britain had worked in a predominantly

corporate ownership of the sites of power. In The City

modernist language of abstraction and form that, by

and the Grassroots, of 1983, he suggests that mobilization

1970, was considered to stand for an institutionalized

must occur locally before building up increasingly larger

establishment and private discourse shared by only a

networks of resistance.35 Castells’s work points to the

few artists and that was ripe for challenge. For figures

political nature of many of the practices considered

like Bruce McLean, this involved a shift toward photo-

in this book. By circumventing and cutting across the

graphing provisional outdoor “sculptural” interventions,

spaces and rhythms of the commercial and institutional

and performance pieces lampooning the work of Henry

art worlds, artworks that foregrounded political issues

Moore and other establishment figures.34 Mapping the

connected to constructions of gender, sexuality, race,

marginal and liminal sites of the London art worlds in

and nationality became increasingly visible. Many

the 1960s and 1970s thus enables us to “explode” the

artists renegotiated their local environments and forged

received line of exhibition histories, the production of

new channels of connection, nationally and internation-

works, and conceptualizations of artistic practice.

ally, to form alternative networks of artistic production

33

and display. Networked Artists and Politicized Practices

Castells has since readdressed the revolution-

ary potential of the network to analyze the changing relationship of the subject to technology. As technology

Art Spectrum London’s effect of gathering artists

becomes more personalized and mobile, communi-

together exemplifies another key term in our title:

cation via the network is unfixed from local sites and

“network.” In contrast to an art scene articulated by

bound up in a system of flows. He argues that in the

clear spatial markers, like commercial galleries and

information age modern life is better described by the

8  L O ND O N ART WOR LDS

metaphor of the network than that of the machine.36

child, a refugee on the Kindertransport. He became rad-

Although the period under discussion here precedes

icalized through time spent with an anarchist commune

public use of the Internet, Castells’s metaphor has

in Bristol and his association with the British Campaign

important ramifications for artists who were using

for Nuclear Disarmament after the first march on the

newly available and affordable technologies in their

Automatic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston in

work and for the flux in artistic exchange occurring

1958.40 Rejecting the formalist training he had received

across the ostensibly firm but in reality often perme-

under David Bomberg at Borough Polytechnic (now

able Iron Curtain of Cold War discontent, notably with

London South Bank University), Metzger actively

artists in Poland and the former Yugoslavia. It also

launched himself into the orbit of international artists

allows us to complicate the “network” and “system”

in London while intervening in the social structures

analogies so influentially used by critics such as

that conditioned its culture. Metzger’s distribution of

Lawrence Alloway and Jack Burnham during the 1960s

his Auto-Destructive Art manifestos in the late 1950s

and 1970s.37 Building on the idea of the network as vital

and early 1960s, together with actions such as his 1961

for the communal challenge to corporate incursions

South Bank Demonstration, merged performance with an

into the shared public space of the city fabric, we might

activist mentality that treated the established art world,

conceive of the artistic networks that spanned London

and in particular the art market, as complicit in wider

and beyond during the 1960s and 1970s as a series of

geopolitical and environmental failures. This would

“contact zones,” which the linguist and literary scholar

culminate in the three-year Art Strike that Metzger

Mary Louise Pratt has defined as “social spaces where

undertook between 1977 and 1980. Such actions,

cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other, often

though, were not restricted to the art world. Throughout

in contexts of highly asymmetrical relations of power,

the 1970s numerous searing attacks, protests, and

such as colonialism, slavery, or their aftermaths as they

general strikes across the public sector took place in

are lived out in many parts of the world today.”

response to the failing economy under Harold Wilson’s



In October 1970, for instance, Gustav Metzger,

and James Callaghan’s Labour governments between

Stuart Brisley, Felipe Ehrenberg, Sigi Krauss, and others

1974 and 1979, plunging Britain into a state of political

staged a demonstration at the Tate Gallery in London

and social turmoil. The infamous “Winter of Discontent”

under the auspices of the newly founded International

in 1978–79 saw a major strike by dustmen that resulted

Coalition for the Liquidation of Art, an event explored

in high piles of rotting refuse in the nation’s streets and

by Carmen Juliá in her chapter.39 The message was

public spaces, fostering a resurgence of support for

clear: the London art scene was polluted and in need

the Conservative Party and eventually the election of

of cleansing. This protest aesthetic had been central to

Margaret Thatcher as prime minister in 1979.41 During

Metzger’s anti-artworks since the early 1960s. German

the late 1960s tensions in Northern Ireland had also

by birth, Metzger had arrived in London in 1939 as a

reached a crisis point; in 1969 Wilson sent British troops

38

9  Introduction

into Belfast and Derry, and throughout the 1970s and

of Polaroid film stock, its directional arrows intended to

1980s Britain was marked by clashes within its own

help the photographer load the camera (fig. I.3). This

geographic boundaries. These conflicts were both

collection of materials, salvaged from discarded and

destabilizing and productive: the U.S. artist Carolee

overlooked detritus, expresses the difficulty of seeing

Schneemann has recalled that her “years in the 1960s

clearly in a foreign city, at a distance from political and

and 1970s in London were a time in which the city’s

emotional investments abroad. The ephemeral items

traditional social and class structures were in a state of

become markers of Vicuña’s enforced presence during

dissolution. Resistance to the Vietnam War activated

a time of political upheaval; her work remains atten-

many radical, creative Americans to come to the UK

tive to the mechanisms of oppression, both racial and

and participate in the vitality of the music, drugs, and

gendered, that structure networks and systems. The

rock and roll. . . . The shifts in social structures were

latter is signaled in Libro Tul Rojo through the combina-

unique and volatile.” These “unique and volatile”

tion of tulle, a material often used for bridal veils, with

shifts—social, political, and physical—prompted a vast

the romanticized nineteenth-century-style image of

range of experimental and activist work.

the woman in the garden. Libro Tul Rojo registers the



vulnerability of the exiled and misplaced subject while

42

The practice of the Chilean artist Cecilia Vicuña is

a case in point. Vicuña traveled to London to study at

using ephemerality and fragility to comment on both the

the Slade School of Fine Art between 1972 and 1975; in

difficulty of making works in adverse conditions and the

1973 a military coup d’état by General Augusto Pinochet

political potential of ephemerality as a formal strategy,

toppled the democratically elected Chilean government

resulting in easily movable artworks that simultaneously

of Salvador Allende and ushered in decades of brutal

act like anchors or totems for the artist.

dictatorship, preventing her return. During her years



of exile in London, Vicuña created A Journal of Objects

as books, coupled with her overarching identification of

for the Chilean Resistance 1973–4 (1973–74), comprising

this project as a “journal of objects,” indicates that these

twenty-six items that fall into two distinct bodies of

items are intended to pass from hand to hand, transmit-

works: Precarious Objects (or Precarios) and 12 Books for

ting ideas and information as they go. Even if physically

the Chilean Resistance. The Precarios and the 12 Books for

untenable in any given specific instance, collaborative

the Chilean Resistance consist of small collaged scraps

and activist links could still be explored in the exchange

of found materials configured to narrate personal and

of similarly ephemeral material—both image and

political events. In one of the component works of the

text—through mail and publication systems, paralleling

12 Books for the Chilean Resistance entitled Libro Tul Rojo

and sometimes intersecting with similar interactions

(Red tulle book), Vicuña layered a sheer snippet of

between artists in Europe and the United States that

red mesh tulle fabric over an illustrated fragment of a

extended back to the 1960s. Indeed, infrastructures

woman in a garden, which is stitched to an end section

such as the mail service, together with personal and

10  L O ND O N ART WOR LDS

Vicuña’s presentation of her small collaged items

Fig. I.3 Cecilia Vicuña, Libro Tul Rojo, from 12 Books for the Chilean Resistance, 1973–74. Purchased in 2014 by the Tate Americas Foundation courtesy of the Latin American Acquisition Committee. © Cecilia Vicuña.

more ad hoc circulation lists built up by artists, cura-

and Latin American art of the 1960s. Whitelegg seeks to

tors, and critics, often converged, as in ventures like

nuance the historical reception of this enterprise, regis-

Ehrenberg’s Beau Geste Press or Genesis P‑Orridge’s

tering the “tensions, divergences, and disconnections”

infiltration of the postal system, which Dominic

that inflected its interlinked understandings of kineticism

Johnson discusses in his chapter. The Beau Geste Press

and internationalism. Rather than view Signals as a pro-

published artists’ books by practitioners including

genitor in the history of global art, Whitelegg points to

Schneemann and Vicuña, forming a correlative to the

the temporal and geographic specificity of its position in

traveling Fluxshoe exhibition, which Ehrenberg was also

1960s London, recuperating the more local connections

involved in, together with David Mayor. As Whitelegg

that existed alongside its links with Latin America.

discusses in her chapter, Signals, while serving as a gal-



lery, also produced a periodical, its Newsbulletin, which

founded by the artist Stephen Willats, explored by

collated information from an interdisciplinary range of

Antony Hudek in chapter 2, functioned as an exhibition

writers and artists. Although inevitably specialist to a

space but also, and perhaps more importantly, as a

certain extent, the printing-press venture is indicative

meeting point for scientists and artists interested in

of widespread artistic interest in the relative geographic

how cybernetics, sociology, engineering, philosophy,

freedom enabled by communications media, and in

and pedagogy could be used to rethink the social

creating more accessible, reproducible works that could

fabric of everyday life. The uniqueness of this interdis-

be purchased cheaply.

ciplinary venture, Hudek proposes, precludes any easy

43

Like Signals, the Centre for Behavioural Art (CBA),

fit with more established narratives of North American conceptual art. Indeed, Hudek describes how Willats London Art Worlds

was concerned with “transforming the means of artistic and discursive production from object focused and

While our aim is not simply to put forward a series of

author driven to socially engaged and networked”—an

“alternatives” to the mainstream under the assumption

aim that speaks to the interests of many practitioners

they were de facto “better,” the kinds of networks, new

in this volume. Through recent reassessments of

relationships, and alliances that began to appear in 1960s

collaboration and collectivity, the importance of

and 1970s London have to date been somewhat margin-

group work for artists in London can be reconsidered

alized, to the benefit of their better-known counterparts.

afresh.44

By tracing a broader and more flexible network of



affiliations and collaborations, it is possible to establish

ceptual works that Felipe Ehrenberg developed as

a wider and less familiar set of coordinates. In chapter

he moved between London and Devon, after he left

1 Isobel Whitelegg reflects on the way Signals and its

Mexico in 1968 due to the violent political oppression

Newsbulletin have been written into accounts of British

in the country. Juliá shows how Ehrenberg’s works

12  L O ND O N ART WOR LDS

In chapter 3 Carmen Juliá investigates the con-

actively reflect on the artist’s experience of mobil-

beyond the immediate terrain of London in order to

ity, together with the exclusions that prevented his

study John Dugger’s People’s Participation Pavilion at

entrance into official institutions of British art, exem-

Harald Szeemann’s documenta 5 in Kassel during 1972,

plified by his protest on the threshold of Tate in 1970 as

linking Dugger’s aims for his Pavilion with both his

part of the “International Coalition for the Liquidation

exhibitions in England and the work of contemporar-

of Art” event. Ehrenberg’s opposition to the establish-

ies, including David Medalla, Lygia Clark, and Cecilia

ment and the mainstream, which led to his embrace

Vicuña. Martin traces how, with Medalla and Vicuña,

of the street as a site for artistic activity, vividly

Dugger went on to form Artists for Democracy in

demonstrates how artists during the 1960s and 1970s

1974: Brett, who was also a member, described this as

challenged and protested the structures of London’s

“a London-based group committed to giving cultural

art worlds, while also engaging with them. Ehrenberg’s

and material support to liberation movements world-

Beau Geste Press and Signals’ links with kineticism, not

wide” demonstrating the need to consider the role that

to mention Keeler and Medalla’s use of the Newsbulletin

anti-imperialism has played in formations of mobility

to communicate their gallery’s activities, find a parallel

and exchange.45 Martin’s use of the term “festival

in the distribution systems that Willats carefully

culture” to conceptualize the production of Dugger and

nurtured for the dissemination of his magazine Control,

his associates powerfully conveys the combination of

elaborating a shared vision of the artist as a networked

ephemerality and provocation that characterized much

and socially engaged figure.

collaborative artistic production in this period.





International exchange between artists, as well as

The legacies of empire and imperialism were

the resulting movement of artworks through maga-

directly addressed by artists including Araeen, Dugger,

zines, news bulletins, films, and exhibitions, similarly

Ehrenberg, and Medalla and are inextricable from many

informs the essays by Joy Sleeman, Courtney J. Martin,

of the structures, circulations, and networks discussed

and Lucy Reynolds. In chapter 4 Sleeman argues

throughout this book. In chapter 6 Catherine Spencer

that the South African artist Roelof Louw’s sculptural

considers how the abstract paintings produced by the

practice offers new ways to think about the kinds of

artist Rita Donagh during the 1970s constitute a highly

artistic and cultural flows “in to” but also “out of”

charged locus for considering the long-term resonances

London. Sleeman intricately maps the physical sites

of British imperialism. Donagh’s work registers the con-

of Louw’s ephemeral sculptural production across

flict in Northern Ireland after its resurgence in the late

the capital and through contemporary publications,

1960s, but in a way that acknowledges the distances

notably the art press, such as Studio International, but

and elisions that on the British mainland fractured the

also considers the different temporal sites that his work

understanding of the multifaceted political situation.

Pyramid of Oranges (1967) has come to occupy through

Like many other artists considered in this book, Donagh

re-creation. In chapter 5 Martin shifts the book’s focus

responded to the increasing connectivity provided by

13  Introduction

mass-media technologies, but also questioned the

mechanisms embedded within it. This can be con-

effects of mediatization on the viewing subject.

nected back to the emergence of the Artists’ Union and



the need to guard against the potentially exploitative

Spencer also touches on Donagh’s complex rela-

tionship with the women’s liberation movement during

aspects of artistic mobility.

the 1970s, which, together with Reynolds’s discussion



in chapter 7, signals the many different positions carved

Andrew Wilson, Elena Crippa, and Dominic Johnson,

out by women artists during the 1970s. Reynolds shows

explore how artists operated both with and against

how distribution networks were particularly important

established social and political structures, rang-

for many feminist-influenced artists, who sought to

ing from university pedagogy to the Royal Mail. In

bypass and expose the hidden oppressions of the art

chapter 8 Wilson looks to an alternative example of

world and forge new sites for creation, display, and

countercultural identity construction, dependent on

exchange. Reynolds considers how women filmmakers

relationships both geographically and disciplinarily

such as Sally Potter, Barbara Schwartz (also known as

disparate. This essay focuses on the milieu Alexander

Barbara Ess), and Annabel Nicolson engaged in nascent

Trocchi negotiated across Europe and America

feminist activity as they concomitantly contributed to

through project sigma, an organization structured

the London Filmmakers’ Co-operative, investigating

as a crisscrossing network—or, as Trocchi described

how—and even whether—they were able to recon-

it, a “spontaneous university”—in the early 1960s. In

cile these two increasingly divergent affiliations. By

chapter 9 Crippa comparably examines the relation-

looking at their early performances and film screen-

ship between art and pedagogy in her account of the

ings and considering the impact of visiting American

artist as “speaker-performer” in the 1960s and 1970s,

artists to the co-op during the 1960s, such as Carolee

although from perspectives that were much more

Schneemann and Carla Liss, Reynolds intimates how

closely aligned with traditional institutions. Crippa

these changing organizational allegiances fostered work

elucidates how ephemeral and potentially radical art

in new media as well as collaborations at the point of

forms such as performance took root in the interstices

production and display. New distribution routes for

of existing institutions while exploiting infrastructural

artworks—including film, magazines, mail, and book

volatility to create new modes of expression such as

publication—altered the temporal and physical coordi-

the performance-lecture as well as challenging fixed

nates of artworks, allowing them to be experienced in

disciplinary boundaries like theater and art. These

multiple places simultaneously while facilitating new

challenges extended from the development of broader

ways and institutions through which the public could

audiences to the making of politically and socially

access them. In bringing these vehicles to light, this

concerned art and the testing of the structures of art

book is interested in the role played by infrastructure,

education. The volume closes with Dominic Johnson’s

registering its enabling properties but also the control

analysis of Genesis P-Orridge’s provocative 1976 Mail

14  L O ND O N ART WOR LDS

The final three essays in London Art Worlds, by

Action in chapter 10. Johnson considers the artist’s for-

photograph express solidarity not only with those in

mation of subcultural identity through their mail objects

Chile who resisted Pinochet’s coup but also with work-

as well as their brush with civil law, state bureaucracy,

ers and trade unions from London and across Britain.46

and the tabloid press after P-Orridge was prosecuted

Dugger would continue to explore the banner form

for sending explicit material through the mail. The com-

throughout the 1970s, embarking on ambitious projects

plexity of the relationship that P-Orridge established

such as his Great Martial Arts Banner of 1976 (fig. I.5),

with the existing infrastructures of both the mail and

the design for which was based on the positions that

the legal system—using them to circulate and publicize

make up the black-belt sequence in Kung Fu. Dugger

work and moreover to galvanize a tightly knit body of

envisaged this cross-cultural work as inherently par-

supporters—illustrates the simultaneous existence of

ticipatory and social, in the sense that it drew on the

antipathy and affinity between institutions and counter-

mural tradition but also, due to the movements covering

cultural interventions that recurs throughout London Art

its surface, prompted mental and even bodily engage-

Worlds.

ment on the part of the viewer. Dugger’s banners, like



Finn-Kelcey’s flags, are emblematic of the dynamics of

Together, these essays aim to position London

as a coordinate of artistic activity on an international

mobility, contingency, and ephemerality. As the critic

map in order to complicate notions of nationalism and

Su Braden observed in relation to works like Here Is a

existing definitions of British art as a secure category or

Gale Warning at Art Spectrum London, “flags of every

obvious description. We are interested, for example, in

kind have to be frequently renewed as they soon fade or

how artists commandeered national institutional spaces

become rotted by the elements. Rose Finn-Kelcey’s flags

and worked with or reflected upon particular social and

are not about possession in any sense. The object will

political contexts of the city, intervening in the urban

not last and the image, as it moves, is concealed and

fabric of the metropolis. In September 1974, for example,

re-emerges—is unrepeatable.”47

in connection with the Artists for Democracy initia-



tive, Dugger hung his giant Chile Vencera Banner along

and Dugger’s “guerrilla art banners” resonate with

one flank of the base for Nelson’s column in Trafalgar

Ehrenberg’s anger at institutional racism and exclusion,

Square during a large-scale public protest organized

women filmmakers’ covert negotiation of distinctly

by the Chile Solidarity Campaign. A photograph from

gendered film collectives, and P-Orridge’s assault on

the event shows its component strips unfurling gently

the mail and legal systems. Throughout, this volume

in the breeze above a series of banners belonging to

analyzes how artists collaborated with the city, as well

trade unions (fig. I.4). Dugger has described the Chile

as with the specific social and cultural milieus that

Vencera Banner as a “guerrilla art banner,” sewn together

London engendered. In an evocative phrase, Hudek

from individual strips of cloth, which could be rigged

describes Willats’s CBA as “simultaneously an embed-

up quickly and easily; its form and positioning in the

ded and a foreign body,” a duality that can be applied to

15  Introduction

The impulses encapsulated by Finn-Kelcey’s flags

Fig. I.4 John Dugger, Chile Vencera Banner in Trafalgar Square, 1974. © John Dugger.

Fig. I.5 John Dugger, The Great Martial Arts Banner (Wu Shu Kwan), 1976. Dyedcanvas, sewn strip banner with soft rigging (seen here installed at the Flaxman Sports Centre, Lambeth, London). © John Dugger.

the conceptual and political situations of many artists,

multiple practices. We want neither to fetishize London

works, and temporary organizations in the essays

nor to situate it as a center defined by provincial mar-

collected here. The histories in London Art Worlds are

gins. Rather, by emphasizing what Brett has dubbed the

very much in the process of being told, as demon-

“complex currents of artistic activity” during this period,

strated by the fact that many of the essays draw on new

this volume offers a new set of parameters through

archival material and primary sources, underscoring

which to think about a range of artists and artistic prac-

the importance of rethinking art histories of Britain in

tices that flowed within, around, and from London’s art

the 1960s and 1970s. Through the models of mobility,

worlds in the sixties and seventies.48

contingency, and ephemerality, we hope to gain a fresh sense of the fluidity and richness of artistic production during these decades, as well as the specific politics of

17  Introduction

Notes











1. Brett, “Artists in Revolt.” The American curator Gene Baro selected the art for the exhibition, which included works by Anthony Caro, Phillip King, and William Turnbull. Some artists, such as Eduardo Paolozzi, had refused to take part in the show. In another review the sculptor Bruce McLean argued that Baro had failed to reflect adequately the work that was being produced in Britain, offering instead a stultified rehashing of the “New Generation” sculpture that had emerged under Caro’s influence at the St. Martin’s School of Art in the mid-1960s. See McLean, “Not Even Crimble Crumble.” 2. For a visual history of the counterculture, see Grunenberg, Summer of Love: Art of the Psychedelic Era. See also the accompanying volume Grunenberg and Harris, The Summer of Love: Psychedelic Art, Social Crisis, and Counterculture in the 1960s. 3. Andrew Wilson notes that fundraisers for the International Times often constituted countercultural “happenings” in their own right, intimating that the magazine actively contributed to the milieu it documented. Wilson, “Towards an Index for Everything,” 54. 4. See Alloway, “Long Front of Culture.” 5. Tickner, “‘Export Britain,’” 411. 6. Although Alloway argued that British Pop enthusiastically embraced American consumer culture, he also stressed that it “developed as an aesthetic proposal made in opposition to established opinion” specific to the U.K. context. Alloway identified Richard Hamilton in particular as manifesting an “activist” stance. Alloway, “Development of British Pop,” 66 and 40. For an analysis of Hamilton’s engagement with the British sociopolitical context in his Pop works of the 1960s, see A. Wilson, Richard Hamilton: Swingeing London 67 (f). Other artists affiliated with Pop whose work has activist connotations include Colin Self: see Tufnell, “Colin Self and the Bomb.” 7. Significant precedents include Parker and Pollock, Framing Feminism; Walker, Left Shift; and Mulholland, Cultural Devolution. Important critical interventions include Battista, Renegotiating the Body; Johnson, Critical Live Art; and S. Wilson, Art Labor, Sex Politics. 8. For an example of a study concentrating solely on the 1960s, see Mellor, Sixties Art Scene in London. While Mellor’s exhibition remains an important source, we also hope that the current volume takes into consideration Brett’s critique that it did not fully consider the role played by artists from Latin America, Africa, and Asia in the London art scene of the 1960s, or the impact of postcolonialism, presenting “an almost entirely British, white phenomenon, whereas the vitality of the period was certainly due to its cosmopolitan and multiracial character.” Brett, “Life Strategies,” 200. Brett has consistently written “across” these decades, and his work is of central importance to this book. See in particular Brett, “Tissues of Thought.”

18  L O ND O N ART WOR LDS











9. Bourdieu approaches cultural production as a “field” in which individual works exist relationally. This field consists of multiple intersecting factors, including “information about institutions—e.g. academies, journals, magazines, galleries, publishers, etc.—and about persons, their relationships, liaisons and quarrels, information about the ideas and problems which are ‘in the air’ and circulate orally in gossip and rumour.” Bourdieu, “Field of Cultural Production,” 32. 10. Demarco played an important role in organizing many of these performances. For the development of performance art in other parts of Britain, such as Wales, see Roms and Edwards, “Towards a Prehistory of Live Art in the UK.” 11. Henri, Environments and Happenings, 112. 12. A comparable methodological approach can be found in Cherix, In and Out of Amsterdam. The exhibition catalogued in this volume traced how a range of conceptual artists passed through the city of Amsterdam during the 1960s and early 1970s, creating artworks and establishing new connections as they did so. 13. For a description of the press’s activities, see Conwell, “Beau Geste Press.” 14. For Oiticica’s time in London, see Brett and Figueiredo, Oiticica in London. 15. For an account of the squatters’ movement in London, see Craddock, “Squatters: Tolmers United.” 16. For the impact of decolonization on art and visual culture in Britain, see the essays collected in Faulkner and Ramamurthy, Visual Culture and Decolonisation in Britain. The importance of spaces such as the New Vision Centre in London for artists from formerly colonized countries and the Commonwealth during the 1950s and 1960s is conveyed by Margaret Garlake in New Vision 56–66, while writers such as Dorothy Rowe, Kobena Mercer, and Leon Wainwright have explored the work of artists such as Frank Bowling and Aubrey Williams through a postcolonial lens. See Rowe, “Nonsynchronous Cartographies”; Mercer, “Black Atlantic Abstraction”; and Wainwright, “Varieties of Belatedness and Provincialism.” 17. A number of commentators have identified social and political factors that mark the advent of globalization’s hypermobility, including the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the emergence of digital technologies. For an overview of these debates in relation to the definition of “contemporary” art, see the responses to the “Questionnaire on ‘The Contemporary,’” October 130 (Fall 2009): 3–124, particularly Alexander Alberro, 55–60. On mobility and globalization, see Papastergiadis, Turbulence of Migration. At the same time, other critics and curators have noted that globalizing tendences were indeed a characteristic of art practices in the 1960s: see, for example, Camnitzer, Farver, and Weiss, Global Conceptualism.

18. Araeen stated in no uncertain terms in his Black Manifesto, written between 1975 and 1976 and originally published in 1978, that the “present ‘internationalism’ of Western art is no more than a function of Western politico-economic power and the imposition of its values on other people. Therefore, in an international context, it would be more appropriate to call it imperialist art.” Araeen, “Preliminary Notes for a Black Manifesto,” 83. For the history of the Black Arts Movement in the late 1970s and 1980s, see Bailey, Baucom, and Boyce, Shades of Black, and Chambers, Black Artists in British Art. 19. Entries 41 and 90 for Rose Finn-Kelcey and Gustav Metzger, Art Spectrum London, n.p. 20. Prior to Art Spectrum artists Conrad Atkinson and Charles Gosford met with the arts council a number of times on the subject of its support of artists outside the commercial system. The relative failure of these discussions no doubt supported the debates at and after Art Spectrum London. 21. M. Harrison, “Notes on Feminist Art in Britain, 1970–77,” 213. 22. For an account of the parallel situation in the United States, see Bryan-Wilson, Art Workers. 23. See Saunders, “Freaks’ Roll Call.” 24. Introduction to Art Spectrum London, n.p. 25. See Tickner, “The Kasmin Gallery.” 26. See Anderson and Tobin, “Collaboration is Not an Alternative.” 27. Whitelegg, “Signals Echoes Traces,” 89. 28. For an account of events at the store see Nuttall, Bomb Culture, 157. 29. See Harvey and Yiakoumaki, Supporting Artists. 30. For more on Feministo: A Postal Art Event, see Tobin, “I’ll Show You Mine, If You Show Me Yours.” For the history of the “Hornsey Uprising” of 1968, which responded to changes in the art-school curriculum and prompted students to design their own proposals for education programs in protest, see Tickner, Hornsey 1968. The interrelation of radicalism and pedagogy was also explored in a 2013 exhibition at Flat Time House, formerly the home of John Latham and subsequently an archive/gallery space, entitled The Mental Furniture Industry. 31. See Drower, “Exploding Galaxy,” and Drower, 99 Balls Pond Road. 32. For the importance of club spaces and cabaret culture for feminist and queer performance, see Butt, “Common Turn in Performance,” particularly 53–59. See also Cross, “Gays: Revolting Queers.”

19  Introduction

33. C. Harrison, “Against Precedents,” 195. 34. For these shifts, see Applin, “When Attitudes Became Formless.” See also Applin, “There’s a Sculpture on my Shoulder,” and Peabody, Anglo-American Exchange in Postwar Sculpture. 35. See Castells, The City and the Grassroots. 36. See Castells, Network Society. See also Larsen, Networks. 37. Alloway used the word “network” to describe the art world in his 1972 essay “Network: The Art World Described as a System.” For Alloway’s use of the term, see Martin, “Art World, Network, and Other Alloway Keywords.” For Jack Burnham’s body of writing, see Burnham, Dissolve into Comprehension. 38. Pratt, “Arts of the Contact Zone,” 34. 39. An excerpted transcript of Ehrenberg’s action during this event was published in Studio International. See Ehrenberg, “Date with Fate at Tate.” 40. For an overview of Metzger’s increasing politicization, see O’Brien and Larner, Gustav Metzger: Decades, 1959–2009, and Cole, Gustav Metzger: Retrospectives. 41. See Beckett, When the Lights Went Out; Turner, Crisis? What Crisis? Britain in the 1970s; and Proll, Goodbye to London. 42. Schneemann, “Foreword: Live Art Performance Art Body Art,” 2. 43. Simon Anderson situates Fluxshoe within the context of international Fluxus activities in a way that complements the aims of this volume. See Anderson, “Fluxus, Fluxion, Fluxshoe.” 44. Although instances of collaboration and collectivity in Britain in the 1960s and 1970s remain underresearched, Grant Kester’s discussions of collaboration and collectivity in Conversation Pieces: Community and Communication in Modern Art and The One and The Many: Contemporary Collaborative Art in a Global Context, together with Blake Stimson and Gregory Sholette’s edited collection Collectivism After Modernism: The Art of Social Imagination After 1945, trace important developments across disparate geographies in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. In this respect, see also Claire Bishop’s chapter on the London-based Artist Placement Group for a discussion of British art of the 1970s in relation to recent debates about participation. Bishop, “Incidental People: APG and Community Arts.” 45. Brett, introduction to Carnival of Perception, 17. 46. John Dugger, e-mail correspondence with the authors, June 16, 2016. 47. Braden, “Sky Signs,” 30. 48. Brett, introduction to Carnival of Perception, 16.

Everything Was Connected Kinetic Art and Internationalism at Signals London, 1964–66 Isobel Whitelegg

Everything was connected. The title of this essay rests

by immigrant and exile artists within Britain should

on a recollection. The phrase was the answer to a

be better acknowledged. Such factors have drawn

question asked of one of Signals’ founding members.

Signals into loose relation with the postcolonial, the

For what reason were a poem, a scientific image, and

global, and the transnational—that “primary marker” of

a reproduction of a work of art placed together on one

contemporaneity.3

page of Signals’ Newsbulletin? “At that time,” came the



answer, “we believed that everything was connected.”

America specifically and the global more broadly, speak



to the interests of the present and the recent past. The

1

Since the early 1990s the collectively conceived

Signals’ accumulated associations, with Latin

and cooperated gallery Signals London (1964–66) has

role that it played in the development and definition

attracted renewed attention for reasons related to its

of kinetic art, however, has been more subtly articu-

international perspective. It is now widely recognized

lated. For those involved with Signals, “kinetic” was a

for playing a decisive role in the British reception

provisional and mutable term, tempered by tentative

of Latin American art, by lending early support to

alternatives, such as “elemental,” “perceptual,” and

now-celebrated artists and by extending its reach

“environmental.” Without downplaying the relevance

toward previously unacknowledged artistic centers,

of Signals’ embrace of the migrant-artist and the Latin

such as Caracas and Rio de Janeiro. At the same time,

American milieu, in this chapter I pay attention to

those involved in organizing Signals’ exhibitions and

an interrelation between the specific parameters of

editing its Newsbulletin argued that the role played

Signals’ internationalism and the centrality of kinetic

2

1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1.

art to its activities. So doing, I draw attention to certain

Times) was a de facto fifth. In November 1964 CACS,

connections that Signals made, notably with English

renamed Signals London, moved into a four-storey

and North American kinetic art, which are more often

property on Wigmore Street in London’s West End that

not emphasized in revisions of its history. I also aim to

was owned by Keeler’s father, Charles. For the two years

ground Signals’ interconnectedness within a specific

that Signals existed, this large “showroom” was the

place and time: in London and at the very crux between

venue for nine comprehensive one-person exhibitions.

postwar attitudes and the dawning of new aesthetic



and geopolitical perspectives. In so doing, I show that

collective exhibitions, which assembled work by artists

Signals’ initially optimistic emphasis on untroubled

of varying generations, nationalities, and tendencies.

pan-Western connections was put under pressure, by

Emerging in titled series, these acted as laboratories for

both international political upheavals and contrasting

the reconciliation of individual formal emphases and the

perspectives on the value of scientific and technological

development of a thesis on the meaning and historical

innovation. Under such conditions, Signals’ definition of

significance of kinetic art. The first of the Soundings

the kinetic, however flexible, is revealed to be one that

series (Soundings One, January–February 1964) was

also necessarily involved tensions, divergences, and

organized by Keeler for the Ashmolean Museum in

disconnections.

Oxford and predated the existence of both CACS and



Signals itself. Following a series of Pilot CACS shows

The name Signals (at first spelled with a z, Signalz)

Solo shows were complemented by a series of

was borrowed from the title of a series of works by the

at Medalla and Paul Keeler’s Kensington apartment,

artist Takis and came into circulation in August 1964 as

Soundings Two took place at Signals’ West End prem-

the title of the inaugural news bulletin of an indepen-

ises, approximately halfway through its lifetime, in July

dent and recently founded entity named the Centre for

1965. This exhibition brought works by contemporary

Advanced Creative Study (CACS). With its first imprint,

artists of different ages and nationalities together with

CACS announced an aspiration to be a forum for “all

those of an earlier avant-garde including Josef Albers,

those who believe passionately in the co-relation of the

Marcel Duchamp, Naum Gabo, Kazimir Malevich, Piet

arts and Art’s imaginative integration with technology,

Mondrian, Henry Moore, and Ben Nicholson.

science, architecture and our entire environment” (fig.



1.1). CACS operated at first from a private address—

cal development of kinetic art similar to that of the

the home of artist David Medalla and Paul Keeler, a

movement’s seminal exhibition, Le Mouvement, while

graduate of the Central School of Speech and Drama

being both larger in scale and more complex in range.

turned collector and exhibition organizer. With Keeler

Organized by Denise René and Victor Vasarely at

and Medalla, the artists Marcello Salvadori and Gustav

René’s Paris gallery in April 1955, Le Mouvement featured

Metzger were CACS’s founding members. The writer

eight international and cross-generational artists: Jean

and curator Guy Brett (at that time art critic on the

Tinguely, Yaacov Agam, Pol Bury, Alexander Calder,

4

22  L O ND O N ART WOR LDS

Soundings Two took an approach to the histori-

Fig. 1.1 Front cover, Signalz: Newsbulletin of the Centre for Advanced Creative Study, June 1964 (facsimile edition published by Iniva, 1995).

Marcel Duchamp, Robert Jacobsen, Jesús Rafael Soto, and Vasarely himself. With Soundings Two, Signals distinguished itself from its predecessors by using the exhibition as a vehicle to assert a British-internationalist genealogy. The exhibition was dedicated to Circle: International Survey of Contemporary Art, and Keeler emphasized the contribution that had been made to British art by exiles from elsewhere in Europe.5 In an interview reprinted in the exhibition’s invitation card, he commented that “British art missed a great opportunity when artists like Moholy-Nagy, Gabo, Schwitters, Mondrian and Calder came to live in this country.”6

Collective exhibitions were also used as a means

to approach the somewhat vexed designation “kinetic” art. An editorial statement in the June–July 1965 Signals Newsbulletin argued that this word should be understood to encompass the “increasing sum of multiple creative endeavours.”7 In time, “invisible,” rather than “kinetic,” evolved as a recurrent term for describing collective exploration. A projected survey exhibition, entitled Towards the Invisible, proposed that individual works, contemporary and historical, should be composed into constellations of interest, including “energy, dematerialization and growth, light and color, and the animation and total involvement of space.”8 The exhibition was never realized in the ambitious form that was imagined, but a series of three small “pilot” versions took place between June and October 1966.

the End of the World,” she departs from a discussion of



Pamela M. Lee’s Chronophobia: On Time in the Art of

Tinguely’s eponymous 1962 work in order to approach

the 1960s (2004) is one of the few art-historical studies

kinetic art as a tendency that used movement in order

to situate the kinetic tendencies that emerged from the

to “make literal” a postwar apprehension of time as

late 1950s to mid-1960s in relation to the wider devel-

volatility and impermanence. Artists who were associ-

opment of Western art. In a chapter entitled “Study for

ated with what Lee terms “the Signals group” play a key

23  Everything Was Connected

role in her argument. For Lee, they offer a set of “global

both the “loose community of artists and critics” that

propositions around movement, invisibility, and energy”

she describes and also, set within its Wigmore Street

and form a counterpoint to Tinguely’s self-destructing

premises, a sporadically successful commercial gallery,

machines.

headquarters, and gathering place.13





9

Lee identifies “conflictedness” as a characteris-

When employing Signals as a collective noun, it

tic inherent to kinetic art, a peculiar combination of

is often impossible even to identify exactly to whom

“regressiveness and forward motion,” which confuses

one is referring. Its self-published Newsbulletin assem-

any clear identification of aesthetic, political, and social

bled a common voice from a polyphony of self-penned

ambitions. Such “conflictedness” can also be observed

and reprinted texts. These documented and expanded

in the split between how kinetic art may be perceived

upon Signals’ program of exhibitions and at the same

10

now (optimistic, nostalgic, entertaining—and irrele-

time attempted to resolve and articulate its founding

vant) and the radicalism that it exuded in its own time.

members’ different stakes in the aesthetic-imaginative

Artists and ideas associated with Signals support Lee’s

potential of new developments in technology and

position in divesting kinetic art of any lingering air of

science. As Lee notes, this attraction moved gradually

contemporary irrelevance. Lee’s discussion of Signals

toward a particular concern with the perceptual implica-

takes the work of Lygia Clark (featured in both solo and

tions of new models, materials, and machines—from

group exhibitions at the gallery) as its recurring motif. In

the unseen energies of quantum physics to the new

teasing out the means by which kinetic artists con-

revelations offered by microscopic visualization.

veyed the principle of movement, from the actual to the



virtual, the “limp Mobius strip” that serves as a prop for

and artistic imagery was characteristic of the Signals

Clark’s 1966 work Dialogue of Hands is used to illustrate

Newsbulletin’s layout. This approach to design was the

kinetic art’s capacity to “crystallize the phenomenal

individual signature of its editor Medalla but reflected

11

experience of viewing art as material and embodied.”

12

The creation of visual analogies between scientific

a collective standpoint and appealed to a contempo-

In Lee’s argument, Signals’ global character (which

rary imaginary, one that bridged art and science in a

Clark is seen to embody as a Brazilian artist) also marks

search for “dynamic structures underlying the visi-

and distinguishes its contribution to kinetic art.

ble world.”14 The Newsbulletin appeared at intervals



between August 1964 and March 1966, each of its six

To single out Clark as illustrative of Signals’

approach to kinetic art, however, is to remove the

editions taking the flexible form of a folded broadsheet.

gallery’s share of the conflictedness that Lee iden-

Collectively, these now form a partial record of Signals’

tifies as inherent to that movement. In line with her

activities and networks. They also reveal unrealized

wider definition of kinetic art, Signals too is an object

plans. Present-tracking and future-projecting tenses

of art-historical study that evades stable identifica-

are collapsed within its pages. Projects and proposals

tion of aesthetic and social ambitions. Signals was

seem to have been put into print urgently, without

24  L O ND O N ART WOR LDS

hesitation; many were later modified, some may have

Camargo, Jesus Rafael Soto, and Takis. Born in Brazil,

been realized, others were certainly not in fact carried

Venezuela, and Greece respectively, each became the

out at all. This indiscriminancy creates numerous points

subject of an individual Signals exhibition.

of departure for possible, counterfactual narratives;



the Newsbulletin’s announced but unrealized plans give

Takis, Signals presented solo exhibitions of the work of

grounds for speculation upon what may have been

founder-artist Marcello Salvadori and that of Gerhard

Signals’ future.

von Graevenitz, a Paris-based member, alongside Soto,



of the influential Zero group. Soto’s and Camargo’s

Substantial records did not survive the unantici-

As well as those dedicated to Camargo, Soto, and

pated closure of Signals’ premises in October 1966. In

extra-European connections exerted influence on its

the absence of the semblance of historical certainty

other one-person shows—of work by Brazilian artists

offered by sets of administrative files, cuttings, and cor-

Clark (May–July 1965) and Mira Schendel (September–

respondence, the Newsbulletin now acts as an archival

October 1966) and Venezuelan artists Carlos Cruz-Diez

surrogate. Aspects of its content seem to anticipate

(September–October 1965) and Alejandro Otero

the need to keep track of history. Medalla’s Stop Press

(January–March 1966). Of the nine solo shows realized

notes, for example, map the chain of connections that

in its short lifetime, a total of six were devoted to artists

brought artists to his attention, with personal names

from Brazil and Venezuela. Via the gallery’s collective

picked out in bold text: “Lygia Clark introduced Hélio

exhibitions, as well as its printed Newsbulletin pages, the

Oiticica’s work to Paul Keeler. Mira Schendel’s work

work of many other Latin American artists, including

was introduced to Keeler by Sergio de Camargo. David

Matthias Goeritz (Mexico) and Hélio Oiticica (Brazil),

Medalla introduced to Keeler the work of Takis, Soto

appeared in London for the first time.

and Pol Bury and Chillada. Camargo also introduced to



Keeler the work of Alberto Guzman, Alejandro Otero,

with European currents of kinetic art. Supported by

Lygia Clark, Rossini Perez and Milton Dacosta.”

René in Paris, by the mid-1960s they had become more

Medalla arrived in London from the Philippines, via

familiar to a wider London gallery scene. Camargo too

Paris, in 1960 and met Brett and Keeler in the same year.

was then a long-term resident of Paris. Although not yet

The three formed a tight-knit collaborative core among

so enmeshed within kinetic art’s circuits and centers,

Signals’ founder-members. Their subsequent visits to

he had been represented at collective exhibitions in

Paris plugged Signals into a circuit of experimental art,

the French capital and achieved greater recognition in

connecting groups such as Zero in Düsseldorf, Gruppo

Europe after being awarded the International Sculpture

T in Milan, and Nul in Amsterdam to spaces including

Prize at the iii Biennale de Paris in 1963.

the Galerie Denise René and Galerie Iris Clert in Paris



and the New Vision Centre in London. Their clos-

exhibited, Camargo shares with Soto and Cruz-Diez

est Paris-based collaborators were artists Sergio de

the distinction of having entered Tate’s permanent

15

16

25  Everything Was Connected

Both Soto and Cruz-Diez were actively engaged

Among the Latin American artists that Signals

collections via a sale brokered by Keeler. The fact that

exhibited as part of both the Brazilian pavilion at the

its solo exhibitions resulted in prominent museum

1960 Venice Biennial and the exhibition Concrete Art—50

acquisitions indicates a level of influence exceeding

Years of Development, organized by Max Bill at Helmhaus

that of any informal artist-led enterprise. Such influence

Zürich the same year. Her solo exhibition at Signals

attests to the effect of the unprecedented focus that

and its accompanying Newsbulletin foregrounded the

Signals was able to afford individual artists within its

participatory emphasis and the use of ephemeral media

substantially scaled spaces. Significant too is the fact

that characterized her later career and now underpins

that among Signals’ patrons was the art historian Sir

her place in a newly internationalized genealogy of

John Rothenstein, who had recently retired from a long

contemporary art. Otero’s one-person show similarly

tenure as the director of London’s Tate Gallery, between

presented a comprehensive picture of his work that was

1938 and 1964, during which time he had renovated

considerably more complex than the abstract and more

the museum’s acquisition policies by prioritizing

obviously “kinetic” work that elsewhere aligned him

twentieth-century British art, European modernism, and

with his Venezuelan compatriots Soto and Cruz-Diez

North American abstract painting. One can imagine

(figs. 1.2 and 1.3). Among the three it was perhaps

that the work of Soto, Cruz-Diez, and Camargo, with its

the radical sparseness of Mira Schendel’s Monotipias

already-earned European pedigree, made a persuasive

that presented the greatest conceptual challenge to

case for acquisition by a modernizing museum in the

preexisting definitions of kinetic art. Works that were

early stages of self-internationalization.

unknown or unanticipated at the time of the foundation



of the Centre for Advanced Creative Study therefore

Signals’ own engagement with Latin American art

reached beyond the work of artists represented within

allowed Signals to shape and establish a distinctive

existing European circuits at the time of the gallery’s

reading of kinetic art. Clark, Otero, and Schendel alike

operation. The decision to feature solo exhibitions

nudged Signals’ collective perspective away from

of work by Lygia Clark, Alejandro Otero, and Mira

positivist associations with science and technology and

Schendel demonstrates its collective exercise of risk

toward the nuanced possibilities offered by an explora-

and instinct. Signals created the conditions for the first

tion of “the invisible.”

detailed English-language considerations of the signif-



icance of these artists. Conversely, the works by Clark,

names among Signals’ roster of solo shows was, in

Otero, and Schendel that were exhibited at the gallery

no small part, the consequence of personal links to

pushed against existing definitions of kinetic art. As

Camargo and Soto. But within the postwar British

Lee discerns, the work of Clark in particular served to

context, these two countries had also established

emphasize its participatory and perceptual dimensions.

a more popular repute as modernizing New World



nations. Wider enthusiasm had previously been in

By the time of her solo exhibition at Signals,

Clark had departed from the concretist work that was

26  L O ND O N ART WOR LDS

The early dominance of Brazilian and Venezuelan

evidence across diverse sites of reception, from a 1954

Fig. 1.2 Photograph taken during the installation of the exhibition A Quarter of a Century of the Beautiful Art of Alejandro Otero: 1940–1965, Signals London, January 20–March 19, 1966. The most recent series in this retrospective were the dyed newspaper collages and white monochrome assemblages seen here.

Pathé newsreel breathlessly describing Caracas as



Venezuela’s “Utopia City” to the exhibition of pho-

revealed to a British public by both the wonders of

tographs and a model of Brasilia that was mounted

modern microscopy and by the construction of new

at the ICA in 1958. Although integrated within an

model cities in faraway places. Both of these facets

urbane artistic scene, Signals too found its way into this

of the postwar popular imaginary found their way

popular imagination. Medalla reported the presence

onto the pages of the Signals Newsbulletin. Its second

of numerous “students, doctors, nurses, technologists

issue, dated September 1964, included an article by

and scientists” at CACS’s early Pilot shows, and its

Rothenstein on the Caracas University City, an article

exhibitions were featured on films made for both tele-

on Brazilian architecture by Henrique E. Mindlin, and a

vision and cinema broadcast, and reviewed by the New

brief report on the construction of four new museums in

Scientist magazine, which had been founded in 1956.

Mexico City. With resemblances to a modernizing and

17

18

27  Everything Was Connected

By the mid-sixties, new worlds had thus been

Fig. 1.3 Photograph taken during the installation of the exhibition A Quarter of a Century of the Beautiful Art of Alejandro Otero: 1940–1965, Signals London, January 20–March 19, 1966.

increasingly affluent postwar Britain, this was a Latin

sociopolitical present that these same countries were

America in boom, participating in the construction of

experiencing by the mid-1960s.

a future informed by scientific and industrial develop-



ment, furnished by innovative and sociable architectural

assembled in relation to selective points of focus, and

constructions and benefiting from a cultural infra-

Latin America has consistently been the point around

structure geared up for internationalization. In thus

which this process pivots. Signals’ legacy as a pioneer-

characterizing the Latin countries of the Americas, the

ing center for the reception of Latin American art finds

September 1964 pages also reflect a certain anach-

its coherent proof in Medalla’s and Brett’s continuing

ronism, one generated in the gap between a delayed

commitment to artists and critics working within that

and enduring perception of countries such as Brazil

region. Signals also offers a British legacy, one that

and Venezuela as New World allies and the unstable

has been adopted as a genealogical base for the more

28  L O ND O N ART WOR LDS

Fragments of Signals’ history have been repeatedly

belated embrace of Brazilian artists Oiticica, Schendel,

of Lee and others, who see its approach to kinetic art as

and Clark by the museological and academic main-

conditioned by a perception of “the art world as increas-

stream. As noted, it can be argued that an encounter

ingly global in character.”19 Lee situates the critical mass

with artists from Brazil, in particular, allowed the gallery

of the kinetic tendency in Europe and believes Signals’

to forge a distinctive understanding of kinetic art. Its

network went further, breaking out in order to connect

geographical bias—toward Brazil, Venezuela, and Latin

to artists working in Latin American nations while at

America more widely—may have been sustained had

the same time evading the reach of the United States.

the gallery survived. Its international perspective, how-

The European-centered kinetic tendency may indeed

ever, may also have been rebalanced.

be cast as a counterpoint to the “seeming hegemony



of the New York art world.”20 It is important to note,

This counterfactual narrative is suggested by a

change in the scope of Signals’ annual Soundings exhibi-

however, that expansiveness for Signals did not imply a

tion. With its third and final edition (August–September

collective aversion to more obvious, or closer to hand,

1966) Soundings moved toward a nationally specific

geographical locations. A difference, perhaps, is that

approach. Organized by Medalla, Soundings Three focused

the gallery did not explicitly prioritize North American

exclusively on “facets of abstract art in Great Britain now”

art and artists. As discussed above, it is also import-

and featured twenty-one artists based in various cities

ant to note that Signals’ decision to prioritize, instead,

(fig. 1.4). The final January–March 1966 Newsbulletin

Latin America did not entirely run against the grain of

meanwhile announced plans in motion for a further

its time; it was in part facilitated by the embrace of the

two Soundings exhibitions, focusing on North America

region in the postwar imaginary.

(1967) and Canada (1968). The host of future solo shows



announced on the invitation card for Soundings Three also

Brett has often stated an aversion to British art’s 1960s

indicates a differently balanced international path. These

“love affair” with the “toughness” of North American

included projected exhibitions of the work of four British

art.21 This does not, however, imply outright rejec-

artists—Peter Joseph, Kenneth Martin, Mary Martin,

tion of individual artists, including those—such as

and John Wells—as well as solo shows by Hélio Oiticica

Ellsworth Kelly, Jackson Pollock, Morris Louis, and

and Hercules Barsotti (Brazil); Alberto Guzman (Peru);

Clyfford Still—associated with Abstract Expressionism

Narciso Debourg (Venezuela); Edgar Negret (Colombia);

and located in New York. Indeed, to exercise prejudice

two Paris-based members of Groupe de Recherche d’Art

toward even the most hegemonic of artistic centers (or

Visuel, or GRAV (François Morellet and Julio le Parc);

movements) would seem to contradict Signals’ pre-

and the three Milan-based artists Li-Yuan Chia, Gianni

vailing endorsement of interconnectedness. Its most

Colombo, and Antonio Calderara.

ambitious unrealized group show, Towards the Invisible,



aspired to offer a new reading of Western art by recon-

Signals’ statements of future intent allow for an

understanding of its expansiveness different from that

29  Everything Was Connected

In retrospective interviews and conversations,

necting the three territories of Western Europe, Latin

Fig. 1.4 Invitation card for the exhibition Soundings Three, Signals London, August 25–September 24, 1966.

and North America through the lens of the kinetic. The



exhibition hoped to recruit both Postimpressionist and

America rarely enters narratives of Signals’ history.

Abstract Expressionist artists to the task of demon-

From the project’s earliest stages, however, Keeler had

strating that “the apparent diversities of modern art”

made regular studio visits to artists in New York as well

were “in reality—i.e. on the level of the imagination”—

as Paris.25 As a result, the artist Willoughby Sharp, who

united by “one great theme: the search for dynamic

organized a series of influential kinetically inflected

structures underlying the visible world.” Towards the

exhibitions across the United States between 1966 and

Invisible intended to include Seurat and Cézanne as

1969, became an important early connection. New

its earliest historical references, with Latin Americans

York–based art historian Dore Ashton, together with

including Camargo, Clark, and Soto entering, as part

philanthropist Caresse Crosby, served among Signals’

of a widened postwar world, alongside figures such as

U.S. patrons. Like its relationship with Europe and Latin

Yves Klein and Jackson Pollock. This, then, was a proj-

America, Signals’ projected focus on the United States

ect that reimagined a Western world in which different

and Canada was not arbitrary but rather an intended

regions, old and new, North and South, played equal

amplification of existing personal relationships.

and reciprocal roles.





was in fact quite consistent with Signals’ numerous

22

Signals thus did not delimit an “increasingly global”

An engagement with both North and South

To exhibit kinetic artists working in North America

art world by permitting entry to new centers such as

unrealized plans. The first issue of the Newsbulletin

Caracas, São Paulo, and Rio de Janeiro while neglect-

announces a third CACS Pilot Show, one to be

ing established or predictable places. Rather, it sought

co-organized by Sharp as “a trans-atlantic exhibition of

productively to diminish the exaggerated importance

kinetic art: London-Paris-New York.”26 Other significant

granted to certain centers over others, while possibly

U.S. connections emerged through the distribution of

also acting to locate peripheral practices within hege-

the Newsbulletin to individuals with mutual interests.

monic nations. Rather than deepen an apparent “split

This process returned a January 1966 letter of support

between American artists and non-Americans working

from György Kepes, then professor of visual design at

in a kinetic idiom,” Signals may have deployed its force

the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and eventual

as a European-networked, London-based center in order

founder, in 1967, of MIT’s Center for Advanced Visual

to present an alternative picture of U.S.-sited artistic

Studies (CAVS). Evidence of sympathy and connection

practice, one that did not focus exclusively on New

between Signals’ perspective and that of both Kepes

York–based movements.23 As such, Signals’ post-1966

and Sharp emerged in the years following the gal-

plans to showcase the work of U.S. and Canadian kinetic

lery’s closure. The work of both Medalla and Salvadori

artists may have acted to rejoin and reinforce the “rel-

featured in Sharp’s 1968–69 exhibition Air Art (which

atively scattered number of individuals” involved with

toured to venues in Pennsylvania, Illinois, California,

that tendency across the North American continent.

New Hampshire, and Alberta); in 1968 Takis was among

31  Everything Was Connected

24

the first artists appointed by Kepes as a CAVS fellow (a

Newsbulletin both to make note of the London-based

position also held by Otero in 1972–73).

artists, such as John Latham and Stephen Willats, who



adopted Signals as a gathering place and to report the

Signals’ final and British-focused show in the

Soundings series, meanwhile, indicates how the

activity of kinetic artists working in Britain’s “provinces.”

gallery worked to rejoin and reinforce the equally

Its three artist-members were all born in countries other

scattered field of British kinetic art. The constitu-

than the United Kingdom, each embodying and activat-

ency of Soundings Three reflects the operation of an

ing Keeler’s call for British art to recognize the continual

intra-British expansiveness, developing parallel to the

contribution made to it by migrant artists. As noted

widening of Signals’ international reach. Creating a

above, Signals also connected to and made visible the

United Kingdom–wide survey, the exhibition featured

work of artists and groups working within other British

established London-based artists, such as Mary Martin,

cities, establishing a relationship that in turn exerted

alongside members of the Manchester-based “group g,”

continued influence on the activity of regionally located

the Nottingham-based Midland Group, and individual

centers, most notably Nottingham’s Midland Group

artists based in Cardiff, Bristol, Edinburgh, and Leeds.

Gallery. And as a large London gallery, Signals was in a



27

As one of Signals’ final exhibitions, Soundings

position not only to gather in Britain’s artistic provinces

Three did not benefit from the publication of a related

but also to support the work of figures who had already

Newsbulletin edition, a coordination that had previously

been recognized in the capital. Standing out among

acted as a means of documenting, expanding upon,

Tate’s present-day Mary Martin holdings, for example,

and disseminating recently realized shows. As such, a

is the museum-scale wall relief Inversions, which was

detailed consideration of this exhibition is missing from

created as a new commission for Soundings Three.

the historical record that the Newsbulletins now offer. As



with its U.S. connections, Signals’ relationship to British

imaginary, bridging new art and new science, Medalla’s

art and artists is often overlooked or understated. Lee

collage-like Newsbulletin pages are also suggestive of

has argued that its members found the British milieu to

connections not made. One obvious but unexplored

be “parochial,” presenting itself “as a kind of reaction

link is with Richard Hamilton’s 1951 ICA exhibition

formation to activities in New York.” Certainly a U.S.

Growth and Form, a project that also underscored the

bias was evident in the exhibition programs and acqui-

perceptual possibilities offered by creating visual

sition policies of prominent London-based institutions

connections between diverse photographic sources.

at the time. This “parochialism,” however, could not be

Without denying the importance of its international

resolved simply by displacing Signals’ focus to Paris or

links, it is important also to ground Signals’ interest in

seeking out novelties from Rio.

the aesthetic and imaginative potential of new develop-



ments in technology and science within the day-to-day

28

Signals instead made inroads into the British

artistic milieu on different fronts. Medalla used the

32  L O ND O N ART WOR LDS

If taken as an expression of a contemporary

of its postwar London context. London granted the

gallery a curious and receptive local public for the work

destructive and dehumanizing threat rather than an

that it displayed, one to whom the cultural production

imaginative promise. Salvadori, meanwhile, argued

of Latin American nations was not entirely unfamiliar.

consistently for collaboration between artist and

Recalling Signals’ local context also serves to reconnect

scientist, for an understanding of how the work of one

it to closer-by peers and precedents. Writing in 1988,

might be understood as analogous to the other, and for

Medalla listed the U.S.-focused Robert Fraser Gallery

the formation of conditions for the two to work together

alongside Gallery One and the New Vision Centre

in order to realize works—imaginative or functional—

as among his favorite haunts; he also expressed his

that might even “allow man complete control of his

admiration for the Whitechapel Gallery (“a flagship for

environment.”30

new developments in British and American Art”) and



recalled participating in seminars at the ICA, which

the founding of CACS to the gallery’s 1966 closure,

were “presided over by Sir Herbert Read and Sir Ronald

Salvadori’s perspective on the relation between art,

Penrose, veteran campaigners for Modern Art.”29

science, and technology remained resolute. In 1966,



with backing from poet and philanthropist Erica Marx,

In searching out Signals’ most far-reaching and

Over the course of Signals’ activities, from

groundbreaking international connections, it is the

he started an initiative of his own, the Centre for

relationships closest to home that reemerge now as the

Advanced Study of Science in Art, or CASSA. This new

more overlooked. And always hidden in plainest sight

center operated across a collection of laboratories

are the other two among Signals founder-members:

well equipped to allow artists, scientists, technolo-

Gustav Metzger and Marcello Salvadori. Although

gists, and architects to realize collaborative projects.

always named, each remains a silent outlier to existing

It was thus closer in character to U.S.-sited projects

perspectives on Signals’ history. For both Metzger and

whose approach is often starkly contrasted with that

Salvadori, Signals served more as point of departure than

of Signals, such as Billy Klüver’s Experiments in Art

collaborative nexus. While both were involved from the

and Technology (EAT, founded 1967) in New York and

beginning, each found more suitable grounds elsewhere

Kepes’s CAVS at MIT (1967).

for the development of his individual concerns.





pected death, in 1969, and the extent of its activities

Within a forum for art’s “imaginative integration

CASSA’s own life was cut short by Marx’s unex-

with technology, science, architecture and our entire

remains somewhat obscure. Insight into CASSA’s scope,

environment,” Metzger and Salvadori might also be

however, is offered by the records of a 1968 exhibition at

placed at contrasting extremes. Metzger embodied a

the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford (now Modern Art

strident resistance to any “messianic” belief in the pur-

Oxford). Entitled CASSA: Fundamental Research at the

suit of technological progress: for him, post-Newtonian

Centre for Advanced Study of Science in Art, this exhi-

science was not a new poetics of interrelation; it was

bition presented projects and statements by a group

the atom bomb. Science and technology offered a

of ten artists and architects spanning Europe, Japan,

33  Everything Was Connected

and the United States (Renzo Piano, Wolfgang Döring,



Kenji Ekuan, Joe Tilson, Friedrich St. Florian, Erica Marx,

what transpired to be the final issue of the Signals

Nizzou Associati, Heinz Mack, William Katavolos,

Newsbulletin announced an extensive trip to North

Raimund J. Abraham).

America by Takis, Keeler, and Soto. This March 1966



visit took in Soto’s solo exhibition at the Koots Gallery,

The vast difference separating Metzger’s and

A Stop Press column on the second page of

Salvadori’s perspectives appears to have resulted in

New York, as well as Directions in Kinetic Sculpture, a

mutual disinterest rather than direct confrontation. The

University of California, Berkeley, exhibition featuring

different poles that they represent also remain apart

Takis. It was also intended as a preparatory research trip

from the reading of kinetic art collectively developed by

for the gallery’s upcoming shows of U.S. and Canadian

Brett, Keeler, and Medalla in concert with collaborators

art and as an opportunity to visit “American friends and

in Europe and Latin America. Metzger and Salvadori are

supporters,” including Kelly, Duchamp, Ashton, and

thus indicative of Signals’ surplus and outlying “conflict-

Crosby. This assertion of U.S.-sited support was rein-

edness,” one that existed at the margins of more pacific

forced by the appearance of Kepes’s 1966 “Letter from

explorations of movement, invisibility, and energy. It is

Massachusetts,” published in a neighboring column.

necessary to admit this conflict within Signals’ bounds,



however, if only to account for the gallery’s ending—the

friends counterbalanced its view of the U.S. govern-

circumstances of which suggest an increased orienta-

ment’s foreign policy—an opinion that had, by then, been

tion toward the activist, and more pessimistic, pole that

quite explicitly stated. In July 1965 the predominantly

Metzger represents.

optimistic and largely apolitical tone of the Newsbulletin



had been interrupted by the publication of two texts

Salvadori’s commitment to the positive potential of

Signals’ embrace of individual North American

collaboration between art and science meanwhile finds

critical of U.S. involvement in Vietnam: a transcript of

its extensions elsewhere. In a 1967 document he intro-

historian Lewis Mumford’s “Ceremonial Address to the

duces CASSA, cautioning against any “wariness” toward

American Academy of Arts & Letters” and a letter from

science and technology’s infiltration of everyday life and

Robert Lowell to President Lyndon Johnson declining an

arguing for the need for artists to keep pace with the

invitation to dinner at the White House.

“new language of analogy” that was offered by close col-



laboration. The subtle mark of defensiveness emerging

Medalla’s decision to publish these two texts, the

through his text was echoed more loudly in parallel U.S.

withdrawal of Charles Keeler’s support, and Signals’

contexts. Kepes, for example, came under increasing

abrupt 1966 closure—has been both affirmed and

pressure to defend the similarly interdisciplinary position

refuted.32 It may be argued, however, that the seeds

of CAVS, situated as it was within MIT—an institute

of Signals’ ending were indeed cultivated by a chang-

that also housed “special labs” devoted to scientific and

ing sociopolitical climate, one to which resistance to

technological research for militaristic ends.

the U.S. war with Vietnam was a significant catalyst.

31

34  L O ND O N ART WOR LDS

A causal relationship between three events—

Fig. 1.5 Catalogue for the exhibition Venezuela, Midland Group Gallery, Nottingham, May 27–June 24, 1972.

A project that began life as a “Centre for Advanced Creative Study” had already been subject to gradual reorientation; the postwar reemergence of technologically fueled military violence added greater velocity to that process. A change in the perception of Latin America too, as actual place rather than as imagined territory, also played a role in shifting the sociopolitical perspectives of Signals’ members. In late 1965 Brett and Keeler went to Brazil for the first time, meeting both Oiticica and Schendel and visiting the viii Bienal Internacional de São Paulo. For Brett, this was the first of many further trips to both Brazil and other Latin American countries. Before this, Medalla too had

enthusiasm for the Caracas University City as a model

expressed a growing interest in the social context that

for collaboration between artist and architect remains,

informed the participatory nature of Oiticica’s work. It

but it has been tempered by time: “The introduction

was in conveying a received report of the first per-

to the catalogue seems to suggest that Venezuelan

formance of Oiticica’s Parangolé, at Rio’s Museum of

painters can regard themselves as a kind of charmed

Modern Art (an event that saw Oiticica’s collaborators,

race above the mundane affairs and difficulties of their

black members of the Mangueira samba school, ejected

country. This can hardly have been the spirit at the time

by museum staff), that Medalla first spoke of a “social

of the building program in the Caracas of the 1950s,

art” gaining specific relevance in Brazil.

even if that monumental scheme did have monumental



failures in the sphere of housing.”33

A changed perspective became increasingly evident

in the years following Signal’s closure. Reviewing an exhi-



bition of Venezuelan art at the Midland Group Gallery in

Medalla’s perceptions of Latin America was demon-

1972, Brett observes that none of the artists involved live

strated in 1974, when both were involved in the founding

in Venezuela, where “few options are held out for visual

of Artists for Democracy, an organization that placed

artists beyond producing works for a rich elite who are

postcoup Chile at the center of its activity. Within

not interested in experiment” (fig. 1.5). He also notes

Signals’ lifetime, however, the dawning activism that

that Soto has by now “over-produced and exploited his

would later more strongly characterize their attitude

original idea to the point of draining it of interest” and

toward Latin America was directed not toward the

that overall the show betrays “a certain feeling of com-

pernicious character of foreign investment in nations

placency about the area of visual sensibility that is being

such as Brazil and oil-rich Venezuela. Rather, the closely

cultivated, a tasteful acquiescence.” Brett’s continued

spaced brackets of Signals’ lifetime seem to contain

35  Everything Was Connected

The most conclusive change in both Brett’s and

a moment in which it seemed that the production of

with Latin America. This region’s artistic production was

Western Europe, the United States, and Latin America

at first apprehended, from London, as the emanation of

could be imaginatively connected, and unproblemati-

a brave new world. Through the later work of Brett and

cally so. The expanding territory of the kinetic formed

Medalla, a certain disillusionment generated changed

an imaginative corollary to the scientific and industrial

perspectives and far-reaching legacies. A turn away

advancements that also filled the columns of Signals’

from optimism, and the end of Signals, may be viewed

Newsbulletin. The violent implications of foreign policies

as the conclusive resolution of a collective stake in

stemming from the Cold War were not fully felt, and

kinetic art. The perspectives of other founder-members

political upheavals in Latin America were not immedi-

and outlying collaborators, however, indicate how this

ately intuited. Its imagining of a world in which different

stake continued to evolve along paths that both forked

regions of the West, old and new, North and South,

and converged. Both CACS and Signals had captured

might play equal roles, supported by an imaginative

ideas in the air that were regrouped later, elsewhere—

connection between new art and new science, was not

and not unchanged—by different centers, from

yet explicitly concerned by realpolitik—shaped not by a

Salvadori’s CASSA and Kepes’s CAVS to Willoughby

postcolonial consciousness provoked by a decolonizing

Sharp’s exhibitions and the Midland Group’s 1968–69

British Empire, but rather by the effort to maintain an

Mutation Phenomena shows.

untroubled sense of connection and possibility, up until



its necessary breaking point.

Signals used its position as a European-networked,



London-based center in order to develop a perspective

With the provocation and collaboration of the

In this chapter I have aimed to reconsider how

artists whose work it made visible, Signals London

on kinetic art that would reflect that movement’s inter-

cultivated a distinctive reading of kinetic art. This was

nationally dispersed character. Present-day interests

one eventually able to accommodate Clark’s ephemeral

have created a particular focus on Signals’ engagement

propositions and Oiticica’s socio-spatial interventions

with certain international centers such as Caracas,

alongside Otero’s stark white-on-white overpainted

São Paulo, and Rio de Janeiro, while downplaying

assemblages and Schendel’s use of transparency as

the significance of its connections to others, such as

a subtle means to activate two-dimensional surfaces.

New York, and to the North American continent more

Signals’ stake in kinetic art may appear distinctive solely

broadly. This approach mirrors Signals’ own refusal to

by virtue of its unique connection to artists from Latin

prioritize North American art explicitly but often fails

America. Here, however, I have sought to initiate further

to consider whether that strategy remains necessary or

connections and to reinstate relationships that lie closer

valid. Signals also rejoined tendencies within British and

to home.

across North American art and used new international



discoveries as a basis for proposing different readings

To restore such connections reinscribes the “con-

flictedness” within the narrative of Signals’ relationship

36  L O ND O N ART WOR LDS

of canonical movements. In the wake of a repeated, and

now rather repetitive, focus on Signals’ foundational role

important legacies, including its capacity to locate and

in the international reception of Latin American art, it

regroup dispersed but connected practices within hege-

seems timely to strategically prioritize its other equally

monic nations.

Notes

1. Guy Brett in conversation with the author. 2. See, for example, Whitelegg, “Signals Echoes Traces,” and Barson, “Mira Schendel, Signals London, and the Language of Movement,” in Barson and Palhares, Mira Schendel. 3. Osborne, Anywhere or Not at All, 27. 4. Signalz: Newsbulletin of the Centre for Advanced Creative Study 1, no. 1 (1964): 1. 5. Circle: International Survey of Constructive Art was a 1937 publication edited by Naum Gabo, Ben Nicholson, and architect Leslie Martin. It was conceived in Hampstead, where Nicholson and others lived alongside émigré artists, designers, and architects from across Europe, and included works and writings by leading international constructivist architects and artists. 6. Paul Keeler quoted in M. G. McNay, “Laboratory of the Invisible,” Guardian (Manchester), April 15, 1965. Reprinted within the invitation card for Soundings Two, Signals London, July 22–September 22, 1965. 7. Signals: Newsbulletin of Signals London 1, no. 5 (December 1964– January 1965): 12. 8. John Gardiner, “Stop Press,” Signals: Newsbulletin of Signals London 1, no. 6 (February–March 1965): 12. 9. Lee, Chronophobia, 92. 10. Ibid., 93. 11. Ibid., 93–94 . 12. Ibid., 95. 13. Ibid., 125. 14. Gardiner, “Stop Press,” 12. 15. David Medalla, “Stop Press,” Signals: Newsbulletin of Signals London 1, no. 8 (June–July 1965): 2. 16. Signals’ expansive definition of kinetic art reflects the output of artists associated with these interconnected groups, whose nonfigurative work deployed techniques such as the monochrome, seriality, artificial light, and mechanical and virtual motion. Zero was founded in Düsseldorf in 1957 by Heinz Mack and Otto Piene, who were joined by Günther Uecker in 1961; the three used the group’s publication, Zero (1957–67), alongside temporary exhibitions to cultivate a collaborative network across various Western European cities. Members included Arman, Jean Tinguely, Yves Klein, Almir Mavignier, Jesús Rafael Soto, and Luis Tomasello in Paris; Lucio Fontana and Piero Manzoni in

37  Everything Was Connected





Milan; Antoni Tàpies in Barcelona; and Arnulf Rainer in Vienna. Zero’s activities overlapped with those of the Amsterdam-based Nul group (founded in 1961 by Jan Schoonhoven, Armando, Jan Henderikse, Henk Peeters, and Herman de Vries) and the Milan-based Gruppo T. Formed when four artists (Giovanni Anceschi, Davide Boriani, Gianni Colombo, Gabriele Devecchi) met at the Accademia di Brera in Milan, Gruppo T participated in the activities of the Azimut gallery and its review, Azimuth, founded in 1959 by Enrico Castellani and Manzoni. Castellani and Manzoni were featured in an exhibition at the New Vision Centre in 1960, and this London gallery also organized a Zero survey in 1964. See Hillings, Birnbaum, and Derom, Zero: Countdown to Tomorrow, and Huizing and Visser, nul = 0. 17. The exhibition Brasilia: Photographs and a Model of the New Capital of Brazil (June 11–28, 1958) took place at the ICA while Brasilia was under construction, before its official founding, in April 1960. 18. “Attendance,” Signalz: Newsbulletin of the Centre for Advanced Creative Study 1, no. 1 (1964): 1. 19. Lee, Chronophobia, 125. 20. Ibid., 95. 21. Ibid., 130. 22. Gardiner, “Stop Press,” 12. 23. Lee, Chronophobia, 96. 24. Ibid., 95. 25. Medalla, “Paris—London: Memories of the Sixties,” 16. 26. “Small Festivals,” Signalz: Newsbulletin of the Centre for Advanced Creative Study 1, no. 1 (1964): 3. 27. The Midland Group of Artists was established in Nottingham in 1943; begun as a membership-based organization for local artists, its gallery was by the early 1960s also operating as an internationally engaged forum for progressive and experimental visual art. Between January 1968 and January 1970, artist-member Michael Granger organized a series of four “Mutation Phenomena” exhibitions; the first featured Salvadori and Soto, and the series aimed to trace the development of a “concept language” from within visual language. In 1968 the Midland Group organized an unprecedented exhibition of contemporary Latin American art, Six Latin American Countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Uruguay, Venezuela, which included the work of Oiticica, Clark, and Cruz-Diez, among others. In 1972 the gallery

featured an exhibition of modern and contemporary Venezuelan art simply entitled Venezuela. See Neate, “Provinciality and the Art World,” 275. 28. Lee, Chronophobia, 130. 29. Medalla, “Paris—London: Memories of the Sixties,” 14.

38  L O ND O N ART WOR LDS



30. Salvadori, “Fundamental Research,” 308. 31. Ibid. 32. See Drower, 99 Balls Pond Road, 8–9. 33. Brett, “Venezuelan Artists.”

2. 2. 2. 2. 2. 2. 2. 2. 2. 2.

A Porous Entity The Centre for Behavioural Art at Gallery House, 1972–73 Antony Hudek

For more than fifty years the London-based artist

project titled Control, a magazine he started in 1965

Stephen Willats has investigated the socially condi-

and continues to edit to this day.1 Because of Control’s

tioned ways in which artists and audiences interact

“meta-” quality, its identity and authorship have fluc-

with and through the artwork. The terms under which

tuated. The first three issues (1965, 1966, and 1967)

he has carried out this investigation have changed over

appeared anonymously; and while Willats’s editorship

the decades, from phenomenological, cybernetic, and

was clearly identified as of the fourth issue (1968),

behaviorist in the late 1950s and 1960s to community

the magazine’s status within his work has remained

based and socially engaged from the mid-1970s onward.

purposefully open. Willats has acted as both editor and

This has led to a difficulty in categorizing Willats’s work

contributing author, a dual role granting him a flexible

of the early 1970s, as it seems both connected and dis-

distance between each issue’s content and his own

cordant with that of other artists—such as Hans Haacke

work and allowing for a shared sense of authorship over

and Art & Language—most readily associated with

content without undermining either the editor’s or the

systems theory and conceptual art at that time.

other contributors’ autonomy.





Like much conceptual art, Willats’s practice may

A related project, as frequently overlooked as

be considered a metapractice, in that it focuses not on a

Control, is the Centre for Behavioural Art (CBA), an

subject deemed external to art but on the contexts and

organization Willats ran from May 1972 to March 1973

modes of art’s reception. Willats has recorded observa-

at Gallery House in Exhibition Road, South Kensington.2

tions on this meta-self-reflexivity in a too little-known

A space for documentation of members’ projects

and for regular guest lectures and seminars, the CBA

“Genuine Conceptualism” in Europe.6 While “demate-

acted as a “point of reference, or communication,

rialization” affected the move from object to ideas and

between artists and scientists working within the area

language, it did little to alter the ways in which art was

of [behavioural social sciences],” and as a place to

produced, discussed, sold, and collected, as Lippard

discuss “art practices that intervened directly in the

later remarked. The CBA, on the other hand, defied the

social fabric of society—practices that would transform

very structures of art making, distribution, and recep-

people’s perception of themselves and their social

tion, by fostering new modes of exchanges between

relationships.” Like Control, the CBA could be seen as a

national and international artists, scientists, and partic-

metaproject, involving other artists in a collective exer-

ipating audiences. The networks fostered by the CBA,

cise of knowledge production and sharing against the

although relatively short-lived, deserve to be acknowl-

“one-way authoritative networks that have dominated

edged as potent alternatives to the more mainstream

society for so long.” The CBA folded theory—in this

relations between conceptual artists, museums, dealers,

case cybernetic, behaviorist, and learning theories—into

and collectors, which have come to define conceptual

practice, creating a self-reflexive device aimed at trans-

and neo-avant-garde art in the United Kingdom at

forming the means of artistic and discursive production

the turn of the 1970s. The CBA itself warrants closer

from object focused and author driven to socially

scrutiny as a highly successful and prescient project,

engaged and networked.

anticipating “new institutionalism” and the spate of



artist-run initiatives and dialogical practices that situate

3

4

5

But the CBA was not simply a means for Willats to

import theoretical constructs borrowed from cyber-

themselves outside of the museum and gallery circuit.7

netics, engineering, philosophy, learning and teaching



theory into art. As opposed to this “outside-in” model,

was a product of happenstance, but the center was

Willats intended the CBA to be “inside-out,” bringing

hardly spontaneous.8 For years Willats had toyed with

art into communication with other social formations,

the idea of opening a multipurpose and transdisci-

from sociology to urbanism. As I discuss below, the

plinary venue that would serve as a space for meetings

early 1970s in the United Kingdom marked a shift

and displays as well as an “information bank.”9 In the

toward a more international awareness of contem-

early 1960s, before launching Control magazine, he had

porary art, and in particular of conceptual art derived

already attempted “to establish a research centre that

largely from North American models. In this context the

brought together scientists, philosophers, art theo-

CBA provides a compelling case for a pioneering form

rists and artists (mainly constructivists) to explore the

of social conceptual art that owed little, if anything,

foundation of a new art practice that could break out of

to the “dematerialized” practices theorized and sup-

the 1950s straightjacket and embrace the new ethos.”10

ported by such influential curators as Lucy Lippard and

Control fulfilled this function, reflecting, in Willats’s

Seth Siegelaub and to what Lynda Morris has termed

words, “the growth of what can be loosely called the

40  L O ND O N ART WOR LDS

The CBA’s appearance at Gallery House in 1972

Behavioural Social Sciences (Behavioural Psychology,



Sociology, Cybernetics, etc.).” But while Control “[went]

a center for radical art in London, and indeed the

some way towards providing this,” there was “inevi-

United Kingdom. Rosetta Brooks, assistant director

tably a limit to its functions, and as a result . . . it was

and exhibition organizer, was instrumental in develop-

thought opportune to add to the resource level in this

ing new curatorial frameworks to accommodate the

area by establishing the Centre for Behavioural Art.”

artists’ often radical proposals, including her ambitious

The magazine would prove much more sustainable than

three-part exhibition A Survey of the Avant-Garde in

the center, but between 1972 and 1973 they operated in

Britain (August 18–October 15, 1972), long-term artists’

tandem: issue six (1971) included papers from artists

residencies (including Willats’s CBA), and the Gallery

who would become involved in Willats’s Cognition

House Press, which published Willats’s Artist as an

Control project (1972–73); issue seven (1973) featured

Instigator of Changes in Social Cognition and Behaviour

writings by artists connected to the CBA, including

(1973). At the time of her appointment, Brooks was

Kevin Lole, John Stezaker, as well as Willats.

a young undergraduate from Newcastle enrolled in



the English Department of University College London,

11

12

The CBA’s goal of expanding and diversifying the

Krauss was not alone in making Gallery House

production and reception of art was greatly facilitated

where she met the artist John Stezaker, whom she later

by its host institution, Gallery House, a nonprofit exhibi-

married. The apartment they shared in Paddington, not

tion space as ephemeral and unique as the center itself.

far from Willats’s studio, became a meeting ground for

Gallery House occupied an entire townhouse belonging

many of the artists who showed at Gallery House.15

to the German government’s cultural center in London,



the German Institute (now Goethe-Institut), which was

House, the latter had opened with three concurrent

located next door on Exhibition Road. Sigi Krauss, the

exhibitions, entitled 3 Life Situations, each occupying an

Gallery’s director, appointed by the German cultural

entire floor of the townhouse. Stuart Brisley took over

attaché in London, had operated a frame shop and

the ground floor, sitting in a wheelchair for two weeks

experimental art gallery in Covent Garden between 1969

in a “kind of filthy prison cell” visible to the public only

and 1971, exhibiting many of the artists whose work

through a letterbox slot.16 On the first floor Marc Camille

would later appear at Gallery House.13 Between March

Chaimowicz installed his immersive Celebration? Realife,

1972 and July 1973 the Gallery hosted a large number of

where visitors would encounter what appeared to

exhibitions, installations, performances, concerts, and

be the remnants of a party, with colored lights and a

other events by young British artists, as well as interna-

disco ball strewn on the floor.17 Finally, Gustav Metzger

tional practitioners (many of them German, but not all,

produced not a show but a series of participatory situ-

who had never shown in the United Kingdom), under

ations across Gallery House’s third floor. These ranged

the principle “never close, never charge admission, and

from a “media” room, where visitors were invited to

never censor artists.”

cut up newspapers and record themselves on tape, to

41  A Porous Entity

14

Two months before the CBA appeared at Gallery

documentation of his then unrealized Stockholm June:

Eventstructure Research Group, comprising another

A Project for Stockholm 1–15 June 1972, involving 120 cars

APG affiliate, Jeffrey Shaw, and Theo Botschuijver.21 The

releasing their exhaust fumes in a gigantic transparent

collaboration resulted in an APG-related project initi-

plastic container.

ated by Latham entitled Big Breather, a large-scale (and



ill-fated) model of a marine pump, first installed in front

Although the three artists were members of the

Artists’ Union—founded in London the same year

of Gallery House in November 1972.22

as Gallery House—and two of the three (Brisley and



Chaimowicz) had shown at the Sigi Krauss Gallery, their

nistic projects OHO Context and the CBA is a further

installations had little in common. This heterogeneity

testament to Gallery House’s inclusive exhibition policy.

would become a hallmark of Gallery House, as evi-

Latham’s project remained relatively hermetic, couched

denced in the second set of exhibitions, which opened in

in the artist’s typically dense language—“The art-work

May 1972. On the ground and first floors an In Between

proposed in this case is a long-term structural event in

Show featured works by Tony Rothon, Lesly Hamilton,

time”—with little room for public engagement.23 By con-

and Carlyle Reedy, while on the top floor two projects

trast, Willats’s CBA declared itself open and collective

were granted long-term residency, John Latham’s OHO

from the outset. The organization published a mission

(or OI-IO) Context and Willats’s Centre for Art and the

statement in Gallery House’s Newsheet, asserting: “The

Behavioural Sciences, as it was first called. Although the

Centre for Art and Behavioural Sciences has, as its

last two projects adopted a durational format, and both

fundamental concern, the furtherance of the growing

Latham and Willats shared an interest in the sciences,

interests in establishing relationships between Art

the similarities stop there. Willats’s CBA took the form

and the Behavioural Sciences,” thereby addressing, as

of a cross-disciplinary think tank, grafting together the

Willats put it, a “lack of any kind of facility for commu-

pedagogical freedom of Roy Ascott’s Groundcourse

nication/interaction between artists/scientists [who]

at Ealing College of Art and the scientific creativity

are engaged in it, and the growing number of purely

of Gordon Pask’s System Research Ltd. Latham’s

interested people.”24

OHO Context, on the other hand, could be seen as



a self-initiated work placement loosely based on the

nonetheless welcomed anyone ready to contribute to its

principles he had set forth in the Artist Placement

activities.25 An agenda for a CBA meeting on February 8,

Group (APG), in which artists were placed as remuner-

1973, invites members to “contribute to a research proj-

ated consultants in industry and government, often for

ect based on the cited issues [relationships between

months at a time. OHO Context was first established

the audience, the art work, and the artist], representing

as a collaboration between Latham and Andrew Dipper

their own concerns. The diverse nature of interests that

(who would go on an APG placement of his own in

members of the Centre have, if illustrated in their contri-

1974); the two would be joined as of January 1973 by

bution, would add to the construction of a significant

18

19

20

42  L O ND O N ART WOR LDS

The proximity of the two in many ways antago-

Officially a members-only association, the CBA

statement that would be useful to artists generally, and

Thing Co. Ltd. insofar as the CBA was a genuine plat-

would help to define the area of work the Centre is con-

form for debate, not an institutional front for the artist’s

cerned with.” The CBA’s open-membership policy is

activities. And unlike Christine Kozlov and Joseph

further confirmed by letters written to Willats by artists

Kosuth’s Museum of Normal Art in New York and Tom

and researchers asking for permission to take part in the

Marioni’s Museum of Conceptual Art in San Francisco,

center’s activities—letters to which Willats invariably

the CBA was not principally intended as a space for

responded positively. For example, the self-taught and

displaying art, however immaterial.32

self-employed artist Howard O’Connor wrote to Willats



on October 12, 1972, offering to participate in any aspect

allowed Willats some measure of visibility from the

of the center; on October 18 Willats invited him to help

periphery of London’s art worlds in the mid-1960s,

paint a room at the center; by March 1973 O’Connor was

one could posit that the CBA afforded Willats the

exhibiting at the CBA, had given a presentation there,

kind of exposure no other institution would grant him

and had contributed to the seventh issue of Control

in the early 1970s.33 The increasing visibility of con-

magazine. The center’s mailing list contained close

ceptual art in the United Kingdom in the late 1960s

to fifty names, and one could assume, based on the

and early 1970s—less in public institutions than in

surviving membership forms, that approximately half

progressive commercial galleries like Lisson (1967),

were dues-paying, at a cost of £1 per year. Institutions

Nigel Greenwood (1970–92), and Jack Wendler (1971–

could also become members: the Library of the Nova

74)—made it possible for non-object-based art to be

Scotia College of Art and Design (NSCAD) and the

more widely seen and discussed. For example, Art &

Birmingham Public Libraries both requested to be part

Language began exhibiting at the Lisson in 1973, and

of the CBA.29 The center’s talks themselves attracted

Stezaker with Nigel Greenwood in 1972. But this growing

approximately ten people on average—an honorable

acceptance of conceptual practices remained largely

26

27

28

number given the specialism of the topics discussed.

30

As one of the major centers for conceptual-art

Just as one could argue that Control magazine

confined to process- and language-based art, not the behaviorist and social conceptual art that Willats was

teaching and publishing from the late 1960s to the late

pursuing. With the notable exception of the Museum of

1970s, with strong ties to both European and North

Modern Art Oxford, which hosted the artist’s first major

American (primarily East Coast) conceptual artists, it

exhibition, in 1968, and would continue to support his

seems logical that NSCAD would have taken an interest

work through the 1970s, British museums and galleries

in Willats’s CBA and, presumably, Control magazine.31

generally ignored Willats’s work.

At the same time, this interest is surprising, given that



the CBA was significantly dissimilar to most North

primarily as a means of self-promotion would be to miss

American artist-initiated conceptual institutions. For

its significance as an art project able to function both

instance, it differed from Iain and Ingrid Baxter’s N.E.

at the level of operational practice and as a conceptual

43  A Porous Entity

Nonetheless, suggesting that the CBA served

model.34 While the CBA was on the upper floor of

methodology and results.36 In the critical first phase of

Gallery House, Brooks also repeatedly included Willats’s

the West London project, the three women Willats called

work in the gallery’s exhibition program, suggesting that

the Super Girls were tasked with conducting door-to-

the artist was not solely reliant on the CBA for visibility.

door interviews in four different parts of West London

Rather, Willats’s adroit use of both Gallery House and

representing different social classes, from working to

the CBA allowed him to observe the neo-avant-garde

upper middle.37 Not unusually for the time and con-

art world from without and act upon it from within.

text, the allocation of roles in the West London project

Equally, one could argue that the CBA successfully

bespeaks a gendered division of labor whereby the

operated simultaneously inside the art world, as an

male artist-coordinator could enlist female partners and

artwork within Gallery House, and outside, as a distinct

fellow artists as assistants—in this case, Rosetta Brooks,

and collective entity involving as many art-world as

the artist Shelagh Cluett, and Willats’s then partner

non-art-world audiences. To borrow Grant Kester’s

Felicity Oliver—who also helped administer the CBA’s

description of dialogical practices: “in this act of spatial

activities (fig. 2.1).

dislocation the fixity of the works’ status as art is called



into question and subject to renegotiation in the rapport

it was divided into two parts. In the first, the partic-

between the artist and participants.”

ipants were made aware of their perception of their



35

One of Willats’s most important social projects

Once the participants in the project were selected,

existing social environment, through completion of

to come out of the CBA was the West London Social

task-based questionnaires compiled in the West London

Resource Project (1972–73), along with the similarly

Manual. In the second, the participants were prompted

structured but more modestly scaled Oxford Insight

to “remodel their environment in a way they felt that

Development Project (1972). “The multidisciplinary

they determined themselves,” this time by completing

discussions at the Centre were influential in shaping the

the West London Re-Modelling Book.38 After each of the

structure” of the West London project, Willats remem-

two phases, the anonymous returns were posted on

bers, “and a number of its contributors became Project

public register boards located in libraries near the four

Operators out in West London so they could experience

project areas, allowing participants to compare their

the methodologies of the work first hand.” Like the

own responses with those of the other three groups.

CBA itself, the West London project was aimed at two



audiences: “the primary one was the people living in

reached its primary audience, namely, non-art-world

suburban areas where it was considered most people in

groups living in the suburbs, the project would not have

society live, and for whom the machinations of the ‘art

been complete without engaging secondary, art-world

world’ were distant and unfathomable”; the second-

audiences. It achieved this mainly through the CBA,

ary one was “other artists,” whose practices would

where documentation from the West London project was

be affected by observing the West London project’s

shown and where Willats gave several lectures on the

44  L O ND O N ART WOR LDS

While the West London project successfully

Fig. 2.1 Stephen Willats, West London Super Girls outside the Centre for Behavioural Art, London, 1973.

project. The West London project also featured in two

communities.40 Cognition Control involved students and

exhibitions at Gallery House: the first part of A Survey of

staff from Hornsey College of Art and Trent Polytechnic

the Avant-Garde in Britain (1972) and, six months later,

in Nottingham, where Willats had taught from 1968 to

The Artist as an Instigator of Changes in Social Cognition

1972, as well as artists from the Cheshire, Leicester, and

and Behaviour (1973), which Willats intended as “an

Loughborough schools of art. Although Cognition Control

externalisation of the Centre for Behavioural Art’s dis-

manifested itself in two exhibitions—at the Midland

cussions and research” (fig. 2.2).39

Group Gallery in Nottingham (January–February 1972)



and the Museum of Modern Art Oxford (October–

Alongside the West London Social Resource Project

and Survey of Distance Models of Art, discussed below,

November 1972)—its primary characteristic was that

Cognition Control was Willats’s third CBA-related

it took place throughout the city, disrupting its inhab-

project and the one that most directly attempted

itants’ daily life by staging durational interventions

to ground art practices within specific contexts and

that would invite audience members to adopt different

45  A Porous Entity

Fig. 2.2 Stephen Willats, The Artist as an Instigator of Changes in Social Cognition and Behaviour. Centre for Behavioural Art, London, 1973.

societal models.41 The first iteration of Cognition Control

minds as to just how decisions made on their behalf

was the most ambitious, aiming “to examine, test and

are in fact made.”43 Sanger was an active participant

perhaps affect the behaviour of certain aspects of the

in the CBA’s and Gallery House’s programs. A year

local community. This [was] to be done by actually

before taking part in Cognition Control, he founded the

going out into Nottingham, on foot, in mobile trailers,

short-lived art-theory journal Frameworks, which was

through supermarkets, via advertising and over Radio

based at Gallery House and included essays by Stezaker

Nottingham, leaving the Gallery to undertake back-

and Lole, among others.44 In this context Sanger’s Signs,

ground documentation and process reporting.”42

Grips, and Words can be read as a sly comment on con-



ceptual art’s struggle to substitute visual information

Among the projects in Nottingham’s Cognition

Control was Colston Sanger’s Signs, Grips, and Words,

with language, as well as an astute analysis of the com-

which considered the coded languages used by

municational challenge facing the CBA, which aimed

Freemasons in the city to “instil a doubt in people’s

to generate art projects that adapted to the language

46  L O ND O N ART WOR LDS

of non-art-world “primary” audiences while couching

and cacophonous atmosphere of Gallery House, Willats

these projects in a sophisticated theoretical language

was able to create a sustainable environment conducive

indebted to behavioral science. The Freemasons could

to the exchange and generation of knowledge at the

easily stand in for “secondary” art-world audiences,

intersection of a number of art worlds that, within a few

who similarly rely on a coded and exclusive language of

years, would harden into more autonomous camps.

signs, grips, and words.





provided by the CBA stood in contrast to the progres-

Besides his contribution to Sanger’s Frameworks

The platform for exchanges between art worlds

sive streamlining of conceptual art in British public

and a presentation at the CBA, Lole displayed documentation of his work at the center and contributed an

institutions between 1969 and 1972. One can identify

essay on behaviorism to the seventh issue of Control.

with some precision the moment when conceptual art

Before coming to London to study at the Slade, Lole had

in the United Kingdom became associated with linguis-

been a student at Lanchester Polytechnic in Coventry.

tic and analytic art dominated by Art & Language—for

In July 1971, along with fellow Lanchester students Philip

instance, in the work shown in the annual Survey exhibi-

Pilkington and David Rushton, Lole founded and edited

tions at the Camden Arts Centre in 1969 and 1970. The

the journal Analytical Art, which ran for two issues. The

1969 edition of the exhibition, curated by Peter Carey,

three were studying under Michael Baldwin and Terry

included four artists—Timothy Drever, Ed Herring, Peter

Atkinson (cofounders of Art & Language with David

Joseph, and David Parsons—whose work responded

Bainbridge and Harold Hurrell), who also contributed to

to the specific sites where they appeared, either in or

the first issue of Analytical Art.

outside the gallery.48 A year later, Survey 70, conceived



by Carey but organized by Charles Harrison, marked

45

46

These exchanges between conceptual-art mag-

azines in 1971 and 1972 reveal not only the influence

the sudden rise of Art & Language and related artists,

of Art & Language and its magazine, Art-Language

with the inclusion of Terry Atkinson, David Bainbridge,

(launched in 1969 and merged with Analytical Art after

Michael Baldwin, Harold Hurrell, and Joseph Kosuth,

the latter’s second issue), but also the dialogues taking

along with Keith Arnatt, Victor Burgin, and Ed Herring.49

place between conceptual artists such as Lole, Sanger,



and Stezaker and behavioral-cybernetic artists such

the Hayward Gallery, that a major public institution in

as Willats—a dialogue informed and sustained by the

London first organized an exhibition of conceptual art.50

CBA. As already noted, Sanger, as founding editor of

Though slightly more pluralistic than Survey 70—with

Frameworks, took part in Willats’s Cognition Control and

the inclusion, for example, of Barry Flanagan and Gilbert

had lectured at Gallery House. Stezaker could boast a

& George—The New Art still reinforced the dominance

similar network of CBA-related ties, from publishing in

of analytical conceptual art.51 At exactly the same time,

Control and Frameworks to lecturing at Gallery House.47

Rosetta Brooks’s Survey of the Avant-Garde in Britain at

These overlaps suggest that within the heterogeneous

Gallery House did everything it could to diversify the

47  A Porous Entity

It was only in 1972, with The New Art exhibition at

range of conceptual art, by supporting not only Burgin,

larger transnational movement of conceptual practice,

Herring, and Stezaker but also Latham and Willats.

from which it stood apart.

As Nicholas Philip James puts it: in contrast to the



Hayward’s “general atmosphere of sanctified detach-

lineages different from those of its U.S. counterpart.

ment,” the events at Gallery House “were marked by

While the latter responded to clearly defined move-

a more ragged and sporadic quality of presentation.”

ments such as Minimalism and Postminimalism, which

Referring specifically to A Survey of the Avant-Garde

in turn responded to Clement Greenberg’s formalism,

in Britain, James describes the “sense of rivalry [that]

it was Ludwig Wittgenstein and analytic philosophy

spurred the organizers of the alternative survey,

that grounded Art & Language’s interest in linguis-

which openly challenged the criteria of the Hayward

tics and logic, while other forces gave rise to different

exhibition.”

non-object-based art practices in the United Kingdom.



For Willats, it was cybernetics and behaviorism that led

52

53

In an article entitled “The New Art,” published in

Conceptualism in the United Kingdom had to claim

the October 1972 issue of Studio International, Brooks

him from his phenomenology-inspired manifestos of the

reviews both the Hayward exhibition and her own

late 1950s to his “homeostat” drawings of the late 1960s.

Survey of Avant-Garde in Britain. She discusses the two

Thus, when Benjamin Buchloh, in his influential essay

exhibitions together under a set of common tropes,

“Conceptual Art, 1962–1969: From the Aesthetic of

namely, “the end of the avant-garde,” “a recent inter-

Administration to the Critique of Institutions,” narrates

est in time and temporal succession,” and an overall

a progression from phenomenological perception to a

“attempt to ascribe to art works a more direct meaning

linguistic understanding of the institutional frameworks

or function.” By comparing the Hayward exhibition

that condition perception, he adopts a U.S.-centric

with her own at Gallery House in the most respected

historicist genealogy that only partially maps onto

British contemporary-art journal at the time, Brooks

postwar art in the United Kingdom.56 By his own admis-

attempts to legitimize her curatorial work at the edges

sion Willats had no connection with or even firsthand

of London’s official art world. But her article also glosses

knowledge of Art & Language at the time of the CBA.57

over the qualities that made Gallery House, and particu-

Furthermore, when Willats was asked at the time by

larly the CBA, different from what was quickly becoming

David Briers if he was aware of Hans Haacke’s partici-

an internationally recognizable form of conceptual art.

patory ballot-box pieces—one of the examples Buchloh

It erases, for example, Art & Language’s early efforts to

invokes when defining conceptual art as institutional

steer away from behaviorism and cybernetics, and the

critique—he answered in the negative.58

group’s differences with Stezaker, who in his interview



in The New Art catalogue makes his differences with Art

Visitors’ Profiles (1969–73) operates very differently from

& Language explicit. More problematic still, Brooks’s

Survey of Distance Models of Art, a project Willats real-

article insinuates that Willats’s work fell in step with a

ized with Lole in early 1973 (fig. 2.3a and 2.3b). Whereas

54

55

48  L O ND O N ART WOR LDS

Despite their resemblance, a work such as Haacke’s

Fig. 2.3a Stephen Willats, Survey of Distance Models of Art. Images sheet 1. Centre for Behavioural Art, London, 1973.

Fig. 2.3b Stephen Willats, Survey of Distance Models of Art. Images sheet 2. Centre for Behavioural Art, London, 1973.

Haacke’s piece was confined to the art institution where

conclusion of their surveys across both sites was that

the poll was taken, Willats and Lole’s survey was aimed

people, no matter how distant from the “art world,”

at demographics unlikely to frequent museums of

possessed “a model of art that was important to them.”

modern and contemporary art, namely, housing estates

However, this model categorized art for the most part as

in Coventry and West London. And while Haacke’s

decoration, “reflecting, or reinforcing what was already

questions sought to remind visitors of the contempo-

the intended function or sensibility for that domestic

rary social and political context in which their viewing

space, not as a means of communicating something in

took place, Willats and Lole took pains to understand

its own right, and certainly . . . not valued as a means of

the immediate contexts of those they surveyed, asking

communicating the artist’s intentions.”59

people to complete illustrated questionnaires about



their perceptions of art in their domestic settings. The

Art,” Brooks stepped back from her assimilation of

49  A Porous Entity

Several months after her article “The New

Willats’s and Stezaker’s work to the linguistic con-

already proposed “that a behaviourist framework can be

ceptual art of Art & Language. In this follow-up piece

constructed from which to examine, not only the inter-

Brooks makes a strong case for considering Willats’s

nal relations of modern art, but its social implications.”65

cybernetics-derived work as distinct. She notes that



at first Willats was “widely misinterpreted as being

ceptualism in the face of a widespread linguistic turn

a kinetic artist in the heyday of kinetic art” but had

evidenced in exhibitions like The New Art, it also sought to

been conflated more recently with the conceptualists,

uphold a more complex and socially oriented version of

whereas in fact, “unlike his contemporaries,” he “is

cybernetics than was presented at Cybernetic Serendipity

concerned not only with the conceptual framework of

and later promoted by the Computer Arts Society.66

art activity, but also with the social framework.”60 By

Willats was not a member of the society but was well

bringing up the confusion that often subsumed Willats’s

aware of its activities, in particular through George

light-and-movement objects from the mid-1960s under

Mallen, one of the society’s cofounders, who had assisted

kineticism, Brooks points to the kinetic-cybernetic

Pask in his contribution to Cybernetic Serendipity.67 In

tradition with which Willats’s work intersected but to

1971 Willats invited Mallen to participate in his Man from

which it was certainly not reducible. The person most

the Twenty-first Century project in Nottingham and to

responsible for promoting cybernetics, as embodied

contribute a text to the sixth issue of Control magazine.68

by machines, was Jasia Reichardt, who, as assis-

In 1972 Mallen not only took part in the CBA’s Thursday

tant director of the ICA, curated the well-known and

evening lecture series but also presented documentation

popular exhibition Cybernetic Serendipity in 1968. “The

of the project at the Oxford version of Cognition Control

main theme of the Cybernetic Serendipity exhibition,”

later that year.69 Finally, it was Mallen who facilitated

Reichardt explains in an article in the November 1968

the society’s support of Willats’s Edinburgh Social Model

issue of Studio International, “was the demonstration

Construction Project in 1973.70

of machine-aided creative processes.”62 Willats held a



very different view of cybernetics and was not included

London project, the Edinburgh Social Model project was

in the exhibition. In the same November 1968 issue

realized after the CBA’s closure. Under pressure from

of Studio International, Willats wrote in an article that

the German government, Gallery House shut down in

what mattered to him was the “controlled triggering of

July 1973, following a large-scale exhibition of German

creative behaviour within an area of randomness [and]

artists that turned into an anarchic occupation of the

the subsequent directions of behaviour within the area

building.71 Perhaps sensing Gallery House’s imminent

being self-determined by the receiver (viewer).” This

demise, Willats began announcing the CBA’s reloca-

view of behaviorism puts, in the words of Roy Ascott,

tion as of March 1973, at one point suggesting that the

“software over hardware.” In 1968 Ascott, who like

ICA might be receptive to housing it.72 However, by

Willats was absent from Cybernetic Serendipity, had

the middle of May 1973 the CBA’s activities officially

61

63

64

50  L O ND O N ART WOR LDS

Just as the CBA foregrounded a more social con-

Though strongly related to the CBA and the West

ceased, forcing Willats to return dues to its members.73

hand, London’s art worlds in 1972–73 and, on the other,

The CBA’s last event, a “discussion on art and its social

socially engaged artistic projects by Willats and others

function,” took place at Willats’s studio in Paddington,

in places such as Nottingham, West London, Oxford,

presumably because no other space could be found. It

and Edinburgh. After the CBA’s closure Willats left

was an appropriate topic for the concluding chapter of

behind concerns for the art world as such, producing

the CBA, which saw the shift in Willats’s practice from

context-dependent projects that engaged directly with

one that was predominantly cybernetic to one that was

the audience’s behavioral patterns. As he wrote about

more behaviorist, and finally social. In an interview from

the Edinburgh Project, “this amounted to a fundamental

2002, Willats reflected on the center’s name, saying,

difference in the methodologies of the project and those

“We called it ‘behavioural art,’ but perhaps a better

traditionally and currently associated with art practice,

term would be ‘Centre for Society Art.’” “Society Art”

for instead of it consisting of an artist’s encoding of its

should not be taken to mean “sociological,” as Willats

concerns, it provided tools for the audience to encode

was careful to point out soon after the CBA’s closure:

its concerns themselves.”77 Gallery House provided the

“I think some sociologists might be interested in some

CBA with an ideal location: both within the most pro-

of the processes [developed at the CBA], because they

gressive art gallery in London and yet on the sidelines

should be thinking about them themselves, but the

of institutional art worlds of the period. Simultaneously

project itself is not sociology, and it’s not remedial in the

an embedded and a foreign body, the CBA managed to

way that social work is . . . [rather] it’s concerned with

create new dynamics between individuals who, after the

people remodelling their mental notions of their social

center dissolved, found themselves going their separate

environment, which also in a sense restructures their

ways and into the social.78

74

75

relationship with other people.”76

The CBA, one could argue, acted as a kind of

black box, a site of interaction between, on the one

Notes The author would like to thank Kevin Lole, Colston Sanger, John Stezaker, and Stephanie Willats for so generously giving their time and sharing their reminiscences, and especially Stephen Willats for the many conversations and access to his archive. 1. See Hudek, “Meta-Magazine: Control, 1965–68.” 2. Andrew Wilson is one of the few to have stressed the importance of the CBA, both for Willats and histories of the 1970s in Britain. See A. Wilson, “Audience Is the Rationale,” 43, 45. 3. Stephen Willats, “Editorial,” Control 7 (1973), 1. The CBA’s discursive program included talks by George Mallen, head of System

51  A Porous Entity

Simulation Ltd. and research fellow at the Royal College of Art, London (“Ecogame”); the mathematician and game theorist Robert Bell (“How to Keep a Secret”); Jerry Brieske, from the Biological Computer Laboratory at the University of Illinois; Chris Evans from the United Kingdom’s National Physical Laboratory; Slade postgraduate researcher Kevin Lole (“The Artist and his Behaviourality”); Trent Polytechnic lecturer Ross Longhurst (“Happenings and some Recent Trends in Sociology”); as well as artists Don Mason, Howard O’Connor, John Stezaker (“Two Instances of Institutional Determinacy in Art”) and Willats (“The

Use of Interactive Learning Systems by the Artist” and “Social Environment Modelling”). 4. Willats, introduction to The Artist as an Instigator of Changes, 11. This page number refers to a reprint of Willats’s original stapled black-and-white A4 publication, distributed by Gallery House Press—a name standing in for Rosetta Brooks herself, who typed out Willats’s manuscript. 5. Willats, “Clothing as Artwork,” 5. 6. Morris’s “genuine” conceptualism includes artists such as Art & Language, Gilbert & George, Jan Dibbets, and Marcel Broodthaers. See Morris, Genuine Conceptualism. Tellingly, Willats does not appear in Lucy Lippard’s otherwise exhaustive Six Years: The Dematerialization of the Art Object from 1966 to 1972. 7. See Ekeberg, “Institutional Experiments Between Aesthetics and Activism.” Grant Kester specifically identifies Willats as an influence on dialogical practices of the 1990s and 2000s. Kester, Conversation Pieces, 91–97. 8. “It Came by Accident Like Everything Does” (Stephen Willats in conversation with Emily Pethick), n.p. 9. Willats, “Centre for Behavioural Art.” 10. Willats in J. Wood, United Enemies, 33. Willats ultimately credits his father’s occupation as librarian as one of the earliest inspirations for the CBA. Willats, conversation with the author, February 21, 2015. 11. Willats, “Editorial,” Control 7 (1973), 1. 12. The project is often titled Cognition and Control or Cognition & Control. In what follows I adopt Willats’s most recent usage, Cognition Control. 13. See Walker, Left Shift, 70–71. Stuart Brisley, Marc Camille Chaimowicz, and John Dugger are among the artists who first exhibited at Krauss’s gallery before showing at Gallery House. 14. On the origins of Gallery House, see the interview with Krauss in There Was an Opening, n.p. John Stezaker remembers that Gallery House, reporting to the German Institute (now Goethe-Institut), was mandated to exhibit German artists. The budgets for U.K. and German artists were separate, and for the latter depended on the support of German galleries and institutions. Stezaker, conversation with the author, March 26, 2015. 15. Stezaker, conversation with the author, March 26, 2015. 16. Walker, Left Shift, 72. 17. Newsheet 1, Gallery House (March 1973), n.p. For a fuller description of Celebration? Realife, see Holert, Marc Camille Chaimowicz: Celebration? Realife. 18. See A. Wilson, “Art:Politics / Theory:Practice,” 135; “Artists’ Union,” 192; and James, Interviews-Artists, 76. 19. The Groundcourse and Pask are connected: in 1962 Ascott invited Pask to give a lecture as part of the course, which had a lasting impact on Willats, then a student at Ealing. Between 1963 and 1964 Willats worked at System Research Ltd. as a weekend assistant. See Mason, Computer in the Art Room, 60, and A. Wilson, “Audience Is the Rationale,” 31. See also Glew, “Transmitting Art Triggers,” 20, and Mallen, “Bridging Computing,” 192.

52  L O ND O N ART WOR LDS

20. On the basic tenets of APG, see Hudek and Sainsbury, “APG Approach.” 21. On Dipper’s placement with Esso, see Hudek and Sainsbury, Individual and the Organisation, 22; “Gallery House London,” unpublished document, Stephen Willats Archive, Rye; and Hudek, “Staging Dissonance,” 322. 22. After the collapse of the first Big Breather at Gallery House, Latham installed another version several months later in the courtyard of Imperial College, not far from Gallery House. 23. Newsheet 2, Gallery House (May 1972), n.p. 24. Ibid. 25. Glew, “Transmitting Art Triggers,” 34 n. 45. 26. “Centre for Behavioural Art: Research Group meeting at 7pm Thur 8th Feb at Gallery House,” typed and annotated document, Stephen Willats Archive, Rye. 27. See the correspondence between O’Connor and Willats in the Stephen Willats Archive, Rye. 28. See the two-page typed and annotated list in the Stephen Willats Archive, Rye. 29. The forms for both libraries are in the Stephen Willats Archive, Rye. 30. See the letter from Stephen Willats to Ross Longhurst, July 19, 1972, revealing that George Mallen’s lecture attracted thirteen people, “three up on the one before,” in the Stephen Willats Archive, Rye. 31. See Kennedy, Last Art College. 32. On the Museum of Normal Art, see Morris and Bonin, Materializing Six Years, 119–21; on the Museum of Conceptual Art, see Marioni, Beer, Art, and Philosophy. 33. Hudek, “Meta-Magazine: Control, 1965–68,” 39. 34. In one instance Willats is introduced as “Steve Willats of the Centre for Behavioural Art,” indicating at least some renown attached to his function as CBA director. See Art and Artists 8, no. 5 (August 1973): 5. 35. Kester, Conversation Pieces, xv. 36. Willats, West London Social Resource Project Public Monitor, n.p. 37. Willats, “West London Social Resource Project,” 25. “The Super Girls,” writes Willats, “were especially important at the participant-gathering stage, completing more successful interviews than male teams by about 50%.” Willats, The Artist as an Instigator, 44. 38. Brooks, Survey of the Avant-Garde in Britain, 1:4. 39. Ibid., 3–7. See also Willats, introduction to The Artist as an Instigator, 11. In addition to the West London project, The Artist as an Instigator exhibition included material related to its smaller version in Oxford, the Oxford Insight Development Project (1972), and the interactive installation Visual Meta Language Simulation, first shown at the Midland Group Gallery in Nottingham in January 1972 as part of Cognition Control. 40. Wilson writes that “Cognition Control Project [was] set up in 1972 as an aspect of Willats’ Centre for Behavioural Art,” which is















not exact, as the Cognition Control at the Midland Group Gallery predated the CBA by several months. See A. Wilson, “Audience Is the Rationale,” 43; also Willats, Cognition Control, n.p. Through Sigi Krauss’s connections to the organizational committee of the Munich Olympics in 1972, Willats developed a project for the Olympics entitled Social Resource Project for Munich Olympics. In the end the committee decided not to support it, since it strayed too far from their desire to have artists “draw, paint, build sculptures or objects in front of the public so that the audience could watch the development of a work of art from the beginning to the end.” Frieder Weber, the committee’s artistic adviser, to Stephen Willats, June 19, 1972, Stephen Willats Archive, Rye. 41. Willats, Cognition Control, n.p; see also Mason, Computer in the Art Room, 76. 42. Press release for Cognition & Control, Midland Group Gallery, Nottingham, January 15–February 5, 1972, Stephen Willats Archive, Rye. The six projects in Nottingham were Mick Burrows’s radio project Mass Media People; Stroud Cornock and Ernest Edmonds’s interactive touring artwork Mind Rover; Jan Kopinski and Andy McKay’s game Minformation Is Coming; David Martin and Jack Shotbolt’s Behavioural Treasure Hunt; Willats’s Social Resource Project for Tennis Clubs and Visual Meta Language Simulator; and Colston Sanger’s Signs, Grips, and Words (see Mason, Computer in the Art Room, 159–60, and Willats, “Cognition and Advertising,” 288–89). Contributors to Cognition Control at Oxford included David Bugden, Don Mason, George Mallen, Colston Sanger, and Stephen Willats. 43. Undated typed manuscript, Stephen Willats Archive, Rye. 44. In the second of the magazine’s two issues, Sanger is listed as editor, and Michael Baldwin and John Stezaker as contributing editors. 45. “Art and Its Behaviourism,” Control 7 (1973), 3–5. For a mention of Lole’s presentation of material at the CBA, see his letter to Stephen Willats, December 17, 1972, Stephen Willats Archive, Rye. 46. Pilkington and Rushton had previously founded and edited the magazine Statements, also based at Lanchester Polytechnic. Kevin Lole, telephone conversation with the author, March 5, 2015. 47. Author’s telephone conversations with Kevin Lole, March 5, 2015; Colston Sanger, March 7 and 21, 2015; and Stezaker, March 26, 2015. 48. See Carey, Survey 69: New Space. 49. See C. Harrison, Idea Structures. Ed Herring, the only artist to have survived the shift from environmental to linguistic conceptual art in the Survey shows, was one of the more progressive artists on the faculty of East Ham Collage of Art and Technology, where he taught, among others, Colston Sanger. 50. “The New Art exhibition . . . was when the ephemeral and the transient aspects of English Conceptual art . . . were officially recognized and arguably recuperated.” W. Wood, “Still You Ask

53  A Porous Entity

















for More,” 66–67. See also Sleeman, “The New Art, Hayward Gallery, London, 1972.” 51. See The New Art. 52. Burgin, Herring, and Stezaker were all included in the second of the three-part exhibition A Survey of the Avant-Garde in Britain (1972). 53. James, Scenes from The Gallery, 9. 54. Brooks, “The New Art,” 153. 55. See Bihari’s critique of behaviorism: “Marshall McLuhan and the Behavioral Sciences.” On the subject of Art & Language and cybernetics, see Shanken, “Art in the Information Age,” 436 in particular, and Mason, Computer in the Room, 141–47. See also The New Art, 111–14. 56. See Buchloh, “Conceptual Art, 1962–1969.” 57. Conversation with the author, March 22, 2015. 58. Briers, “David Briers Interviews Steve Willats,” 21. 59. Willats, Artwork as Social Model, 3D, 8B. 60. Brooks, “Behavioural Art,” 28. Brooks similarly seeks to differentiate Art & Language and Stezaker in “Problem Solving and Question Begging.” 61. It must be noted that Willats himself agreed to be included in kinetic-art exhibitions (such as Electric Theatre at the ICA, March 18–April 18, 1971) and publications (such as the special issue of Studio International, February 1967), as a means of being seen. Willats, conversation with the author, March 22, 2015. 62. Reichardt, “‘Cybernetic Serendipity,’” 176. See also Reichardt, Cybernetics, Art, and Ideas, 11–17. 63. Willats, “‘Stephen Willats: Visual Automatics and Visual Transmitters.’” For a description of these mid-1960s behaviorist works by Willats, see Mellor, Sixties Art Scene in London, 186. 64. Ascott, “Behaviourables and Futuribles,” n.p. 65. Ascott, “Cybernetic Stance,” 106. 66. For a discussion of Cybernetic Serendipity as uncritical, see Mason, Computer in the Art Room, 106–7. The official birth of what would become the Computer Arts Society took place on August 7, 1968, at the International Federation for Information Processing Congress in Edinburgh. See Ford, “Technological Kindergarten,” 168. 67. Mallen, “Bridging Computing,” 192. 68. Mason, Computer in the Art Room, 75–76. 69. For a review of the Oxford Cognition Control, see Conway Lloyd Morgan’s, “Cognition and Control Project.” 70. Following a methodology similar to that of the West London project, the Edinburgh Social Model project was meant to enable participants “to construct a self-articulated, coherent model of their relationship to [the] conventions” that govern “person to person interaction within different social contexts or situations.” Willats, “Edinburgh Project.” See also Irish, “Performance of Information Flows,” 462. 71. See the catalogue for the final exhibition at Gallery House, Some 260 Miles from Here; see also Krauss, There Was an Opening.

72. See Willats to “Alan,” March 17, 1973, Stephen Willats Archive, Rye. The end of the CBA must nonetheless have come relatively rapidly, since a letter from Willats to “Earling” [?] dated March 8, 1973 (Stephen Willats Archive, Rye), informs the recipient that a display of his or her papers will remain on view for at least a month. 73. See Willats to Graham Pullen, May 13, 1973, Stephen Willats Archive, Rye. 74. The “Discussion on Art and Its Social Function” was held on Thursday, May 17, 2:00 p.m. A recording of the exchange, which included Victor Burgin, Kevin Lole, Peter Smith, Nick Waterlow, and Willats, is in the Tate Archive, London. 75. Willats, Cognition Control, n.p. 76. Briers, “David Briers Interviews Steve Willats,” 23. 77. Willats, “Edinburgh Project.” Many years later the artist would phrase the shift in this way: “Instead of me going to a place with a kind of manifesto, a kind of model of what I want to do,

54  L O ND O N ART WOR LDS

I start from zero and allow the work to informally develop its own framework through my connections and relationships with people.” Willats quoted in “In Conversation: A Conversation Between Michael Stanley and Stephen Willats, March 2007,” in Dean and Stanley, Stephen Willats: Person to Person, People to People, 14. 78. Shortly after publishing a special dossier entitled “Art Theory and Practice” in Studio International (December 1973), Sanger enrolled in the M.A. program of the Courtauld Institute of Art (Sanger, conversations with the author, March 7 and 21, 2015). In 1974, after his postgraduate studies at the Slade, Lole moved to Birmingham, where he ended up staying until 1980 (Lole, telephone conversation with the author, March 5, 2015). For Stezaker, the years of Gallery House marked a moment of exploration and drift, which would begin to resolve themselves only after 1975 (Stezaker, conversation with the author, March 26, 2015).

3. 3. 3. 3. 3. 3. 3. 3. 3. 3.

Mapping the City Felipe Ehrenberg in London, 1968–71 Carmen Juliá

A Disobedient Artist In the summer of 1968 a series of student protests

Mexico’s long-ruling state-party regime Partido

were fiercely repressed by the government of Mexican

Revolucionario Institucional (PRI). However, with the

President Gustavo Díaz Ordaz. A section of the army

Summer Olympic Games approaching, President Díaz

irrupted into two of the major universities in Mexico

Ordaz was determined to keep the protests under

City, the Instituto Politécnico Nacional and the

control. Thus, on the evening of October 2, ten days

Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Several

before the opening of the games, government troops

students were arrested, leading to even greater protests

were ordered to fire upon a crowd of unarmed students,

and to the organization of a network of university- and

workers, professors, intellectuals, and passersby that

high-school-student strike committees. Their demands

had gathered in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas in the

included the abolition of penal codes permitting the

neighborhood of Tlatelolco. The massacre marked

arrest of anyone attending a meeting of three or more

the end of the student movement. Over the following

people, improvement of working conditions, access

months, state repression escalated, and several hundred

to education, democratization of the mass media, the

people were imprisoned, forced underground, or exiled.1

end of governmental violence, freedom for political



prisoners, and accountability and punishment of public

then wife the artist and architect Martha Hellion (b.

officials responsible for the repression. The students

1937) fled the country and moved to England, where

soon gained the support of broader sectors of the

they remained until 1974. “The atmosphere was so

population, from workers to intellectuals, challenging

repressive by the end of the year,” Ehrenberg has

In November, Felipe Ehrenberg (b. 1943) and his

recalled, “Martha and I saw no other alternative than

figure who found his own connections by affinity and by

to say goodbye to our families. . . . we got on a plane

instigating collaborations and groupings, most notably

to England together with our two children.” Much of

on his return to Mexico when he became a leading

the organized student opposition had been articulated

figure within the Grupos movement.

through the production of posters, pamphlets, banners,



and flyers, which were distributed thanks to the printing

iment with new formats such as plastics, neon,

facilities found in universities and art schools. Ehrenberg

three-dimensionality, sound and body language, and

and Hellion took part in the student uprising with the

in 1967 he gave his first lecture-performance entitled

production of weekly bulletins that gathered information

Why I Paint What I Paint while standing at the top of a

on recent events. These were translated to different

ladder in La Pérgola gallery. He also took part in some

languages (French, Italian, English, and German) and dis-

of the most controversial exhibitions held in Mexico

tributed to international newspapers. They were part of

City: Confrontación 66 (1966), organized by the Grupo

an organized clandestine group (célula) working against

Ruptura—a group of artists whose only common denomi-

the strong control exercised by the government over the

nator was to differ from the official style of the Escuela

mass media. When the rebellion broke out, the use of

Mexicana de Pintura—and the i Salón Independiente

facilities such as mimeographs or photocopiers became

(1968), an artists’ initiative established in opposition to

high risk, and anyone caught using them was in danger

the control exercised by the state over art institutions and

of imprisonment. It was at this point that Ehrenberg and

to the exclusion of artists experimenting with nontradi-

Hellion decided to leave Mexico. “At the time,” he has

tional media.6 “Painful as that departure may have been,”

recalled, “I only spoke Spanish and English. My wife and I

he has recalled, “leaving home was probably easier for

decided we’d try our luck in England.” They were granted

me than for many other[s]. . . . I had been feeling gradu-

permission to stay in the country under “attenuating

ally more constrained by a very stifling and incestuous

circumstances” and for about two years had to report to

art scene, one which wouldn’t tolerate anybody ‘arting’

the police every week.

differently than the way things were being ‘arted.’ I was



already a disobedient artist and my incipient unortho-

2

3

4

Trained as a painter and a printmaker under “the

By the late 1960s Ehrenberg had begun to exper-

apprentice system,” in a printing shop run by a group of

doxy required an urgent change of scene.”7

émigré Catalan anarcho-syndicalists, Ehrenberg learned



from artists such as Mathias Goeritz, the muralist

direction of Ehrenberg’s work. First in London and later

José Chávez Morado, and the experimental sculptor

in Devon, he engaged in a series of activities such as the

Feliciano Béjar, as well as from his mother’s “marvelous

production of a number of conceptually based works

collections of what people call folk art.” The fact that he

exploring art and its contexts, Fluxus Happenings and

did not attend art school meant that he was to remain

performances, and the search for alternative means

outside generational groupings, always an independent

of distribution through the creation of independent

5

56  L O ND O N ART WOR LDS

The experience of exile in England changed the

publishing and mail-art networks. “My production during

number of artists coming from different countries,

those six years,” he has noted, “consisted mainly of test

many of whom established themselves in the capital

flights, a giant collection of blueprints for what was to

for longer or shorter periods, evolving a dynamism that

come years later. . . . None of the work I produced in

found its driving force in “the interface between artistic

Europe dealt even remotely with the quality of a finished

innovation and transnationalism.”13 Between 1966 and

object; it was all about ideas.” Instigating what he

1976 the presence of artists coming to London from

referred to as “a rebellion against the art establishment

different countries in Latin America was quite remark-

scene [and] all those moulds that impose their specula-

able. The capital was host to artists as diverse as Diego

tive limitations on the producers and consumers of art,”

Barboza, David Lamelas, Leopoldo Maler, Hélio Oiticica,

Ehrenberg’s activities in England must be understood in

and Cecilia Vicuña, who came to London under very dif-

opposition to the establishment, the mainstream, and

ferent circumstances. They contributed to the hybridity

the institution, a resistance characterized by the loss of

of a decentralized and diversified local art scene that, as

stability that accompanies the experience of exile, which

Ehrenberg has recalled, “was generous, hospitable, and

translated into the improvised nature of his work.

curious,” thus enabling them to continue to experiment



In contrast to Mexico City, London appeared as

with their work.14 Institutions like Camden Arts Centre,

“the most exciting, stimulating and democratic place.”10

Whitechapel Art Gallery, and the ICA held exhibitions

The city was perceived as a place for experimenta-

of many of these artists, while alternative venues such

tion, traditional media were increasingly subjected

as the New Drury Lane Arts Lab, Sigi Krauss Gallery,

to critical analysis, and modernism appeared to have

and the Art Meeting Place became places to experi-

finally exhausted itself. According to Guy Brett, there

ment and exchange ideas.15 Community festivals such

were “exhibitions charged with energy which were

as Camden Arts Festival and the Festival of Life held at

memorable for the freedom they gave the artists to

Alexandra Park opened their works to collaboration and

experiment.” John A. Walker has described the turn

served to connect with local communities.16

of the decade as a “period of expanded materials/



media: instead of pigment and clay, many artists began

work. For example, after the tragic events in Chile of

to employ banners, bodily waste, books, concepts/

September 1973, Vicuña’s work became more politi-

language, flags, film, mixed media installations, mirrors,

cized.17 She was one of the founding members of Artists

patchwork, performance, photocopies, photography,

for Democracy, and most of her work during that time

photomontage, posters, the postal system, sound and

was a direct attack on Pinochet’s coup d’état. Oiticica

video.” “Dazzled by the swirl of new ideas,” Ehrenberg

experienced a period of transition, from works that

soon found himself on the fringes of an incipient art

were centered on openness and participation to more

scene constituted outside official circuits and, according

obscure work such as Nitro Benzol & Black Linoleum

to Brett, shaped by the movements of an increasing

(1969), a script for an unrealized cinema experiment

8

9

11

12

57  Mapping the City

In turn, the city had different effects on their

in which the artist instructs the audience to sniff

who had died, suffered imprisonment, or been exiled

nitrobenzol, recline on cushions covered with black

after the massacre of Tlatelolco.19

linoleum, and surrender themselves to the experience of free experiment while watching the film. In contrast, Barboza’s time in London provided an opportunity to

The City as the Stage for Art

experiment with a more performative approach to art, and influenced by Oiticica’s Whitechapel Experiment,

“Within a few months after arriving in England—

he embarked on a series of experiences or collective

wham-o!—homesickness hit me,” Ehrenberg has noted,

public actions that included the participation of pass-

and he recollects “gagging over the rat race for gallery

ersby. In addition, surveys dedicated to art from Latin

recognition, [finding] it very difficult to pick up what

America, such as From Figuration Art to Systems Art

seemed a chaos of loose threads. Soon though, some

in Argentina, organized by Jorge Glusberg at Camden

semblance of order gradually became visible.”20 The

Arts Centre in 1971 in collaboration with the Centro de

precariousness inflicted by his condition as an immi-

Arte y Comunicación in Buenos Aires, and Art Systems

grant, together with the dissatisfaction he found in

in Latin America, held at the ICA in 1974, introduced to

the boundaries imposed by the establishment and the

London audiences the latest developments in art from

traditional definitions of art and its contexts, made him

Argentina.

reassess his condition as an artist. In an attempt to



evolve new means of expression that challenged the

In 1971 Ehrenberg began to record the influx of

artists passing through London, publishing the maga-

traditional relationship between artist, work, and spec-

zine Documento Trimestral (or DT: Delirium Tremens, as

tator, he took to the street as an alternative location for

he referred to it), a platform to distribute the works of

his work, engaging in a series of activities driven by an

Latin American authors or artists living in or passing

increasing rejection of the object, favoring ephemeral

through England. The intention behind such an initiative

acts, and using his body as a portable tool—the only

was to build up a network of exchange between those

one he had left.

who, coming from different parts of the continent, “find



themselves in the very same geographic spot united

in which he found himself, the city emerged as a site

by the simple—mysterious—fact of being contempo-

of negotiation upon which to recode and rebuild his

In the process of understanding the new context

raneous to each other.” This was the first document

condition as an artist. “Instead of a studio space,” he

published by the Beau Geste Press, using a secondhand

has written, “anything can become the studio, a friend’s

Gestetner duplicator that Ehrenberg purchased shortly

house, a refugee camp, the streets of the unknown city

after his arrival in London. The fact that these machines

. . . instead of art tools and materials, any tool, any mate-

were banned in Mexico moved him to acquire one. He

rial.”21 Accordingly, Ehrenberg’s works in London are

regarded this “kind gesture” as a homage to all those

inextricably linked to the fabric of the city: to its streets

18

58  L O ND O N ART WOR LDS

Fig. 3.1 Felipe Ehrenberg, A Stroll in July, or One Thursday Afternoon, or Half Day in London, or (The) Afternoon, or . . . Topology of Sculpture, 1970.

and passersby, to its infrastructures and institutions, to

the internal feelings and thoughts of the artist as well

its social reality, and, more importantly, to the artist’s

as the external aspects of his experience during the

experience of all of them.

walk. His notes read, for example: “Mementos (Hyde



Park 16:45) Mnemonic, Memory, Time”; “Time only is

In the afternoon of July 30, 1970, Ehrenberg left his

basement flat in Islington and went for a stroll. For six

memory and memory is what makes time (stoned)”; and

consecutive hours he walked through the city, “follow-

“Physical fatigue = My feet hurt” (fig. 3.2). The postcards

ing chance.” Later he documented the walk on a map,

give evidence of the action: “Its existence,” he wrote,

tracing with a red ballpoint pen the route he had taken

“was certified by the British Post Office in the form of

(fig. 3.1). During the walk, he methodically mailed to

five postcards posted at various points along the walk”

himself a series of postcards that incorporated found

(fig. 3.3).22

objects and debris he encountered along the way,



together with drawings and annotations that recorded

or One Thursday Afternoon, or Half Day in London, or (The)

59  Mapping the City

The work appeared under the title of A Stroll in July,

Fig. 3.2 Felipe Ehrenberg, A Stroll in July, or One Thursday Afternoon, or Half Day in London, or (The) Afternoon, or . . . Topology of Sculpture, 1970.

Fig. 3.3 Felipe Ehrenberg, A Stroll in July, or One Thursday Afternoon, or Half Day in London, or (The) Afternoon, or . . . Topology of Sculpture, 1970.

Afternoon, or . . . Topology of Sculpture (1970) and through

the artist’s experience of a time and a place and on his

it, Ehrenberg introduced a new notion of the sculptural

capacity to record this experience through postcards,

work as the documentation of both the physical move-

objects, ideas, and associations that would assist him

ment of the body and its emotional response to the

in remembering it. Ultimately, the work was a form of

environment. “If the definition of a sculpture,” he wrote,

self-documentation that acted in two different direc-

“is accepted to be the focusing of physical action/

tions: on the one hand, it indicated a direct engagement

movement by a mental/creative effort resulting in a

with the understanding of the new surroundings from

form, a walk is a sculpture.” The walk could be repeated

the position of a marginal figure, the foreigner, and on

by anyone accepting this definition; the route could be

the other hand, it was coupled with a desire to surpass

the same he had taken or a different one. However, as

the strictures imposed by modernist categories and

the artist stated, “the main bulk of the work, being of a

to broaden traditional attitudes toward the very same,

mnemonic nature, is subjective and thus not relevant to

primarily in the context of expanding definitions in the

this report.” Therefore, the work’s main focus was on

field of sculpture.

23

60  L O ND O N ART WOR LDS



A few months later, on October 8, 1970, Ehrenberg,

works lacked the critical attitude that lay behind the

accompanied by a fellow Mexican, photographer

Situationists’ immersions in the city. The impetus

and theater artist Rodolfo “Laus” Alcaraz, embarked

behind them rose from his condition as a migrant and

on a nearly eighteen-hour journey on the London

the necessity to get to know his surroundings through

Underground, from the time it opened until it closed.

the physical inspection of the city and the behaviors of

Tube-O-Nauts’ Travels, a Voyage Under London (1970)

the individuals he confronted on the way. As Lucy R.

encompasses a great variety of documentation, from

Lippard has observed, a true sense of place is a virtual

underground maps, travel schedules, graphs, and photo-

immersion, rooted in live experience, political commit-

graphs to audio recordings of newspaper headlines read

ment, and a topographical familiarity.25 “Even if one’s

by other passengers, details of activities, and physical

history there is short,” Lippard writes, “a place can

and psychological changes undergone by the artists (fig.

still be felt as an extension of the body, especially the

3.4). The work adopts the shape of sociological research,

walking body, passing through and becoming part of

denoting an obsession with theoretical methodologies

the landscape.”26 This can be understood as a survival

to document the impact of the environment on the emo-

technique whereby visual and sensory experiences are

tions and behaviors of the individual, whether the artist

gathered in works that become the means to satisfy

or the passerby he confronts (fig. 3.5).

the artist’s need to find a sense of locality or belonging



within the newly found environment.

Cuauhtémoc Medina has observed some similar-

ities between Ehrenberg’s walks and the Situationists’ dérives—where chance is the guiding principle across the urban fabric—as well as with the work of Vito

The One-Eyed Look at Art

Acconci, Stanley Brouwn, and Richard Long.24 Indeed, the adoption of the walk as an art form in the mid-1960s

Ehrenberg considers artists to be a vital part of the com-

challenged modes of engagement with the experi-

munity. Inspired by an older generation including Diego

ences of daily-life spaces by scrutinizing the accepted

Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, David Alfaro Siqueiros,

definition of sculpture. The inclusion of a durational

Frida Kahlo, and Dr. Atl, all of whom he has described as

dimension in the work meant that the artist experience

“intensely political animals,” Ehrenberg defined artists

became the means to depict time and space. For the

as “the spokespeople of society.”27 “They’re not a part

viewer, this experience can only exist through the art-

of society’s superstructure,” he has noted, “[they’re]

ist’s recollection and therefore as projected imagination.

infrastructure,” and he maintains that art, and in par-



ticular modern Mexican art, is “especially committed

Ehrenberg’s walks shared some of the conceptual

strategies of his contemporaries such as annotation,

to cultivating our links to the whole of society.”28 The

the use of maps, and the fulfillment of a self-imposed

tradition of mural painting considered artists as active

activity within a series of parameters. However, his

participants in social change, for which the artwork

61  Mapping the City

Fig. 3.4 Felipe Ehrenberg, Tube-O-Nauts’ Travels, a Voyage Under London, 1970.

Fig. 3.5 Felipe Ehrenberg, Tube-O-Nauts’ Travels, a Voyage Under London, 1970.

served as a model and a catalyst. The conviction that art activity could actually influence people’s behavior and prompt a change in society led Ehrenberg to engage in a series of actions both to challenge the nature of the artwork and to alter the actual contexts within which the work operated.29

During 1970 he attended the printmaking class

run by the Portuguese artist Bartolomeu dos Santos at the Slade School of Art. Although he never enrolled, he was allowed to use the printing facilities. At the Slade he met Stuart Brisley, then a student adviser and tutor. Through Brisley he learned about the International Coalition for the Liquidation of Art, “a small cadre of dedicated revolutionary artists from Britain, America and other countries,” founded in Amsterdam toward the end of the summer of 1970.30 A network that moved away from a specific concern with making objects, the coalition’s main claim was to destroy all art in order to start a regeneration of the system of production and distribution. Underlined with an ecological concern in part inspired by the success of Earth Day, the coalition denounced an overproduction of art objects that were “polluting the world.”31 Art, they asserted, had been taken to “the end of the road. It is a static thing. The final result (and we really mean final) of creativity today is art pollution.” Accordingly, artists were summoned to

could be interpreted as a continuation of the Festival

“liquidate the art world by demonstrating at museums,

of Auto-Destructive Art and the three-day Destruction

galleries, and auction houses until they closed their

in Art symposium held at the Africa Centre in 1966,

doors. The artist must liquidate the art world by shut-

which created a series of “participation-situations” and,

ting down everything from art magazines to art councils

through artists, writers, psychologists, sociologists, and

because they were the tools of an irrelevant society.”

other scientists, examined the relationship between the



act of violence and the conditions of modern society in

32

In London the driving force behind the coalition was

Gustav Metzger, and to some extent his involvement

63  Mapping the City

an attempt to link theoretical issues of destruction with

Fig. 3.6 A Date with Fate at the Tate, or Tate Bait, 1970 (from left to right, Stuart Brisley, Felipe Ehrenberg, Sigi Krauss, and John Plant).

actual destruction taking part in society, science, and

noted; “the poor custodian was exasperated. He finally

art. Ehrenberg was particularly attracted to Metzger’s

asked me ‘but WHY do you want to come in like that?’ I

“Auto-Destructive Art Manifesto” (1959), which

said ‘Well, because I’m a work of art.’ And that’s where

proposed a new way of making art, so that it would

he found the perfect answer. He said ‘Well, works of art

dematerialize through its making, the object destroyed

are not allowed in the Tate unless by permission of the

as it was created. The intention was to leave nothing

Board of Trustees.’ He was right, of course, but with that

that could contribute to the marketization of art.

phrase by a Tate employee, I had been acknowledged



as a work of art! At that time, statements were works of

In the morning of October 20, 1970, artists around

the world were urged to “demonstrate their opposition

art.”36 Eventually, Ehrenberg removed the pillow from

to the present systems of art production consump-

his head and was allowed to enter the gallery where

tion and manipulation.” Under the current system of

the curators Ronald Alley and Michael Compton had

production and distribution of art, artists were unable

allocated a room for the coalition to carry out their

to connect with society in a meaningful way. Therefore,

demonstration. In 1971 Ehrenberg donated the sound

the only way out of that situation was the closure of the

recording to the Tate Archive under the title A Date with

hegemonic centers and the consequent abolition of the

Fate at the Tate, and a photograph of him standing at

concept of art that was heralded by them.

the entrance of the Tate Gallery with Brisley, Krauss,



and Plant was published with the title Tate Bait in the

33

“I suddenly became very interested in the idea,”

Ehrenberg has recalled; “they were going to hold a

catalogue of the exhibition Fluxshoe organized by David

meeting at the Tate and I thought, well, if I’m going to

Mayor in 1972 (fig. 3.6).

the Tate, I’ll perform the way people look at art, which



is with one eye . . . a one-eyed look at art!”34 He took

Brussels, Paris, and New York. In the latter city a number

a pillowcase and cut out a couple of holes, one for the

of American radical groups such as the Art Workers’

eye and one for the mouth. At the Tate Gallery—“the

Coalition, the New York Art Strike, Women Artists in

headquarters of the British Modern Art system”—he

Revolution, the SoHo Artists Association, and Citizens

joined Metzger, Brisley, Sigi Krauss, and John Plant with

for Artists Association occupied the Metropolitan

the intention of engaging staff and visitors in a debate

Museum Great Hall, demanding “a new and greater role

to demonstrate their opposition to “the commercial-

for the artist in society.”37 They condemned the insti-

isation of art, and other evils of society.”35 However,

tutional mechanisms of exclusion and the institutions’

Ehrenberg, who was wearing the pillowcase over his

complicity in racism, sexism, repression, and war, as

head, was refused entrance to Tate. He was carrying a

well as their political and economic dependence, which

tape recorder and engaged in a lengthy argument with

was disguised under an apparent status of autonomy,

the guard who would not allow him to go in. “A crowd

and made a number of demands: “equal representation

gathered around us and the cops were called in,” he has

for women, more opportunities for ethnic minorities,

65  Mapping the City

Demonstrations also took place in Amsterdam,

and the reduction in the elitism and power of major

complexities. I am the product of my place and time,”

museums in order to decentralize culture and resources

he has noted, and “I have felt it possible to affect my

to local communities.”

historic moment.”40 In this respect, the industrial unrest



that unraveled in Britain at the turn of the decade was to

38

In contrast, Ehrenberg’s action appears to follow in

the steps of the Situationists’ strategies to disrupt the

add another dimension to the direction that Ehrenberg’s

public order and behavior and to subvert the uses and

work was adopting in London.

constrictions of public space. However, his “one-eyed



look at art” was not intended to cause such disruption;

artists engaged more readily in the production of

it was aimed at exposing the Eurocentric universalist

collaborative work, community arts, participatory art,

gaze held by hegemonic institutions, such as the Tate

or art activism. The social and political turmoil that the

Gallery, that excluded non-Western art from their

country was undergoing, specifically in London, created

collections. Furthermore, the fact that he was refused

“a space for experimental art, particularly, art that could

entry on the grounds of being a “work of art” pointed to

utilize the detritus (both ideological and actual) of the

the connections between the dominant cultural centers

city.”41 For Andrew Wilson, the turn of the decade wit-

and an elite class that determined what art was. The

nessed the radicalization of many artists, who became

call for the destruction of the museum and the gallery

self-consciously politically minded, “reflecting a move

ultimately acknowledged that the arena where the

from an art that questioned the condition of art to one

encounter between the viewer and the aesthetic object

that questioned the role of art within society.”42 The

took place could never be considered a neutral space.

political panorama was difficult to ignore. The misman-



agement of the economy by Harold Wilson’s Labour

On a personal level, the repercussion that the work

According to Courtney J. Martin, from 1968 on,

had, both in the media and as the events were unfolding

government, as well as the increasing number of unof-

outside Tate, determined the direction his practice was

ficial strikes, resulted in the Conservative Party’s rise to

taking in London, abandoning traditional media in favor of

power in the 1970 general election. The Conservatives

experimental and unmediated art forms that could have a

inherited a weak economy and the same sense of social

direct impact on the reality that surrounded him.

unrest that had characterized the final years of Wilson’s

39

government: rising unemployment, labor riots, inflation, and the disruption of basic services such as sanitation The Context of Art

were commonplace throughout the decade.

In October 1970 Ehrenberg founded the Polygonal

Ehrenberg often regards his work as consequent to the

Workshop with the Austrian artist Richard Kriesche

context that surrounds him. His art is indelibly branded

and “Laus” Alcaraz, both living in London. They were

by his reality “in a multitudinous and imperfect soci-

later joined by the French film photographer Serge

ety, which is, nonetheless, fresh and powerful in its

Halsdorf, the Paris-based American film student Peter

66  L O ND O N ART WOR LDS

Conn, the London-based American artist Roy Lekus, and

debate. Throughout the film the role of art is discussed.

the Austrian artist Rudolfine Well. “A short-lived but

“Art,” Ehrenberg states, “is anything that breaks with

very intense experience in group art,” the Polygonal

your programmations, anything that jolts you, pushes

Workshop defined itself as “an international group of

you, catalyzes you, out of a set mode of behavior.”

artists who work in coordination with each other.”44

For him, the accumulation of garbage in the streets

Kriesche and Ehrenberg were the driving force behind

proved that any creation achieves its own autonomy,

the group. They had met at the Slade, where Kriesche

and allowed him to introduce the difference between

was studying with a scholarship.

creation and art, which he regarded as opposites.



“Creation,” he states, “is organic, it is internal matter.

43

The Polygonal Workshop was initiated as a reaction

to a series of huge strikes by waste collectors that,

Art is a historic definition—a solidifying element. The

between 1968 and 1970, left the city’s streets piled high

trash should point to a way out of this ossification.”47

with decaying rubbish. In October 1970 Ehrenberg and



Kriesche started to record the rubbish-strewn streets of

than art, a concept that incorporated nonartistic ele-

North London in what became their first work together,

ments, such as the coordination of a complex system

the Garbage Walk, which is documented in the film It’s a

of activities that were occurring in a social reality and

Sort of Disease Part ii. In the film, Ehrenberg follows and

that encompassed people, places, objects, time, or

details the growth and accumulation of twelve piles of

detritus. The distinction between “creativity,” denoting

rubbish left in the streets. Edited by Peter Conn and Roy

the energy that drives action, and “art,” a term that had

Lekus at François Reichenbach’s studios in Paris with a

too many historical connotations to produce anything

soundtrack specially composed by Cesare Massarenti,

new, was further explored by Ehrenberg in 1973, when

the film was labeled “la poubelle.”45 Ehrenberg has

he wrote: “What allows creativity to transcend immedi-

recalled how the film was made: “We began to measure

ate communication is the conscience that everyone is a

the increase in trash, marking with white spray paint

mirror that reflects the demands of society, of their own

each pile of rubbish [fig. 3.7], and after using many rolls

context. One’s creativity concentrates these demands

of film and lots of spray paint, the strike was settled.

like a laser ray and turns them into symbols. And these

Then we were able to freely discuss matters, like the

symbols, re-ordered by intuition, by perception, sharpen

necessity to defining a relation between the artist and

the reactions of society and catalyse them.”48 Thus the

society, which inevitably influences the work. Everything

role of the artist becomes that of the catalyst between

was discussed in-depth, as our action was the result of

the individual and society and the tool to implement this

a social crisis: the strike.” The inclusion of a nonartistic

relationship is creativity. In November 1970, a month

situation in a clearly artistic context, in order to prompt

after beginning the garbage project, the Polygonal

a primarily social and political discussion, pointed to

Workshop organized a walk to follow the route marked

the very real possibility that art could engage in social

by the piles of garbage and observe the changes that

46

67  Mapping the City

For Ehrenberg, creativity was a broader concept

Fig. 3.7 Polygonal Workshop, Garbage Walk, 1970.

had occurred since they first marked their contours

in making public all the group’s notes, photographs,

on the streets. The tour started at Sigi Krauss’s frame

tapes, and transcriptions collected during the research

shop–cum–art gallery in Covent Garden, where maps

into the strike, what Ehrenberg later described as the

indicating the locations of the piles of garbage were

“vestiges of urban archaeology” (fig. 3.8).50

provided to the participants.





and the yellow room. In the latter, twelve packaged per-

In February 1971 the Polygonal Workshop presented

The gallery was split into two spaces: the workshop

to the public their first collaboration, under the title The

ishable goods were displayed throughout the duration

Seventh Day Chicken: Polygonal Workshop Investigates

of their decomposition, or, as the group explained, “as

Garbage, at Sigi Krauss Gallery. Ehrenberg referred to

they fulfil[led] their potential as rubbish.” The group

the exhibition as a non–art show, “an activity, an act of

recorded the transformation from goods to garbage, a

creation, but not an artwork.” It included a situation,

process that was intended to act as a “triggering device,

films, and other catalysts, and once again it required the

a catalyst, for dialogue between the public and the

audience to participate actively. The situation consisted

Polygonal Workshop.” In the adjacent room, they set up

49

68  L O ND O N ART WOR LDS

Fig. 3.8 Polygonal Workshop, Garbage Walk, 1970.

an office, adopting an aesthetic of administrative and

art object had been transformed into an event, and any

legal organization. They produced an unlimited edition

sense of distance that had previously been maintained

of miniature rubbish bags, which were sold to help

between it and the audience collapsed into a form of

recoup their expenses, the intention being to demon-

exchange between the viewer and the artist that, in the

strate that if any art objects were to exist, they should

context of the strike, held the possibility for a critical

not be produced as commodities; instead, they should

reexamination of the self and society.

fulfill real and immediate needs. Accordingly, they



During the situation at Sigi Krauss, Ehrenberg met

performed an official transference-and-sale act under

David Mayor, then a student at Exeter University who

the slogan “You can buy your collaboration with us.”

was working on the organization of a Fluxus exhibition.52

People had to queue up and fill out a form and have it

He immediately identified similarities between the

stamped by Kriesche and later certified by Ehrenberg.

Polygonal Workshop’s activities and those of Fluxus,

The situation provided a way to fulfill the negation of

particularly the way the “situation” responded to and

any artistic or other form of prior categorization. The

questioned the prevailing social, cultural, and artistic

51

69  Mapping the City

climate, creating works that were ephemeral, interac-

circuits of distribution meant that artists could more

tive, and, to some extent, humorous. Soon thereafter,

easily establish their careers from the periphery. In 1970

in June 1971, Mayor invited the Polygonal Workshop

Kynaston McShine acknowledged this new situation

to organize a situation in Exeter, which was presented

in the catalogue of the exhibition Information, held at

at the city’s library under the title A Sightseeing Tour in

the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He wrote:

Exeter. It consisted of a series of oral and visual rec-

“Exchange with their peers is now comparatively simple.

ollections of the artists’ walks in and around the city.

. . . Increasingly artists use the mail, telegrams, telex

This was the first in a series of collaborations between

machines, etc., for transmission of works themselves—

Mayor and Ehrenberg; it was through Mayor that

photographs, films, documents, etc.—or of information

Ehrenberg first heard about Fluxus.

about their activity. For both artists and their public, it is a stimulating and open situation, and certainly less parochial than even five years ago. It is no longer imper-

Networks and Beyond

ative for an artist to be in Paris or New York. Those far from the ‘art centres’ contribute more easily, without

By the end of 1971 Ehrenberg had radicalized his position

the often artificial protocol that at one time seemed

against the mainstream even further, and pointing a way

essential for recognition.”54 Ehrenberg was aware of

toward regionalism and localism, he embarked on an

the new international networks of exchange that were

attack against London—and, more specifically, “against

being set up around the world through mail art. In 1970

London’s impositions (read New York, Mexico City,

he contributed to the iii Salón Independiente in Mexico

Cologne, Milan, etc)”—in the search for what he defined

City a work that made use of the postal service, Obra

as “little centres of activity that spring up outside and

secretamente titulada Arriba y Adelante . . . y si no, pos

beyond the borders of the enemy camp, using it rather

también (Work secretly titled upward and forward . . .

than being used by it.” “What actually ties artists to

whether you like it or not).55 It consisted of two hundred

the city?” he wondered; “high rents put a ridiculous

postcards that, when arranged together, made up the

premium on much-needed space, if it’s found. Privacy

image of a naked woman holding one breast with one

turns out to be loneliness, and the high costs of living

hand and a football with the other (in allusion to the

further psyches the artist into unnecessary—and what’s

football World Cup that was held in Mexico that year).

worse—distracting worries (neurosis is seldom the

The image was taken from an English soft-porn mag-

mother of creation).”53

azine printed on the occasion of the World Cup, and



the title made reference to Luis Echevarría’s presiden-

Decentralization and internationalism were major

aspects of the prevailing theories on the distribution of

tial campaign, in which the politician finished each

art. Increasing circulation of new formats and alterna-

speech with the phrase: “With the constitution of 1917,

tive networks of exchange that bypassed the hegemonic

upward and forward.”56 The phrase came to symbolize

70  L O ND O N ART WOR LDS

Echevarría’s call for equality, better jobs, education for

acknowledged, became crucial amid the political prose-

all, housing for workers, universal health care, and land

cution and the oppression employed by the increasingly

distribution, all of which were lacking or nonexistent

repressive regimes in Latin America.59

in rural Mexico at the time.57 Ehrenberg’s coupling of



Echevarría’s words with an image of a naked woman to

exchange proved crucial when, in 1971, Hellion and

promote the World Cup was not only a provocative ges-

Ehrenberg finally decided to leave London after their

ture but also a firm repudiation of Echevarría’s populist

children suffered an episode of racial abuse. Encouraged

rhetoric, which could not conceal his involvement in the

by Mayor and the poet Christopher Gibbs, they moved

massacre of Tlatelolco. The inclusion of a reference to

to Cullompton, Devon. There they envisioned setting up

the World Cup ultimately pointed at the Olympics and

a community of artists and craftsmen who would live

at the PRI’s responsibility for the events at Tlatelolco,

together, working both independently and as a group—a

and it was also intended to expose the shortfalls of the

community that would stand against the institutional-

Mexican postal system. The artist expected the work

ization of art that, according to Ehrenberg, was to blame

to be censored (therefore the second half of the title,

for the limitations of artistic autonomy. Together with

“whether you like or not”). He instructed that the work

Mayor, the cartoonist Chris Welch, and his partner,

be assembled on a red board; therefore, for every miss-

Madeleine Gallard, they founded Beau Geste Press, an

ing postcard, a red space would disrupt the image. The

alternative press for artists’ books and other collabo-

art critic and Marxist theorist Alberto Híjar assembled

rations.60 “A Community of Duplicators, Printers, And

the work in Mexico, and Ehrenberg specifically asked for

Artisans,” he wrote, “Our Press is not a Business, It’s

the public to take part in this action.

a way of life.”61 The press used mimeograph to pro-



duce concept booklets and pamphlets, magazines,

Ehrenberg’s involvement in networks of exchange

These experiences of building networks of

preceded his arrival in London. While still in Mexico, he

and artists’ books in limited editions. They worked in

was a regular collaborator with the magazine El Corno

collaboration with artists who would come and stay in

Emplumado / The Plumed Horn, directed by the North

Langford Court South, the old farmhouse where they

American author Margaret Randall and the poet Sergio

lived. For Ehrenberg, collaboration was crucial, and the

Mondragón, a poetry magazine edited in both English

final product was always the result of a shared experi-

and Spanish and distributed throughout the Americas

ence: living together in Langford Court South.

and Spain, thus establishing a network of distribution



and collaboration between poets and writers that,

Carrión and Pepe Maya from Mexico, Claudio Bertoni

according to Cuauhtémoc Medina, can be seen as a

and Cecilia Vicuña from Chile, Riyoo & Hiroko Koike and

precedent for the constitution of international networks

Yukio Tsuchiya from Japan, and Kristjan Gudmundsson

of artistic exchange promoted by mail art and artists’

from Iceland, to name just a few. There were also col-

books. These were networks that, as Hellion later

laborations with British artists, such as Opal L. Nations,

58

71  Mapping the City

The press published books by artists such as Ulises

filmmaker Michael Leggett, music critic and composer

the periphery, near the university town of Xalapa, and

Michael Nyman, and the poets Allen Fisher and Michael

set up the press Libro Acción Libre and continued his

Gibbs. They published books by Ehrenberg and his

collaborations with Beau Geste Press until Mayor, who

children, Yael and Matthias, as well as seven issues of

was struggling financially to keep it running, moved to

the magazine Schmuck; collective anthologies dedi-

London in August 1976 and closed the press. In Mexico

cated to countries including Czechoslovakia, France,

all the ideas and experiences that he had developed

Germany, Iceland, and Hungary; and an unfinished one

in England took on radically different meanings and

dedicated to Latin America. Schmuck was compiled

applications. The experience with the small press, for

through mail-art networks and as such was regarded as

instance, turned into a social and educational project

a place for art itself, rather than merely for reproduction,

that led him to set up more than eight hundred collec-

commentary, and promotion.

tive community printing presses all over the country,



The independent press was a response to the

in particular in schools in rural areas, where he taught

uniformity in taste and the cultural monopoly held by

students to produce and distribute their own publica-

publishers, galleries, and curators. In a letter to Paul

tions. His experience of collaborative work with the

Brown at Transgravity magazine, Ehrenberg explained:

Polygonal Workshop paved the way to his involve-

“the main reason we (anybody) set up our press was to

ment, in 1973, in the founding of the Grupo Proceso

cut out all the grievous bullshit about submitting work

Pentágono—along with Victor Muñoz, Carlos Finck, and

‘for consideration’ . . . the act of submitting work of any

José Antonio Hernández Amezcua, an openly political

sort for the approval of any editor carries implicitly a

group whose members chose to call themselves “cul-

series of concessionary attitudes, detrimental to the

tural workers” instead of artists and whose works often

work.”62 According to him, art could influence society

denounced the political situation in Mexico—which in

only after the links with the market were severed, and

turn led to the development of los Grupos, and in 1978

the only way to achieve this goal was for artists to

he was a contributor to the Frente Mexicano de Grupos

regain control over the production and distribution of

Trabajadores de la Cultura Mexicana.64 Through these

their own work. “We work within the satisfying bound-

initiatives, Ehrenberg supported a variety of popular

aries of an operation sponsored by no one,” he wrote,

movements to address issues such as urban property,

“and thus not committed to any pressure but that of

repression, corruption, environmental destruction, and

meaningful survival.” Ultimately, the press provided

U.S. imperialism. In a letter to David Mayor, Ehrenberg

a space where artists could free themselves from the

explained his position: “Outside the art market is diffi-

expectations of the art market and immerse themselves

cult to make a living, but I am making the point, little by

in the making of their work.

little: recuperating control of one’s own production is a



key step in de-mediatizing our professional presence in

63

Ehrenberg remained in England until the spring of

1974, when he returned to Mexico. There he settled in

72  L O ND O N ART WOR LDS

these dependent countries like Mexico.”65



Ehrenberg’s activities in London challenged the

with Fate at the Tate—a collection of encounters that

commercial approach to art as a commodity and

ultimately draw a portrait of the artist as a marginal

aroused many questions on single authorship, col-

figure trying to come to terms with his condition as a

laboration, and audience participation. His works

migrant and that led him to reassess his position as an

were characterized by a desire to remain outside the

artist. “I was working under duress,” he has recalled;

mainstream and to surpass the constraints of dom-

“nothing had prepared me to question the one thing I

inant culture. They remain inextricably linked to his

had never expected to doubt: my chosen profession, my

experience of London, which was materialized in an

role as an artist.”66

obsession with collecting, from the random annotations and objects he encountered in A Stroll in July to the recordings of his encounters with passersby in the Tube-O-Nauts’ Travels or with the authorities in A Date

Notes



1. McCaughan, “Signs of the Times.” 2. Ehrenberg, “1960 and a Bit More,” 162. 3. Students from the Escuela Nacional de Pintura, Escultura y Grabado, known as La Esmeralda, and from the Escuela Nacional de Pintura of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México were particularly involved in the production of posters and flyers that were distributed by the Consejo Nacional de Huelga (National Strike Council). They produced linotypes that were pasted in different locations throughout the city, and adopted a visual language drawn from the social-realist style developed during the 1930s by the Taller de Gráfica Popular, combined with the hard edges and plain colors characteristic of pop style, which allowed for a clear and direct message. 4. Asbury, Fraser, Iñigo Clavo, and Whitelegg, “Interview with Felipe Ehrenberg,” 3–4. 5. Gilbert, “Eclectic World of Felipe Ehrenberg.” 6. The i Salón Independiente originated in opposition to the government’s initiative to organize an exhibition (Exposición Solar) that, coinciding with the Olympics, would showcase the achievements of Mexican visual culture. The exhibition found strong opposition from artists such as Rufino Tamayo, Carlos Mérida, Jesús Reyes Ferreira, Gunther Gerzso, Leonora Carrington, José Luís Cuevas, Albero Gironella, Rafael Coronel, Enrique Echeverría, Francisco Corzas, and Rodolfo Nieto, among others. They found the criteria to select the work problematic, as it called for artists working only with traditional media and formats. The first salón opened to the public on October 15, only two weeks after the massacre

73  Mapping the City



of Tlatelolco, at the Centro Cultural Isidro Fabela, or Casa del Risco. Despite the student uprising, most artists participating in the salón did not align themselves explicitly with the movement, nor were they intending to boycott the Olympic Games. They were reacting against the government control over the criteria to define what art was. For more information, see García de Germenos, “Salón Independiente: Una relectura.” 7. White, e-interview with Felipe Ehrenberg, Stuart Reid, and Barry McCallion on Fluxshoe. 8. Ehrenberg, “East and West—the Twain Do Meet.” 9. Felipe Ehrenberg, Beau Geste Press leaflet, undated, Tate Gallery Archive. 10. White, e-interview with Felipe Ehrenberg, Stuart Reid, and Barry McCallion on Fluxshoe. 11. Brett, “Internationalism Among Artists in the 60s and 70s,” 112. 12. Walker, Left Shift, 7. 13. Ehrenberg, “East and West—the Twain Do Meet,” and Brett, “Internationalism Among Artists in the 60s and 70s,” 111. 14. Felipe Ehrenberg in conversation with the author, December 10, 2014. 15. In July 1969 David Lamelas, then a student at the St. Martin’s School of Art, was invited to take part in the exhibition Environments Reversal alongside artists such as Stuart Brisley, Marc Camille Chaimowicz, and Ed Herring. He presented his work A Study of the Relationship Between Inner and Outer Space (1969). In 1971, Leopoldo Maler organized the exhibition Silence,















which included works by other artists, among them Felipe Ehrenberg. In 1969 the Whitechapel Art Gallery presented Eden and Whitechapel Experiment, an exhibition by Hélio Oiticica, organized by Guy Brett. In 1976 Jasia Reichardt curated Mortal Issues, an exhibition of the work of Leopoldo Maler. In 1973 Cecilia Vicuña was invited to show a selection of paintings at the ICA in a solo exhibition entitled Pain Things and Explanations. 16. In 1971 Leopoldo Maler presented his work Crane Ballet at the Camden Arts Festival, the same year Ehrenberg presented his participatory work Chromoproject and Diego Barboza performed his work Centipede at Alexandra Park. 17. In September 1973 Chile witnessed the overthrow of Salvador Allende’s democratically elected government by a military junta led by Army Commander-in-Chief Augusto Pinochet and supported by the United States. 18. Felipe Ehrenberg, Documento Trimestral 1 (1971). 19. Felipe Ehrenberg in conversation with the author, December 10, 2014. 20. Ehrenberg, “East and West—the Twain Do Meet.” 21. Manuscript text of Felipe Ehrenberg’s talk at the Royal College of Art to coincide with their exhibition go away, London, April 22, 1999. 22. Felipe Ehrenberg, A Stroll in July, addendum, London 1970. 23. Ibid. 24. Medina, “Publishing Circuits,” 156. 25. Lucy R. Lippard, “Location/Dislocation,” paper presented at the Creative Time Summit, New York City, November 13, 2013. 26. Lippard, “Being in Place,” 34. 27. Ehrenberg, “East and West—the Twain Do Meet.” 28. Asbury, Fraser, Iñigo Clavo, and Whitelegg, “Interview with Felipe Ehrenberg,” 18, and Ehrenberg, “East and West—the Twain Do Meet.” 29. This conviction was further put into play when Ehrenberg ran for election as a member of parliament for the 36 Distrito Electoral in Mexico City in 1982 for the Partido Socialista Unificado (Unified Socialist Party). 30. International Coalition for the Liquidation of Art, manifesto, London, October 10, 1970. 31. The quotation is from ibid. Earth Day i was held on April 22, 1970, in the United States, where millions took to the streets to demonstrate for a healthy, sustainable environment. The event was followed by the passage of the Clean Air Act of 1970, the formation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in December 1970, and the passage of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1972. 32. Ibid. 33. Ibid. 34. Asbury, Fraser, Iñigo Clavo, and Whitelegg, “Interview with Felipe Ehrenberg,” 6. 35. International Coalition for the Liquidation of Art, manifesto.

74  L O ND O N ART WOR LDS

36. Asbury, Fraser, Iñigo Clavo, and Whitelegg, “Interview with Felipe Ehrenberg,” 6. 37. Glueck, “Artists Vote for Union.” 38. Walker, Left Shift, 30–31. 39. A review of the event appeared in the Daily Mirror, November 1, 1970, 13, and a transcript of the conversation with the guard was published in Studio International 181, no. 931 (March 1971): 92–93 (i.e., Ehrenberg, “Date with Fate at Tate”). 40. Ehrenberg, “East and West—the Twain Do Meet.” 41. Martin, “Rasheed Araeen,” 111. 42. A. Wilson, “Art:Politics / Theory:Practice,” 129–30. 43. White, e-interview with Felipe Ehrenberg, Stuart Reid, and Barry McCallion on Fluxshoe. 44. Quotation from a card displayed at the exhibition The Seventh Day Chicken: A Situation by Polygonal Workshop, Sigi Krauss Gallery, February 4–20, 1971. 45. Gilbert, “Eclectic World of Felipe Ehrenberg,” 44. 46. Benítez Dueñas, “Restructuring Emptiness and Recovering Space,” 25. 47. Felipe Ehrenberg, introduction to Generación Ehrenberg, xvii. 48. Quotes from It’s a Sort of Disease Part ii (1970), 16 mm. 49. Benítez Dueñas, “Restructuring Emptiness and Recovering Space,” 25. 50. Asbury, Fraser, Iñigo Clavo, and Whitelegg, “Interview with Felipe Ehrenberg,” 9. 51. Quotation from cards displayed at the exhibition The Seventh Day Chicken: A Situation by Polygonal Workshop. 52. Fluxshoe was a traveling Fluxus exhibition conceived by Ken Friedman (Fluxus West, California) and Mike Weaver of the American Arts Documentation Centre at the University of Exeter. The exhibition was realized and coordinated by David Mayor. Marta Hellion designed the exhibition, and Felipe Ehrenberg designed the catalogue. It was held at various venues in Falmouth, including Falmouth School of Art (October 23–31, 1972) and the Arts Theatre (October 28, 1972), at Exeter (November 13–December 2, 1972), Croydon (January 15–26, 1973), Oxford (February 10–25, 1973), Nottingham (June 6–19, 1973), Blackburn (July 6–12, 1973), and Hastings (August 17–24, 1973). Fluxshoe became a platform for performances and events by artists with similar attitudes, whether they were allied to “official” Fluxus or not. In total, nearly one hundred artists took part in the exhibition. For more information, see Glew and Hendricks, Fluxbritannica. 53. Felipe Ehrenberg, Beau Geste Press sheet, ca. 1971, Tate Gallery Archive. 54. McShine, “Information and Culture,” in Information, 140. 55. The iii Salón Independiente was held at the Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo (MUAC) and was characterized by a lack of funds, which meant that all works had to be made in situ. The only materials used were paper and cardboard, highlighting the experimental and ephemeral nature of the works exhibited.





Exchange with international artists and openness to experimentation were the prevailing goals of the salón. In 1971 the salón was dissolved due to disagreement between its members as to how artists should manage their participation in biennials and other established circuits as well as the distribution and exposure of their works. 56. Luis Echevarría, of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional, was “secretario de Gobernación” (secretary of the interior) during the massacre of Tlatelolco, and his loyalty to President Díaz Ordaz secured him the presidency of the country in the 1970 general elections. 57. Soto Laveaga, “Searching for Molecules, Fueling Rebellion,” 90. 58. Medina, “Publishing Circuits,” 156. 59. Hellion, “Nineteen Sixty.” 60. For more information on Beau Geste Press, see Gilbert, “‘Something Unnameable in Common.’” 61. Felipe Ehrenberg, Beau Geste Press, undated document, Tate Gallery Archive. 62. Felipe Ehrenberg to Paul Brown, July 5, 1972, Tate Gallery Archive.

75  Mapping the City

63. Felipe Ehrenberg, Beau Geste Press, undated document, Tate Gallery Archive. 64. Constituted between 1973 and 1982 in opposition to the leading figures of muralism, los Grupos was an artistic initiative to question the role of the artist as a sole creator. It was promoted by a generation of artists influenced by the massacre of Tlatelolco who considered art as a catalyst to social change. However, their focus was not only on social and political issues; they saw the initiative as an opportunity to renew the state of the arts in Mexico, to reach new audiences, and to create new spaces for the production and distribution of art. Some of the groups formed during this period were Tepito Arte Acá, Proceso Pentágono, Mira, Suma, Germinal, Taller de Arte e Ideología, El Colectivo, Tetraedro, Março, Peyote y la Compañía, No Grupo, Taller de Investigación Plástica, and Fotógrafos Independientes. For more information, see Vázquez Mantecón, “Los Grupos: A Reconsideration,” 197–99. 65. Felipe Ehrenberg to David Mayor, 1978, Tate Gallery Archive. 66. Ehrenberg, “East and West—the Twain Do Meet.”

Restoring Some Period Color to Roelof Louw’s Pyramid of Oranges (1967) Joy Sleeman

Soul City (Pyramid of Oranges), 1967 (hereafter Pyramid

London art worlds of the late 1960s and also explores

of Oranges), is a sculpture by Roelof Louw (b. 1934).

how the multiple re-creations of the work in the

It is probably the work for which this artist is best

twenty-first century have both realized latent potential

known, though not the only kind of sculpture that he

in the work and led to misinterpretations of its original

was making, even in 1967. According to the artist, it

specificity.

is a work that could not have become manifest in any



city other than London, and yet it is a work that has

Lab, Covent Garden, in November 1967. The Arts Lab

been shown widely across Europe, the United States,

was a short-lived but influential art space located at

and beyond since the beginning of the twenty-first

182 Drury Lane, near Covent Garden market, a historic

century. It is simultaneously a work that is quintes-

location with market buildings dating from the nine-

sentially of its moment, enmeshed in the London art

teenth and twentieth centuries (it was London’s main

worlds of the late 1960s, and a work that has tran-

fruit-and-vegetable market until 1974). The original

scended that context to become an icon of conceptual

installation was described thus by the artist:

Pyramid of Oranges was first made at the Arts

art. Investigating its origins in London in 1967, its survival through documentation, and its apotheosis in the

The pyramid (5ft 6in sq × 5ft high) was built from

flesh (of around six thousand oranges) at the turn of

about 5,800 oranges. Everyone who entered the

the twenty-first century, this chapter resituates Louw’s

gallery was invited to help himself to the oranges.

Pyramid of Oranges in relation to the specificities of the

The sculpture lasted for two weeks.

4. 4. 4. 4. 4. 4. 4. 4. 4. 4.

Fig. 4.1 Roelof Louw, Soul City (Pyramid of Oranges), 1967. Tate Gallery, London, presented by Tate Patrons 2013, T13881. Installation shot from the Tate Britain exhibition Conceptual Art in Britain, 1964–1979, 2016. © Roelof Louw.



One aspect of the sculpture was the use of

context in which it emerged in London in 1967. Louw’s

material “on its own terms” to create an “affective”

other works from this period look very different in terms

situation. Another, was that it should relate to a

of formal means and materials. Their unifying rationale

specific place and the people that go there.

is sculptural, but it is neither materially specific nor tied

1

to a particular recognized theme or movement. This

Today the work is in the permanent collection of

has made Louw elusive in art-historical accounts of the

Tate, acquired in 2013, where it is catalogued as Soul City

period, but it also gives his work the potential to disrupt

(Pyramid of Oranges), 1967 (fig. 4.1). The work’s visibility

and reconfigure those overfamiliar narratives.

in the present obscures the diversity of Louw’s practice



when it was first made, and its designation as a work

Louw was a part-time tutor in the sculpture department

of conceptual art has the potential to misrepresent the

at St. Martin’s School of Art, on Charing Cross Road,

78  L O ND O N ART WOR LDS

At the time he made the Pyramid of Oranges in 1967,

Fig. 4.2 Arts Lab, London, membership form and proposal by Roelof Louw, 1967. Collection of Biddy Peppin.

approximately half a mile from the Arts Lab. Louw had

West of London, not far from Maida Vale, was close to

come to London in 1961 from South Africa to study at

the Notting Hill area, where many artists lived in the

St. Martin’s and had been teaching there since 1966.

early 1960s.3 Just over a year after Pyramid of Oranges

Just before the Arts Lab exhibition, Louw had also

was exhibited, a short description (cited above) and

begun working in a new studio situation in Stockwell,

four images of the work in situ at the Arts Lab were

South London, a disused brewery building of seven-

published in Studio International, whose offices at 37

teen thousand square feet that doubled as exhibition

Museum Street, close to the British Museum, were less

and working space. On the application form for his

than half a mile from St. Martin’s and just a few hundred

“sculpture proposal for the entrance of Arts Lab”—a

yards from the Arts Lab (fig. 4.3).

pyramid of oranges—he gave his home address as 1A



Randolph Avenue W9 (fig. 4.2). This address, in the

and descriptions situate the Pyramid of Oranges and

2

79  Restoring Some Period Color

This set of coordinates, locations, dimensions,

Fig. 4.3 Roelof Louw, sculpture for the Arts Laboratory, October 1967, from Studio International 177, no. 907 (January 1969): 35. © Roelof Louw.

Louw in their originating contexts in London in the late

Nine Elms, Vauxhall, in 1974. Although the area around

1960s. However, they do little to articulate the complex

Covent Garden had always changed with the times,

network of interrelations and connections, national and

some kind of a market for fresh produce had been here

international, intersecting in this small area of central

since at least the seventeenth century, and produce had

London.

been sold from a garden on the site as far back as the fourteenth century.4 The Arts Lab was itself a new kind of space, a hybrid form under the artistic direction of Jim

Drury Lane WC1 to Stockwell Depot SW9 via 37 Museum

Haynes, who had also been involved in the establish-

Street WC1

ment of the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh. Though its lifespan in Covent Garden was very short, its influence

In 1967 the Covent Garden area of London was slated

was significant. Arts Labs sprang up in other parts of

for change. In 1966 plans had been initiated that would

London and across the United Kingdom and Europe. At

result in the removal of the fruit-and-vegetable market to

its demise, in late 1969, Nicholas de Jongh, writing in the

80  L O ND O N ART WOR LDS

Guardian, claimed it had inspired “forty similar creations

are often labeled the “New Generation” after the exhi-

all over Britain and Europe.” A young David Bowie

bition of sculpture of that title held at the Whitechapel

visited and rehearsed at the Drury Lane venue and was

Gallery, London, in 1965.9 Second, Louw features in the

inspired by its example to play a role in the creation of

survey of Stockwell Depot already mentioned, where his

an Arts Lab in Beckenham.6 It is not altogether fanciful

Pyramid of Oranges does indeed appear slightly incon-

to speculate that Louw’s Pyramid of Oranges, included as

gruous alongside the industrial-scale abstract work in

a contextual work in the David Bowie Is exhibition at the

wood, metal, concrete, slate, and plastic by Alan Barkley,

V&A in 2013 (and touring), might have been experienced

Roland Brener, Roger Fagin, Gerard Hemsworth, Peter

firsthand by Bowie in 1967.

Hide, and David Evison. Third, Louw plays a crucial



role in Harrison’s account of “some recent sculpture in

5

7

“Not much attention was given to this work at

the time,” recalled Louw, “except for Charles Harrison

Britain,” where his work is considered alongside that

prompting me, quite oddly, to include it in a photo-

of a group of younger artists, notably Barry Flanagan

graphic survey of Stockwell Depot sculptors in Studio

(b. 1939), Bruce McLean (b. 1944), and Richard Long

International in 1969.” It is arguable that the Pyramid

(b. 1945), all of whom would, during the following year

of Oranges survived beyond its two-week existence in

(1969–70), be included in seminal international exhibi-

the entrance to the Arts Lab thanks to Harrison and his

tions that would come to define the new process and

inclusion of this documentation in what has come to be

conceptually oriented work, including Live in Your Head:

regarded as one of the most important art magazines

When Attitudes Become Form (Bern, Krefeld, and London)

of the period. Harrison, critic and art historian and

and Op Losse Schroeven (Amsterdam), both 1969. Louw

assistant editor of the magazine, articulated Louw’s

was also in these exhibitions. In his article Harrison sums

centrality in London’s emergent sculpture scene in the

up Louw’s St. Martin’s connections thus: “Roelof Louw

special section “Some Aspects of Contemporary British

is another member of the group working at Stockwell

Sculpture,” which he put together for the January 1969

who belongs in age to the New Generation but who left

issue of the magazine. From this issue one gets a sense

St. Martin’s at the same time as Brener and whose work

of the artist’s multiple artistic identities at that moment.

relates more to that of the younger group.”10

Three guises are evident in its pages, and all three have



a St. Martin’s connection.

interrelated in the 1960s than is often assumed. Louw



may have been, even by his own admission, something

8

First, Louw appears as one of the sculptors contrib-

Those contexts were far more permeable and

uting to “Anthony Caro’s Work: A Symposium by Four

of a loner, but that did not preclude his participation

Sculptors,” considering abstract sculpture and theoret-

in a whole range of situations, including exhibitions at

ical debate around sculptural problems in the work of

public, commercial, and independently run galleries;

Caro. The other sculptors were David Annesley (b. 1936),

working in educational establishments and artist-run

Tim Scott (b. 1937), and William Tucker (b. 1935), who

spaces; and belonging to diverse artistic groupings that

81  Restoring Some Period Color

Fig. 4.4 Roelof Louw, Holland Park, 1967. © Roelof Louw. Courtesy of Richard Saltoun Gallery.

seem, from the purview of today’s established historical

the “dematerialization” of the art object with a work,

account, perplexing, if not contradictory. How could he

Holland Park, 1967 (fig. 4.4), made at the same time

be included in both British Sculpture out of the Sixties, an

that he was making and showing work alongside some

exhibition of work by established sculptors (curated by

of the most materially substantial sculpture produced

Gene Baro) at the ICA in August–September 1970, lam-

at the time at Stockwell Depot?12 These contexts seem

pooned by McLean in the pages of Studio International

somewhat antithetical. The fact that Louw inhabited

as “not even crimble crumble,” and, alongside McLean

them all simultaneously might suggest that the received

(quite literally in the alphabetically arranged catalogue

narrative of the development of sculpture in the era

that accompanied the exhibition), in When Attitudes

(that runs, roughly, modernist, Minimalist, conceptual)

Become Form, now considered a landmark exhibition

is either wrong or else inadequate to the complexity of

in the emergence of conceptual art? How could his

the situation that existed in this particular city, London,

work appear in the pages of Lucy Lippard’s account of

in the 1960s. Is the common view of the era “wrong? Or

11

82  L O ND O N ART WOR LDS

not suitably nuanced? Or shaped by how subsequent

their work was visible, but they lacked the means to

histories played out? I think all three.

sustain a viable practice.

Many of the sculptors first associated with

Stockwell had studied at St. Martin’s in the mid-1960s St. Martin’s WC1 to Stockwell Depot SW9

and were slightly younger than King, Tucker, and Caro (most were born in the 1940s rather than the 1930s),

When acquired by Tate in 2013, Pyramid of Oranges

including Alan Barkeley, Brener, David Evison, Roger

joined another work by Louw, Untitled 1968, purchased

Fagin, John Fowler, Gerard Hemsworth, and Peter Hide.14

from the artist in 1970 after it was shown in British

Their work was often large-scale and abstract, using

Sculpture out of the Sixties. It was one of a series of

industrial-type materials. The attendant limitations

sculptures that Louw referred to as “space-frame”

imposed by the expense of fabricating, storing, and

works and was made—and photographed—at Stockwell

exhibiting sculpture had tended to make the slightly

Depot (fig. 4.5 shows another of these works). The

older successful sculptors dependent on a very limited

St. Martin’s–Stockwell axis was important to the

elite of collectors, a few art dealers, and the selectors of

development of Louw’s work, but it was also of wider

exhibitions in public galleries and museums. Brener felt

significance to the situation of sculptors in London.

that emerging artists needed to reject these precedents

Brener, one of the sculptors instrumental in setting up

and find their own ways of working. Stockwell was one

Stockwell Depot, was, like Louw, from South Africa and

way out of this impasse. Crucially, it gave sculptors

a tutor and former student at St. Martin’s. In his article

control over the means of their work’s exposition as well

“The Concerns of Emerging Sculptors” (also published

as space for experimentation in making. Stockwell was

in the January 1969 issue of Studio International) he set

an attempt at a practical and pragmatic way forward,

out the aims and aspirations for the new space as well

and at this early stage, despite positive responses to its

as the provocations for its formation. For Brener, the

first exhibition, Brener was hesitant to make bold claims

choices for emerging sculptors were stark and paradox-

for its potential to produce work of actual importance.15

ical. They were working “as contributors to a theoretical

In retrospect, we can see it as an early example of an

continuum dealing with accepted sculptural problems”

artist-run space, a situation that has fostered the work

while “forced into a radical position in their quest for

of many important artists in Britain. Stockwell gave

recognition and security.” The visibility of sculpture

sculptors the scope to experiment with scale and the

had been secured by the public success of established

relationships between sculpture and its surroundings.

sculptors associated with St. Martin’s such as King,



Tucker and the so-called “New Generation,” and, per-

experienced in terms of action, were factors that Louw

haps most widely known, Caro. Developing sculptors

felt sculptors associated with the “New Generation” had

such as Brener found themselves in a situation where

failed to come to terms with. When he first arrived at

13

83  Restoring Some Period Color

Scale and the articulation of space, particularly as

Fig. 4.5 Roelof Louw, Square 4 (Red / Light Green), ca. 1969. © Roelof Louw.

St. Martin’s in 1961, his work had marked affinities with

without any attempt at disguise or transformation—and

that of Annesley, Caro, King, and Tucker, whose new

in its invitation to viewer participation. The spectator of

abstract sculpture was in the making at that moment.

Louw’s sculpture “is invited to step over the low bar on

In its abstract formal means, the brightly painted metal

one side of the sculpture and experience the work from

sculpture by Louw, Untitled 1968, still shares certain

inside as well as outside.”16 This invitation was evoked

characteristics with work by this group of sculptors.

optically in some of Tucker’s slightly later work but

But it also has marked differences, particularly in its

never actively encouraged, as art critic Andrew Forge

direct use of materials—scaffolding poles used “as is”

observed in relation to Tucker’s Cat’s Cradle sculptures

84  L O ND O N ART WOR LDS

(1971): “One of them—it is the one with a ‘Brass’ finish—

accounts argumentative) aspects, but his work featured

looks from a certain viewpoint like the framework of

prominently in the first two annual exhibitions at the

a small tent. From here the space is enclosing and

depot, in 1968 and 1969.

sheltering. You could crawl in. But this view is fragile: a



pace or two nearer or to the left or right and you realize

outset, much of it generated through “Brener’s flair for

that what you had seen was in fact a kind of drawing in

networking, combined with the prestige of St. Martin’s

space of this tent shape, an image which depended on

and the novelty of the venue.” One early visitor, invited

your exact position.” Tucker’s work is, as Forge notes,

in 1968 to the first in the series of annual exhibitions

“something like a highly condensed analogue for expe-

at the depot, was American critic Clement Greenberg.

rience” rather than an actual experience, as in Louw’s

“Greenberg praised Evison’s work, but confessed that

space-frame works.

Brener’s lay outside his critical faculties. Hide’s Sculpture

17

Stockwell attracted critical attention from the

Number 2 (1968) was condemned with the line: ‘Too Caro, rigorous geometry does not make rigorous art!,’ Louw’s Genius Loci, or Finding a Place to Work

while Louw’s Ring II (1968) [a work made from corrugated metal] was afforded a kick, and a mumbled, ‘Fuck

Toward the end of the 1960s Louw’s work had begun

American symmetry.’”19

articulating the physical limits of the space and of the



artist’s body, as well as the viewer’s relationship to the

of place beyond the walls, such as they were, of his

space and to other gallery viewers. Louw has spoken

open, draughty space at Stockwell Depot and making

of how he had no choice about his working space at

works that responded to the materiality and ambi-

Stockwell Depot—it was assigned to him—and it was

ence of place. When at Stockwell, he made extensive

far from congenial. He has described it thus: “The only

use of the availability of a large expanse of space, as

space available was huge and raw with exposed brick

evidenced in installation photographs of his contribu-

walls and an open steel roof structure. It was also open

tions to the group exhibitions held there in 1968 and

on one side. When it rained, there were always large

1969.20 He made variations of works using cast metal

pools of water. It couldn’t be called a studio, more a

and concrete, scaffolding poles, and objects he found

space where you placed things. I could just as well

lying around at the depot. He filled its vast spaces with

Louw was also quite literally taking his exploration

have been working out in the street.” The site’s liminal

festoons of rope and works made from large sheets of

nature, positioned on the edge of inside and outside,

corrugated sheet metal. But he was also developing a

seems appropriate both conceptually and actually for

practice on the outer edges in a more literal way, as his

the artist and the development of his work at this point.

work was taking him out of the studio and exhibition

Louw did not spend a great deal of time at Stockwell or

space altogether to make works in urban parkland and

involve himself extensively in its more social (and by all

directly in the streets. For example, in 1968 Louw made

18

85  Restoring Some Period Color

a piece with cast-iron wedges arranged around two

Depot—a rope piece—which would be attached to the

blocks of buildings in London’s Park Lane, photographs

roof ties in the upper space at Oxford’s Museum of

of which were shown in the exhibition When Attitudes

Modern Art. But not long before the exhibition was due

Become Form at Bern in 1969. Photography was one way

to open, he changed his proposal to a work using vari-

of providing information about a work, but there was

ously tensioned industrial-scale rubber bands attached

also considerable ambiguity (and debate) about the

around the gallery walls. The installation, which Louw

status of photographs as original works in their own

called Location, had a palpable effect on viewers, with

right or as documentation. In the first showing of When

one reviewer noting that, “like a massive tourniquet

Attitudes Become Form, in Bern, large-scale photo-

round your eyes, this stark black ribbon is inescapable.

graphic prints of Louw’s Park Lane work were shown in

Some visitors, they say, have been terrified.”23 The affec-

the gallery space; in subsequent showings in Krefeld

tive quality of the work, with a direct use of materials

and London they were included as “information” in the

“as is” (in this case rubber bands attached to the walls),

exhibition catalogue. The work thus existed simultane-

seems very close to, and indeed a direct development

ously as a photographic piece and as documentation of

of, the situation Louw aimed to create with Pyramid of

a work executed in situ in a London street. Louw wrote

Oranges at the Arts Lab.

to the curator of the show, Harald Szeemann, about



this piece as “a work I would in particular like you to

sought actively to engage viewers in articulating the

consider for inclusion in the exhibition in either actual,

work in the space. For example, in the Wall Show at the

documentation [large photographic enlargements]

Lisson Gallery in 1970–71, Louw pasted instructions,

or a combination of both forms (there are various

Exercises 3, on the wall, directing the movements of

possibilities).”21

viewers.24 At the same time, he began developing a



series of “Tape Recorder Scripts,” first realized at the

In a 1974 interview Louw made more explicit

Other works had less of a material presence and

the connection between his activities and an older,

Whitechapel Art Gallery in February–March 1971.25

eighteenth-century notion of “genius loci”—or the

Scripts were recorded and played back in the space

genius of the place—by which he attempted to make

where they had been recorded. In what came to be

a work that both reflected and articulated, or perhaps

known as the “Sound Recorder Works,” viewers in the

emphasized, the unique character of a given location.

space had become not only participants in an exhibition

22

It was a small step from there to include the material

situation but also Louw’s sculptural material. These

components of the place directly in the work—the street

works too had an origin at Stockwell, where Louw first

furniture and pavements of city roads, the grassy knolls

experimented with a reel-to-reel tape recorder. He

and trees of urban parkland, or the walls, floor, and

recorded himself and others moving around the space,

viewers in a gallery situation. In 1969 Louw proposed

making simple statements such as “I’m here” or “I’m

a version of a work that he had first made at Stockwell

moving to the other side of the room,” noting the way

86  L O ND O N ART WOR LDS

that the sounds were picked up by the microphone on

rather than the crafting of a signature “style” or the use

the recording device.

of a particular material. Importantly, it also complicates



26

Louw’s idea of “genius loci” is not a place-bound

narratives of stylistic or generational succession, a

reverie (as the term is sometimes used in relation to

model that persists in the history of British sculpture

earlier twentieth-century British art) but a more active

even though these sculptural stories were active simul-

engagement with the contingencies of lived locations.

taneously, even in the work of one artist. No doubt the

He has described it as “a kind of ‘poetic’ or ‘aphoristic’

different scenes were combative, often defining them-

response to commonplace places that were around,

selves negatively in relation to one another, but they did

that could be experienced almost anywhere.” Louw’s

not negate one another in chronological succession. As

notion refers both to the affective qualities of a site and

noted, Louw’s Untitled 1968, made from brightly painted

to the activities of people, whether they are workers,

scaffolding poles in a frame-like configuration, had

gallery-goers, passersby, or Mayfair club-goers on their

seemingly close affinities to the constructed abstract

way home from a night out in the West End of London.

sculpture of the “New Generation” but was made the

It can be seen largely to have developed through the

year after Pyramid of Oranges and Holland Park, and even

artist’s movements around London locations in and

taken together, these works are far from representative

between his home, St. Martin’s School of Art, where he

of the full range of work made by the artist during the

taught, Stockwell Depot, and the Arts Lab in 1967.

short time he was working at Stockwell Depot, or even



during the year that he began working at Stockwell,

27

How did his work’s passage through that time and

place reconfigure those locales, leaving a traceable

1967. But Pyramid of Oranges has transcended its original

resonance that could continue to act long after the

moment in a way that, as yet, the metal “space-frame”

artist’s trajectory had had taken him elsewhere? Can

works have not. Pyramid of Oranges has become a

we reconnect to that milieu via his work as present to

work of significance in the twenty-first century, shown

us now? If Louw’s work was successful in capturing the

repeatedly throughout the United Kingdom and world-

spirit of place, as it set out to do, can we intuit that spirit

wide, as well as referenced and imitated by younger

in re-creating and reviewing the work in the present? And

artists.28

how does a specific place impact upon and redirect the career path of an individual artist in a way that exceeds its geographic limits? These questions seem especially rele-

Arts Lab WC1 to Whitechapel Art Gallery E1: “Live in Your Head”

vant to an artist who acknowledges a commitment in his work to responding to the spirit of place (or genius loci).

The current visibility of Pyramid of Oranges owes much



to a significant re-creation of the work at London’s

That Louw was making such different kinds of

sculpture at the same time attests to his own manner

Whitechapel Art Gallery in 2000, as part of the exhibi-

of working, a responsiveness to place and situation

tion Live in Your Head: Concept and Experiment in Britain,

87  Restoring Some Period Color

1965–75. This installation of the work realized aspects



that were latent in its original conception. Long pre-

Louw (the artist) in a way that was more in keeping

served in the pages of Studio International, its material

with current understandings of the global contexts of

repeatability was possible because of the published

modern and contemporary British art. In the twenty-first

set of precise specifications. Remade, the work was

century Louw is a South African artist who worked

transubstantiated from dry, black-and-white concep-

in London during the 1960s and early 1970s. Back in

tual documentation into a lucid, colorful, and sensual

the 1960s he was a sculptor teaching at St. Martin’s

experience.

and working at Stockwell Depot. This difference—his



By re-creating the work “live” rather than showing

the photographic images that documented its 1967 exhibition, the Whitechapel’s Live in Your Head exhibition insisted on the sculptural quality of the work. It was not only a conceptual work. It was this repetition of the Pyramid of Oranges that established the “original” work as capable of being repeated in other-than-documentary form. The 2000 Soul City (Pyramid of Oranges) was the 1967 Pyramid of Oranges, but the 2000 Pyramid of Oranges was also different, or perhaps made by an artist who was now perceived differently.

The Whitechapel re-creation somewhat paradox-

ically liberated the work from being a one-off original made in a particular place, in London during 1967, and enabled it to become one that could be repeated in different locations around the world. But it also retrospectively reconfigured that “origin” into some-

The accompanying catalogue also differentiated

difference—is important in the current context, just as his assimilation was important in the first instance. As Michael Archer wrote in his catalogue essay for Live in Your Head: “The idea that geographical boundaries were not relevant to an analysis of the various artistic forms, approaches and tendencies of the period, was by that time (1972) a given. Whichever country an artist came from, his or her work was, in the main, understood as a contribution to a wider investigation into the possibilities of art.”29

In an interview with Jon Wood in August 2010,

Wood attempted to attribute a particular South African relevance to Pyramid of Oranges, which was immediately rebuffed by the artist: jw: Given everything you’ve said about site specificity up to this point and you make a nice connection between Covent Garden and then the arts labora-

thing that incorporated reproducibility into its very

tory in Covent Garden, the oranges, I also can’t help

conception. Each subsequent repetition now repeats

thinking about South Africa with oranges and I think

the origin of the work in London’s Arts Lab in Covent

once you talked about the food for hippies, there

Garden in 1967 but also incorporates the fact of its

seem to be lots of other levels on which this work

re-creation in 2000, the gesture that freed the work

operates.

from being a one-off original made in a particular place and time.

88  L O ND O N ART WOR LDS

rl: Well the sunshine reference is built into the work. But I don’t think I consciously had South Africa

in mind when I chose oranges. In 1961 I became a

After all, the work proposed its own destruction. This

British subject, and by this time even a bit English.

may seem dissonant with the narrative of Pyramid of

Let me just push this point. All my thinking about

Oranges as a vibrant image of Swinging London, but

sculpture was embedded in what was going on at St.

the possibility of there being a darker shade to Oranges

Martin’s and the London art scene. In formal terms,

seems more plausible when taken together with a

I can’t imagine this work having become manifest in

number of fragments of contemporary documentation

any other city.

and the artist’s own more recent commentary.

30



The first hint is contained in Louw’s initial pro-

The multiple presences of Pyramid of Oranges in the

posal to the Arts Lab, where he asserts that his orange

twenty-first century have tended to sever the work

pyramid is “not a joke.” This might be construed as the

(or to liberate it) from the specific context of London,

artist’s insistence that his proposal was genuine and

from the experience of London at a particular moment

that he did intend to make the work as described, with-

in time, and from the work’s contribution to a theoret-

out expense to the Arts Lab, the artist paying for the

ical continuum dealing with sculptural problems, all of

purchase of the oranges that formed the work. But was

which were crucial to its original making. A closer look

it also “not a joke” in that it had a more serious aspect?

at both the original installation of Pyramid of Oranges

An exchange about the Pyramid of Oranges in his inter-

at the Arts Lab in 1967 and its more recent apotheosis

view with Wood in 2010 speaks of Louw’s interest in the

at the Whitechapel Art Gallery in 2000 reveals that

serious import of humor:

Pyramid of Oranges was far from being the only sculpture of significance made by Louw in 1967 and that its recent visibility has obscured other important aspects

jw: And the food for hippies line, and wanting to give people vitamin C?

of Louw’s work, as well as more ambivalent or openly

rl: That was a journalistic jibe, meant as a light-hearted

destructive relationships between artwork, artist, and

put down. But I like jibes they often carry a certain

art world.

truth. The hippie ethos is not to be scorned, and the



reference is something to be considered. After all I

Louw has acknowledged the importance of the

Destruction in Art Symposium as one of the events that

had made a work, apart from its formal ramifications,

strongly impressed him and “proposed new options

that presents itself as a gift, is given away.33

for making sculpture.”31 Gustav Metzger organized the three-day symposium in September 1966, at which

In the event, the rate of destruction of the pyramid

Louw was present (indeed his presence at the sym-

surprised even its maker. Getting word of “free fruit”

posium is the only mention of Louw in David Mellor’s

in Covent Garden, some arrived with shopping bags

catalogue The Sixties Art Scene in London). Did the

and helped themselves generously. The work’s gift

Pyramid of Oranges have a destructive connotation?

might be read not as an act of generosity but as a

32

89  Restoring Some Period Color

demonstration of exchange, excessive expenditure, or

“everyone who went into the gallery was invited to take

wanton destruction of value. Pyramid of Oranges, then,

an orange” but also that, in addition to the pyramid

could be conceived of as a kind of artistic “potlatch.”

of 5,800 oranges, there was another sculpture in the

This term, originating in the Pacific Northwest and pop-

show: a “cone of 9½ tons of black granite chippings.”35

ularized by Marcel Mauss’s book The Gift (1925), first

When asked about this work, Louw explained that the

published in English in 1954, was in wide circulation and

black-granite work did exist for a short time before

discussion in art schools in the 1960s—including the

being removed (apparently there was rather too much

sculpture department at St. Martin’s, where “potlatch”

interaction with the piece in the space) but that there

was the name of a student publication, edited by Glyn

are no photographs. In 2014, however, he drew up a

Foulkes and Roger Bates in 1968. A cartoon by Foulkes

specification for it to be remade in the context of an

excerpted from Potlatch was reproduced in the January

exhibition of work by artists at Stockwell Depot, curated

1969 issue of Studio International.

by Sam Cornish.36 In the event, remaking the work for



this exhibition proved impractical, but the fact that

34

Although less a critical and theoretical engage-

ment with the ideas of Mauss’s book than the citing of

Louw drew up specifications for it suggests that the

a current theoretical term “in the air,” the St. Martin’s

artist considers this work, made of more-inert material

publication spoke to contemporary concerns with

than its contemporary Pyramid of Oranges, one that can

alternative notions of exchange and distribution, the

be repeated.

free circulation of ideas and property, and excessive



expenditure as resistance to models of capitalist

together, it would make possible a dialogue that was

accumulation. Likewise, Louw’s work was not conceived

manifest in the original Arts Lab exhibition, through

as a demonstration of Mauss’s ideas but in the unfold-

a relationship between two geometric solids: one

ing narrative of its exhibition at the Arts Lab came to

that was brightly colored, edible, and intended to be

embody the contradictions of free distribution versus

destroyed through human interaction; another, pre-

individual greed and the conception of the gift in con-

sumably more stable, that was inadvertently destroyed

temporary society.

or perhaps, through inappropriate human interaction,



threatened to overly distress its environment. What is

Another documentary fragment that might reorient

Moreover, if both works were to be re-created

thinking about the original installation at the Arts Lab is

the relationship between black granite chippings and

an early account published in the catalogue to a group

oranges? Or between the cone and pyramid forms?

exhibition, Survey ’68, at Camden Arts Centre in June–

When Pyramid of Oranges shares an exhibition with

July 1968. In the catalogue, the “Orange Pyramid Show,

another sculpture, its meaning becomes less centered

Arts Laboratory, 1967” is listed as Louw’s only one-man

on its internal relations or relations between it and its

exhibition to date, and a short text about his work gives

viewers and expands to include its relation to this other

a description of the show. This explains not only that

form in the space.

90  L O ND O N ART WOR LDS

The evidence of this other work in the show—as

in the changing form of the sculpture as the pyramid

well as Louw’s application for membership in the Arts

is depleted. But I think it would be wrong to consider

Lab, which included his original proposal for the Pyramid

Louw’s work as a work of participatory art in the manner

of Oranges work—was presented in Sandy Nairne’s

in which that term is currently understood—for exam-

essay “The Institutionalization of Dissent” in the volume

ple, in Claire Bishop’s Artificial Hells: Participatory Art and

Thinking About Exhibitions, published in 1996. Nairne’s

the Politics of Spectatorship (2012)—not least because

essay gives Louw’s work prominent place in significant

it does not “primarily involve people as the medium

emergent discourses of the 1990s, histories of exhibition

or material of the work.”40 People are not primarily the

making and curatorial practice that presage the Pyramid

medium or material of Pyramid of Oranges: oranges are.

of Oranges’ actual reemergence at the Whitechapel Art

But there are certainly works by Louw that could—and

Gallery at the end of that decade.

should—be discussed in the context of participatory art,



namely, the Sound Recorder Works that he developed



37

Louw’s work was rediscovered in these new con-

texts, but these emergent discourses also reconsidered

from the beginning of the 1970s and that, as discussed

the original object such that it could now be seen as a

above, also had their origins in Louw’s working environ-

precedent for a range of newer works and practices, and

ment at Stockwell Depot. Louw has variously proposed

particularly for interactive and participatory artworks.

remaking these works to the curators of conceptual-art

Nairne discusses how “a particular moment in London

exhibitions. Ph.D. researchers taking an interest in them

illustrates the wider questions of participation and

and contacting him was an important factor in prompt-

multi-disciplinarity.” His example is the Arts Lab in

ing Louw out of his self-imposed exile from art worlds in

Drury Lane and Louw’s Pyramid of Oranges, described

the 1990s. But that’s another story.

by Nairne as “the pick-up piece (of which the recent

The Pyramid of Oranges made for Live in Your Head

pieces of Félix González-Torres are reminiscent).” It is

in 2000 was the major repetition that rearticulated this

easy to see how Louw’s work lends itself to an interpre-

work in the world. It began the process of revealing

tation as an anticipation of the piles of candies made

the work’s—and the artist’s—complex, mobile, and

by González-Torres such as Untitled (Portrait of Ross in

contingent relations. No doubt it helped that the artist

L.A.) of 1991. By the time that Louw’s Pyramid of Oranges

had almost completely disappeared in the interim and

rematerialized in the Live in Your Head exhibition in

that he and his work could thus be rediscovered as

2000, work by González-Torres was widely known and

instances of pure difference, from their original context

familiar, and Louw’s work could be seen to anticipate its

as well as from the current situation, rather than appear

form and manner of viewer interaction. Louw has also

indelibly marked by an incremental or continual passage

remarked on the perfect fit of the fruit with the human

through the institutions and histories of British art in

hand. Taking an orange is a tangible physical inter-

the intervening years. Pyramid of Oranges had not had a

action with the material of the work and is registered

long history of exhibition or inclusion in books on art of

38

39

91  Restoring Some Period Color

the 1960s or in accounts of conceptual art, as arguably

remarkable that someone who taught in the sculpture

had been the case with such familiar works as Art &

department at St. Martin’s during the era of its greatest

Language’s Index 02, 1972, or Richard Long’s formative

fame, showed in some of the most important exhi-

piece A Line Made by Walking, 1967, which were also

bitions of new art, was written about and published

included in the Live in Your Head exhibition. Louw and

articles in the leading art magazines on both sides of the

the Pyramid of Oranges could appear almost as time

Atlantic—Artforum and Studio International—could dis-

travelers from an earlier moment. Where Louw’s dif-

appear. That his relations in this highly visible moment

ference in 1967 had been all but ignored in an art world

seemed slightly tangential at the time accounts for

that absorbed and assimilated difference, he landed

part of our interest now—an interest in the overlooked

in one where difference was valued and affirmed. Up

figures in history rather than the mainstream. His ability

until the end of the 1990s Louw was a marginal figure in

to move between groupings and contexts that seemed

histories of the art of the 1960s and 1970s in Britain, as

totally antithetical—to be in both constructed and con-

he arguably still is today. He was, for example, a name

ceptual sculpture “camps” at St. Martin’s, for example;

check (with his first name misspelled) in the catalogue

to show at the ICA in both When Attitudes Become Form

to The Sixties Art Scene in London exhibition at the

(1969) and British Sculpture out of the Sixties (1970); to

Barbican Gallery in 1993 and was recorded with “current

be part of the Arts Lab alternative space and to show

address unknown” in a project undertaken between

at a commercial gallery in Bond Street in the same

1990 and 1996 to trace participants in three seminal

year (in 1967 at Kasmin, as the artist’s choice of his St.

exhibitions of conceptual art. This continued in the

Martin’s colleague William Tucker)—seems almost

catalogue to the 2013 exhibition When Attitudes Become

inconceivable, unless one considers that his ties to all of

Form: Bern 1969 / Venice 2013, where Louw is the only

these institutions were rather loosely binding or, more

person listed as “unknown” in the caption to a photo-

to the point, that these scenes were not as mutually

graph taken outside the Kunsthalle Bern at the opening

exclusive as they have been presented in the domi-

of When Attitudes Become Form in 1969.

nant art-historical accounts. Situating the work more



securely back in its original context in the London art

41

42

The position of Louw in such histories owes

something to his own desire to disappear from, to move

worlds of the 1960s can be transformative of our under-

within, or even completely to abandon the art world.

standing of that complex historical situation. It also

He was itinerant in the London scene, and it is perhaps

adds some period color to the grainy black-and-white

precisely because his connections to London art-world

documentation that has survived from that moment.

networks were mobile and contingent at the time of Pyramid of Oranges’ first making that it has been possible for his work to be rearticulated in a second moment at the beginning of the twenty-first century. It seems

92  L O ND O N ART WOR LDS

Notes I should like to thank the following for their help in writing this chapter: Mark Blignaut, Sam Cornish, David Curtis, Phoebe Greenwood, David Lillington, Alida Louw, Roelof Louw, Jo Melvin, Richard Saltoun, and Jon Wood. 1. “Sculptors at Stockwell Depot,” 35. 2. Stockwell Depot was converted into studio space by a group of young artists in the summer of 1967; see Cornish, Stockwell Depot, 1967–79. 3. See the map illustrated in Mellor, Sixties Art Scene in London, 46. 4. For a history of the area, see the website of the Covent Garden Trust, http://www.coventgardentrust.org.uk. 5. De Jongh, “Lights Out for the Arts Lab.” 6. A listing of regional Arts Labs gives David Bowie as the contact for the Beckenham Arts Lab. International Times 66 (October 10–23, 1969): 16. 7. David Bowie Is, V&A, London, 23 March–11 August 2013. 8. Louw cited in J. Wood, United Enemies, 18. 9. See The New Generation, 1965. The exhibition also included Michael Bolus, Phillip King, Roland Piché, Christopher Sanderson, Isaac Witkin, and Derrick Woodham. 10. C. Harrison, “Some Recent Sculpture in Britain,” 29. 11. See McLean, “Not Even Crimble Crumble” (review of British Sculpture out of the Sixties). 12. Lippard, Six Years, 34. 13. Brener, “Concerns of Emerging Sculptors.” 14. These sculptors, plus Louw, showed in the second Stockwell Depot exhibition, in 1969. 15. For a recent account and reappraisal of Stockwell Depot, see Cornish, Stockwell Depot, 1967–79. 16. Catalogue entry for Roelof Louw’s Untitled 1968 (T01250), based on a conversation with the artist in August 1971, published in The Tate Gallery Report, 1970–1972 (London, 1972), http://www.tate​ .org.uk/art/artworks/louw-untitled-t01250/text-catalogue-entry, accessed April 1, 2015. 17. Andrew Forge, introduction to British Pavilion, xxxvi Venice Biennale (1972), reprinted in William Tucker: Sculpture, 1970–73, 16, 17. 18. Roelof Louw, “Place Sculpture: The Language Connection Part 1,” 2010, unpublished typescript, courtesy of the artist, n.p. 19. Cornish, Stockwell Depot, 1967–79, 16, 17. 20. See illustrations of the 1968 Stockwell Depot exhibition in Survey ’68: Abstract Sculpture, 19, and Richardson, “8 Young Sculptors at Stockwell Depot,” and of the 1969 exhibition in C. Harrison, “Roelof Louw’s Sculpture.” 21. Louw to Szeemann, January 18, 1969, courtesy of Richard Saltoun (a scan of the original letter was sent to Louw by the organizers of the exhibition at the Fondazione Prada, Venice, April 9, 2013). 22. Zacharea, “Roelof Louw: An Interview with Chryssa Zacharea.”

93  Restoring Some Period Color

23. Oxford Mail, October 11, 1969, in the archive of Modern Art Oxford and included in the exhibition display Roelof Louw: Project Space, Modern Art Oxford, February 15–April 6, 2014. 24. The first of the directions reads: “Stand 3ft from a wall. Place feet astride, arms forward from shoulders, palms flat against the wall. Press against the wall for any period. Proceed to the next position.” Wall Show, n.p. 25. Tape Recorder Project by Roelof Louw, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, February 26–March 12, 1971. The actual recording was made in the gallery on Friday, February 25, 1971. 26. Louw, Skype conversations with the author, various dates, including April 2, 2016. 27. Louw, notes written in response to questions from Joelle Le Saux, Ph.D. candidate at Rennes University, France, 2005, courtesy of the artist. 28. For example, Peter Coffin’s Untitled (Pyramid of Oranges), United States, 2007, http://www.mots.org.il/eng/exhibitions/ WorkItem.asp?ContentID=361, accessed January 5, 2015 (my thanks to Sam Cornish for drawing my attention to this work). Doug Fishbone’s sculpture 30,000 Bananas in Trafalgar Square, London, on October 5, 2004, has also been compared to Louw’s work, though Fishbone himself claims to have been unaware of Louw’s Pyramid of Oranges at the time he made this work. Conversation with the author, March 19, 2014. 29. Michael Archer, “Out of the Studio,” in Phillpot and Tarsia, Live in Your Head, 27–28. 30. Wood, interview with Roelof Louw at the Henry Moore Institute, Leeds, August 19, 2011, transcript courtesy of the artist. 31. Louw, “Place Sculpture: The Language Connection Part 1,” n.p. 32. Mellor, Sixties Art Scene in London, 220. The entry also notes that Barry Flanagan was at the Destruction in Art Symposium. 33. Wood, interview with Louw. 34. Studio International 177, no. 907 (January 1969), 8. Both Charles ​ Harrison, assistant editor of Studio International, and James Faure Walker, a contributor to Studio International and one of the founder editors of Artscribe in 1976, were contributors to Potlatch. 35. Survey ’68: Abstract Sculpture, 18. 36. The exhibition, Stockwell Depot, 1967–79, was held at the University of Greenwich Galleries, University of Greenwich, London, July 24–September 12, 2015. 37. Sandy Nairne, “The Institutionalization of Dissent,” in Greenberg, Ferguson, and Nairne, Thinking About Exhibitions, 387–410. 38. Ibid., 391. 39. See, for example, the press release for Louw’s exhibition at Modern Art Oxford, February 15–April 6, 2014. 40. Bishop, Artificial Hells, 5. 41. The project was organized by Seth Siegelaub and published as Fricke and Fricke, The Context of Art: The Art of Context. 42. Celant et al., When Attitudes Become Form, 270.

Collectivity, Temporality, and Festival Culture in John Dugger’s Quasi-Architecture, 1970–74 Courtney J. Martin

In 1972 John Dugger, a young American artist then

others. For Dugger, this was a chance to be shown on

living and working in London, was asked to participate

a larger scale and with an international roster of artists

in documenta 5. Curated by the Swiss phenomenon

with some renown. Moreover, the exhibition offered

Harald Szeemann, the fifth edition of the international

him the opportunity to import the type of collabora-

exhibition, entitled documenta 5: Befragung der Realität—

tive, temporal, craft-oriented, participatory event that

Bildwelten heute, has been heralded both for introducing

defined his nascent practice in London. In keeping with

conceptual art and Minimalism to a broader public

the ambition of the exhibition’s title, Dugger’s proposal

and for its innovative approaches to the display of art.

for the People’s Participation Pavilion was for something

Dugger’s inclusion in the fifth documenta seemed to

larger, more technically involved, and far more logisti-

forecast a place for him in what would become concep-

cally complicated than anything he had ever completed.

tual art’s canon.





entrance, both actual and conceptual, required full and

1

Dugger’s proposal for a freestanding red structure,

Described by Dugger as “an environment,” its

the People’s Participation Pavilion (1972), surrounded

engaged immersion in the activity of and conditions

by a trough of water took seriously Szeemann’s titular

within the space. The experiential nature of the struc-

invocation of an “inquiry into reality” (fig. 5.1). Even

ture was built into its multiple floors and pool of water.

before the curator’s intentions were announced, in the

Though temporary, it was architecturally sound, as it

months and weeks leading up to the June 1972 opening,

was designed to exhibit some of his smaller works,

it was clear that this documenta would be different from

creating an exhibition within an exhibition in Kassel.

5. 5. 5. 5. 5. 5. 5. 5. 5. 5.

Fig. 5.1 John Dugger, Pavilion Dugger (a.k.a. People’s Participation Pavilion), 1972. Installation at the exhibition documenta 5: Befragung der Realität—Bildwelten heute, Museum Fridericianum, Kassel, Germany, 1972. © John Dugger.

The pavilion also incorporated the work of two other

widely dismissed by contemporary reviewers, whose

London-based artists, David Medalla and Graham

characterization of Szeemann’s choice of art and

Stevens. The former showed kinetic objects inside the

artists and exhibition design ranged between poorly

pavilion, and the latter placed a monumentally sized

conceived and badly executed all the way to vulgar

inflatable on the roof of the building. Frequently, the

and monstrous. Artforum critic Lawrence Alloway’s

People’s Participation Pavilion has been described as a

account of the exhibition as “something between

collaboration between Medalla and Dugger, not unlike

a supermarket and a wunderkammer” reflected the

the participatory projects that they jointly staged in

sense that the show’s overall organization tended

London. But the pavilion as an event-structure was a

toward disorder. 2

signal feature of Dugger’s practice, with antecedents in



his first solo exhibition, entitled Microcosm, at the Sigi

People’s Participation Pavilion insisted upon became

Krauss Gallery in London, 1971. For this show, Dugger

the model for Artists for Democracy’s invitation to

staged many of the experimental elements that would

international artists to join them in their support of

be carried forward into documenta. Moreover, the

Chilean resistance following the 1973 coup. That this

documenta piece was a model for the installation infra-

happened in London follows from the “biomass” con-

structure that Dugger would later construct for the Arts

cept, whereby any place can be fitted to function for

Festival for Democracy in Chile, held in the fall of 1974 at

political art.

the Royal College of Art in London (RCA).





temporality, and festival culture of sculpture by Dugger

As both an object and an exhibition space within

The emphasis on social engagement that the

This essay examines the collective practices,

documenta 5, the pavilion was a microclimate where

as a specific strategy for occupying physical space for

other artists gathered as it was being built. Modeled

political means. Starting from Dugger’s installation

on a Burmese monsoon refuge, Dugger envisioned

at the Museum of Modern Art Oxford and his solo

the pavilion as an organic sanctuary—calling it a

show at the Sigi Krauss Gallery and ending at the Arts

biomass—from the immediate to-and-fro of a large

Festival at the RCA, I argue for Dugger’s authorship

international exhibition, whose activity was especially

of the People’s Participation Pavilion as separate from

pronounced during the well-attended opening days,

Medalla’s, and also for the recognition of the pavilion

with an onslaught of press, collectors, and museum

as an art object, two key aspects of the work that have

and commercial gallery staff. In turn, many used it as

been overlooked in the longer view of this art history.

a meeting place to which they returned to regroup

The pavilion was an example of the ways in which

while moving around the large, disorienting exhibi-

experimental art at mid-twentieth century was often

tion. Despite documenta 5’s later recuperation as a

embattled over both meaning and proprietary rights

groundbreaking experiment in curatorial strategies,

as the new art forms negotiated their way into public

conceptual art, and audience engagement, it was

visibility and institutional agendas.

97  Collectivity, Temporality, Festival Culture

when paired with her understanding of the artist’s

Collectivity

need to complete the object with the participation of Dugger arrived in London from the United States in

the spectator.6 Clark prioritized the “act of making the

1967. A recent dropout from the Art Institute of Chicago,

proposition,” as the work of art, which was a primary

by way of Berkeley, New York, and San Francisco,

pedagogical point that she, as elder avant-garde

Dugger, like many American men of his generation, was

statesperson, expressed frequently to artists within

presumed to be using London to dodge America’s draft

her circle.7 For example, in a letter to Hélio Oiticica she

for the Vietnam War.3 In London, he quickly became

wrote convincingly of artists as proposers and art as a

attached to the Exploding Galaxy (1967–68), a collective

proposition:

of actors, artists, dancers, and musicians that staged freewheeling performances throughout the city and

But it isn’t participation for the sake of partici-

lived communally in North London. The Galaxy was

pation and it is not saying, as [the Julio] Le Parc

instrumental in introducing Dugger to many loosely

group do, that art is a bourgeois problem. That

interconnected art scenes, notably Medalla (a Galaxy

would be too simple and straightforward. Nothing

founder), Stevens, who made inflatables that often

profound has that simplicity and nothing true is

accompanied Galaxy performances, and the art critic

straightforward. What they deny is the import-

Guy Brett. After the Galaxy ceased to exist as either an

ant thing: it is thought. I think that now we are

art or housing collective, Dugger traveled to Asia and to

the proposers and by means of the proposition

Europe. By 1970 he had settled in Paris, where he would

there must be a thought, and when the spectator

remain for a year.

expresses this proposition he is in fact joining the



age-old characteristic of a work of art: thought and

4

In Paris he interacted with an international group

of artists, many of them working in the area of kinetics,

expression.8

such as the Greek Takis (Panagiotis Vassilakis), the American Liliane Lijn, and, most importantly, for his

Clark’s sentiments reflected previous strongly worded

transition from art student and untrained performer

eschewals of dogma, such as those that guided the

to object maker, the Brazilian Lygia Clark. Clark intro-

Neoconcrete Manifesto’s situation of the art object’s

duced Dugger to the Brazilian avant-garde movement,

transcendent properties.9 Her words also dug deeper

Neoconcretismo, of which she was one of the leading

into the sometimes inarticulate definitions of con-

proponents. Through Clark, he also honed his interest

ceptual art in the sixties. Here and elsewhere in her

in the interactivity of artists and audiences that he

writing and work, Clark argued for art untethered

experienced in Galaxy performances. Clark’s articu-

from an audience that also sought to break down the

lation of participation as a refusal of myth, duration,

superficial binary of art and audience into the purely

and the unconscious made sense to Dugger, especially

experiential.

5

98  L O ND O N ART WOR LDS

Temporality

pairs, these clear tubes were known as Body Conductors. They could be used singly by a participant’s placing the

After Dugger’s return to London in 1971, he was invited

ends of one to the ears and the middle of the tube to

to contribute to Pioneers of Part-Art, a group show held

another body part for the aural experience of the inner

at the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford (now Modern

workings of the body. Ideally, the conductors would be

Art Oxford) that brought together his London Exploding

used by two people for a temporary sensory exchange.

Galaxy associates with the artists he had met in Paris:

One participant would hold the ends of a plastic tube to

Medalla, Stevens, Clark, Oiticica, and Li Yuan-Chia.

his or her ears as the other took the middle of the tube

Nicknamed PoPA at MoMA, the show was to explain

and ran it across another surface, preferably a body

part-art as “part as in participation and art as in articu-

part, hair, or breath. The ambient sound and vibration

lation,” through a range of art objects and actions that

sent through the tubing was experienced as a concep-

included Yuan-Chia’s installation of draped plastic, paper,

tual conduction of one body to another or an intimate

and poems; one of Stevens’s inflatables on which visitors

performance between the two people. Alongside the

could jump; and Dugger’s Biomass Installation (1971).10 In

conductors hung similar devices called Curved Space

name “part-art” also acknowledged the work’s tenuous

Tubes, distinguishable from the conductors only by their

relationship to fine art that excluded tactile interaction.

opacity and intention for single use to “produce a soft



jet-like roaring” sound when put to each ear.11

Biomass Installation was installed within a square

defined by four large, equally placed columns. A former



brewery, the museum’s rough aesthetic was visible in its

associate Oiticica’s 1969 exhibition at the Whitechapel

massive structural pillars, high ceilings, and untreated

Gallery, in which he defined the sand-covered instal-

floors (fig. 5.2). Inside the squared-off space, Dugger

lation area as an “environment” that required full

laid a “floor” of artificial grass on which he placed lightly

immersion.12 Though Biomass visitors were not sup-

inflated sheets of plastic. In the center of the space,

plied with directions for use, the logic of Dugger’s later

he hung an open-weave gridded structure from which

aesthetic directives suggests that an ideal entrance into

dangled several Perennials, each a flaccid, plastic fabric–

the installation would have been preceded by removing

like mesh construction that, when held, uncoiled as if

one’s shoes (as Oiticica instructed), after which one

blossoming or flowering. As the name suggests, the

walked onto the plastic to feel the inflation and see the

Perennials flowered repeatedly when activated by par-

field of green grass visible through it. In the center of

ticipants. Dugger frequently referred to the Perennials

the space, participants could stand within a vertical

as “Ergonic” sculptures, a portmanteau that invoked the

field of Perennials folding and unfolding around them.

meanings of earth and organic.

Alternatively, one might sit and look above as others



agitated the flowers to produce a cascade of blossoms.

On two sides of the installation’s quadrant, Dugger

suspended semicircular tubes from the ceiling. Hung in

99  Collectivity, Temporality, Festival Culture

Dugger’s project borrowed heavily from Clark’s

On the periphery of the installation, one might get in

Fig. 5.2 John Dugger, Biomass Installation, 1971. Shown at the exhibition Pioneers of Part-Art, Museum of Modern Art, Oxford. © John Dugger.

touch with his or her own body before inviting a partner

Rupert Legge and Mark Powell-Jones for MoMA. It

to join in the body conduction. The resulting human

was slated to be on view (or to be interacted with, by

and (pseudo) plant interaction, or Biomass, defined

the terms of part-art) continuously from February 14

the ambitious part-art concept. If, in scientific terms,

to February 28, 1971, but during the opening, on the

a biomass is biological matter harnessed as an energy

evening of February 13, the raucous “participation” of

source, then Dugger’s simulation of the biological and

the attendees with the works caused Medalla, followed

invitation to human participants were to create art

by Dugger and Stevens, to remove their work from the

from the energy of their interaction. So too did it reflect

show, effectively closing it.13 Hilary Floe situates PoPA,

Clark’s total investment in audience.

as well as other contemporary participatory exhibitions,



as an example of “over-participation,” an apt character-

Billed as the first survey of participation art, PoPA

was loosely curated by Oxford University students

100  L O ND ON ART WOR LDS

ization of the “interactions that were deemed to exceed

acceptable limits.”14 The press coverage of the opening

visitors had to take off their shoes and walk through

night laid blame for the failure of the show on a number

a trough filled with water. Stepping out of the water,

of factors, from the inexperience of the curators and

visitors dried their feet on a woven mat that was strewn

hypersensitivity of the artists to the problematic conceit

with towels. From there, they walked barefoot onto

of art that should be touched. In all cases, however,

artificial grass to reach the rest of the show. The effect

it was uncertain whether the art was to serve as an

of the “crossing stream,” as Dugger described it, was a

excuse for entertainment and play or as debris—what

breach between the street and the exhibition, forcing

has previously been called nonart when applied to other

visitors to attend to the physical experience of entering

examples of conceptual art, such as Arte Povera. The

into another space.17 Removing shoes and walking in

proposition that Dugger offered with this installation

water was the experiential induction into participatory

was accepted by the public that came to the open-

art that his previous work Biomass Installation lacked.

ing, but he was displeased with the way in which that

It was easier to direct visitors without shoes and with

acceptance was enacted. This misrecognition of the art

clean feet into the other interactive art on offer that

object is a recurring issue in the reception of his work

required as much immersion as the “crossing stream.” It

and particularly its distinction within a space of enter-

was also easier to curtail the kind of irreverent attitude

tainment and other art.

that plagued PoPA’s opening night.

The water feature was one of a few new elements

added to what was otherwise an early career retrospective. Microcosm contained Body Conductors, Curved Space

Participation

Tubes, Perennials and other experimental sculptures that Despite its premature closure, PoPA was Dugger’s

Dugger had made and shown over the last few years.

rehearsal for his first solo exhibition, Microcosm

In the basement of the gallery, he installed another

(subtitled Exhibition of Environmental Art), at Sigi

new object, an architectural model of a temple used as

Krauss Gallery in London’s Covent Garden. Planned

a rain retreat. During Vassa, the months-long mon-

in conjunction with the London music, film, and art

soon season in Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Sri Lanka, and

event Camden Festival ’71, Dugger’s exhibition was a

Thailand, Theravada Buddhist monks sequester them-

satellite of the group show (also named Microcosm)

selves annually, consciously removing themselves from

held at the Camden Arts Centre, which included works

secular life and avoiding the rain. Dugger intended for

by John Hilliard, Medalla, Marc Morrel, and Carolee

visitors to perform similar acts of connection with the

Schneemann. On view in Krauss’s frame shop and

model in order to experience the ascetic associations

gallery, Microcosm rearranged the small retail space as

of the Buddhist ritual. The profound interiority of the

a sensorial environment, complete with water, multi-

exhibition’s orientation inside the gallery (objects inside

ple textures, and living elements. To enter the space,

other objects, the unorthodox use of the basement, the

15

16

101  Collectivity, Temporality, Festival Culture

water division between inside and outside) reflected

Biennale. The young Swiss curator’s selection as the

Rudolph Steiner’s view of the microcosm as the human

artistic director was also viewed as an inspired choice,

body’s inner physical and spiritual life versus that of the

one that seemed to promise the kind of experimental

macrocosm, or the world in which the body lived.

art that had been on view in his previously critically



acclaimed exhibition, Live in Your Head: When Attitudes

18

In the Krauss show, the Rains Retreat also doubled

as The Snake Pit for Art Critics, replete with a full-size

Become Form (Works—Concepts—Processes—Situations—

python living inside it. Throughout the run of the show,

Information) at the Kunsthalle Bern in 1969. Szeemann’s

Dugger and Krauss fed the snake daily with live mice.

attempt to show art that resisted exhibition resulted in

Harald Szeemann saw Microcosm during his visit to

several spaces of distinct action. One of these spaces

London in 1971 in preparation for documenta 5 and

was Joseph Beuys’s Bureau for Direct Democracy, an

invited Dugger to construct a similar environment for

installation in which Beuys distributed information and

the garden of the museum. Krauss’s German nationality

debated political, art, and social issues with visitors

may have been the initial draw for Szeemann, as they

for the hundred days of documenta. On the final day,

had Swiss friends and acquaintances in common, but

in October, Beuys staged a Boxing Match for Direct

it was Dugger’s expansive approach to sculpture that

Democracy. His closing event capped a summer and

engaged him. As a testament to his enthusiasm for

early fall of temporal, demonstrative actions throughout

Dugger’s proposal, Szeemann handwrote the following

the confines of the exhibition that spilled into the city.

on the bottom of his typed letter of invitation to par-



ticipate in documenta: “There is unfortunately no snake

included in documenta 5. The fusion of architecture,

dealer in Kassel. The next one who would take care of

installation, and performance proved sculpture to be a

the Boas lives in Aachen, which is a six hour train ride.”20

dynamic medium. In the case of Haus-Rucker-Co’s Oasis

While Dugger’s snake may be one of the more extreme

#7, installed in and out of the museum, sculpture was

examples of Szeemann’s full commitment to conceptual

shown to be awesome and impossible. The Viennese

art at documenta 5, it goes a long way in explaining the

architecture collective devised a steel-pipe structure

disconnect between the curator’s willingness to realize

that was cantilevered out of the window of the museum.

the artist’s ideals and the critics’ reception of his actions

A platform, two palm trees, and a hammock were

as willfully bizarre.

enclosed inside an eight-meter translucent vinyl bubble.

19

Spectacle also defined the spirit of the sculpture

From the outside, it looked like a small patch of the tropics incubated in a greenhouse and suspended off the Festival Culture

ground was breaking out of the museum. Technically complicated and conceptually rich works such as this

The lead-up to the fifth edition of documenta was auspi-

exceeded Szeemann’s notion that the show be as rigor-

cious. It fell during a year that coincided with the Venice

ous as it was elastic in its conception of art.

102  L O ND ON ART WOR LDS



Alongside the overtly demonstrative art such as

indicted as the perpetuators of wrongs against the ten

that by Beuys, there were several examples of static,

undersigned artists and their work. The artists asked

performative sculpture, including Edward Kienholz’s Five

that their art not be exhibited “in a classification without

Car Stud (1969–72). Installed inside an inflated dome on

the artist’s consent” and that they receive autonomy

the museum’s grounds, Five Car Stud was a tableau of

“without censorship” in the exhibition catalogue, tenets

nine life-sized figures, five automobiles, trees, dirt, and

that suggested their disinterest in Szeemann’s anthro-

debris lit by a car’s headlights. Viewers walked through

pological curating and belief in the catalogue as an

the dirt and sparsely lit environment in between the

extension of gallery space.21

cars and figures as if happening on the gruesome, if



ambiguous, scene of standing bodies with guns and a

ate adjunct to an international exhibition of art that

dismembered body on the ground. Five Car Stud was

elevated concept over material, and material and

immediately taken up by reviewers as a realistic depic-

form over all else. These were artists making art

tion of American violence, rather than an object with

that might also include written tracts, manifestos,

obvious connections to assemblage, Hollywood film,

performance-lectures, or text not dissimilar to the

and land art.

Artforum letter. Textual, verbal, and audible interface



was their praxis. So public displays of contention were

Szeemann’s curatorial style was not without

In a sense, the manifesto seemed an appropri-

controversy. He allocated whole sections of the show to

simply part of the work. In the end, only four of the

advertising, paintings by mental patients, performance,

ten—Carl Andre, Donald Judd, Robert Morris, and Fred

and science fiction, among other displays of outsider

Sandback—felt the need actually to pull out of the

art. Even before the opening of the exhibition, on June

show. As Jef Cornelis’s archival video of the opening

30, 1972, there was friction between the artists, the

presents, documenta 5 was a freewheeling multiplat-

art, and the curator. In the run-up to the show, several

form event that bore little experiential relationship

American artists were vocal about Szeemann’s curato-

to institutional art exhibitions of its time, despite

rial style, which seemed, from their perspective, to take

its promotion of primarily white male European and

many liberties with artists’ rights, as they ultimately

American artists.

charged him in print. At the rear of the June issue of Artforum, buried within the ads for upcoming exhibitions at commercial galleries, appeared, in the form of a small

Biomass

paid advertisement, a four-point manifesto aimed at documenta 5 specifically and all exhibitions generally.

In the months leading up to documenta, Dugger began

Szeemann and his curatorial team of Jean-Christophe

to design a “part-art” environment where, like his show

Amman, Konrad Fischer, and Arnold Bode, though

at Sigi Krauss, there would be several works spread out

unnamed, were the intended targets of the missive,

over multiple discrete spaces. All of the works would be

103  Collectivity, Temporality, Festival Culture

participatory, so that the pavilion could be constantly

to work for common goals. The goals, once achieved,

in use, night and day. Following his interest in tropical

would then be shared equally by all. To that end, the

architecture, the pavilion would combine the formal

pavilion was named to be inclusive of artists and art

vocabulary of a Southeast Asian longhouse and a rains

viewers at documenta, designating their role as partici-

retreat: open on all sides, with a bonnet roof (fig. 5.3).

pants. Despite the lofty aims of the site-specific project,

Dugger’s object was an appropriation of structures

Dugger obtained building permits from the city, hired

whose design matched their environmental conditions

a construction crew of unionized laborers, and con-

of tropical temperatures, high humidity, and lush veg-

structed the pavilion to Kassel’s architectural and code

etation. His attempt to translate the open-plan design

specifications.

into a new context in order to encourage a collegial



atmosphere was also an act of appropriation that had

toward an area of woven mats. After leaving their

imperial and colonial overtones. The colonial is even sig-

shoes here, participants waded through a meter-wide

naled in the title, through his generalization of a native

trough of water to get into the main exhibition space,

or folk populous (people) in need of representation,

which was, like the Krauss Gallery show, covered

which brings to mind the uneven anthropological hier-

entirely in artificial green grass. Dugger described

archy of the First and Third Worlds, wherein the former

it as a biomass, a term reused from the PoPA show.

would be specifically identified and the latter would be

“Biomass” denoted an area of plant life engaged in

grouped into classifications, such as peoples. Drawing

energy collection and storage, as well as the process

from his own interest in Eastern literature, philosophy,

of the energy collection. Just as the “grass”-covered

and religion, he wanted to use the object’s style to

surface of the pavilion was a biomass, so too were

imbue the interaction of art and the public at documenta

the other artists and participants who gathered in the

with spirituality, specifically one that saw documenta as

space to interface with the work. Once again a snake

a kind of extended retreat for art and its participants in

was installed on the lowest level of the structure. In

the manner of the rains retreat.

this installation, visitors could look down into the pit



that contained the snake.22

Dugger arrived in Kassel in late spring to begin

To enter, one had to ascend a broad staircase

work on the pavilion with architect Lorenz Dombois,



documenta’s technical director. The People’s Participation

days, documenta was also a biomass, in that it was a

Pavilion was located on the grounds of the Museum

gathering, as well as a productive collection of con-

Fridericianum. Dugger’s structure had gray-slate slanted

temporary art that would, after the exhibition closed,

roofs and was painted red inside and out, an ode to

spread out into the world. To make this evident, Dugger

his interest in China, specifically the central role of the

hung several of his cloth banners from the ceiling and

worker in Mao’s Cultural Revolution. Dugger believed

hung or painted numerous red stars onto all of the

that Mao’s socialism mobilized disparate bodies as one

building’s surfaces as symbols of Maoist collectivity. As

104  L O ND ON ART WOR LDS

Incubated in Kassel every five years for a hundred

Fig. 5.3 John Dugger and Lorenz Dombois, architectural plan for Pavilion Dugger (a.k.a. People’s Participation Pavilion), 1972. Installation at the exhibition documenta 5: Befragung der Realität—Bildwelten heute, Museum Fridericianum, Kassel, Germany, 1972. © John Dugger.

the pavilion began to take shape, Dugger invited other



artists from London to join him, so that the pavilion fully

invited to show his participation craft object, A Stitch

realized his idea of communal art space in the Maoist

in Time, in Dugger’s Pavilion, but by the opening of the

tradition. If at Sigi Krauss’s the separation of Dugger’s

show his long sheets of cotton cloth hung from its

solo exhibit from the works of the other artists showing

ceiling. Resembling a large floating banquet table or a

at the Camden Arts Centre established him as an artist

draping hammock, the fabric was assembled for a com-

capable of developing his own ideas and executing

munal activity. Viewers were given needles and thread

them, documenta both confirmed and complicated his

and invited to become participants by sewing onto the

artistic independence.

cloth, thereby creating both a shared artwork and an

105  Collectivity, Temporality, Festival Culture

It is not clear how David Medalla came to be

Fig. 5.4 Graham Stevens, Inflatable, 1972, atop the People’s Participation Pavilion. Installation at the exhibition documenta 5: Befragung der Realität—Bildwelten heute, Museum Fridericianum, Kassel, Germany, 1972.

atmosphere (people queuing up to sew together) unlike

to “the bourgeois barriers of the gallery system and the

that created when looking at a static art object. As

art world.”25

Claire Bishop has argued, embroidery was a “slower



activity” than either drawing or sculpture, thus allowing

to install one of his large-scale transmobiles, speci-

for greater “social interaction.”24

fying that it must fit the all-red pavilion color scheme



(fig. 5.4). It was a soft barrier, sited on one side of the

23

Medalla also placed one of his cloud machines in

In addition to Medalla, Dugger also invited Stevens

the purpose-built courtyard of the pavilion. This one

pavilion’s otherwise hard structure, that a museumgoer

featured a red star for China. Next to the cloud machine,

could sit, walk, or jump on or move about.26 Related

on the exterior back wall of the pavilion, Medalla

to the history of architectural models and universal

installed a series of posters. Some of the posters

expositions, both Dugger’s Pavilion and Stevens’s pneu-

denounced international atrocities, like the Vietnam

matic environment were early examples of the variety

War, while others carried more-general messages of

of temporary architecture that would be enfolded into

antifascism and antiracism or slogans in support of

conceptual-art practices, large-scale art and archi-

Maoist China. There were also pettier conceits, specific

tectural exhibitions, and commercial enterprises in

to London’s art world, like the enlarged reproduction of

the decades to come.27 What was unique about their

Medalla’s correspondence with Norman Reid, director

objects was their insistence upon the primacy of their

of the Tate Gallery, and Roland Alley, Tate’s keeper of

finality as sculptural objects. Neither the Pavilion nor the

the modern collection, that relayed a dispute he had

inflatable were models for more permanent entities, nor

with the museum over the collection of Medalla’s art.

were they thought experiments in explorations of other

This area of the exhibition was intended as a kind of

concepts.

conversation and information space, where participants



might gather to read the displayed material and discuss

typical of his practice in London. He was a member of

its relevance to the other objects on view. Yet all of the

a few art collectives, worked in a cooperative gallery,

posters reinforced the political slant of Dugger and

and joined in other artist’s performance work. Despite

Medalla, which boiled down to “East is good, West is

its normalcy for him, collaboration ran counter to the

bad,” except for those from the West willing to take

way that most artists in Kassel conceived of their roles

up an Eastern position, as they had. This simplistic

in the exhibition. They saw documenta as an oppor-

equation was one of the ways in which the serious-

tunity to further solo auteurship. The insistence on

ness of the Pavilion as a well-executed architectonic

the single author governed the allocation of physical

sculpture was undermined. A few years later, political

space, to the extent that many artists—like Beuys or

artist and member of Artists for Democracy Su Braden

Kienholz—devised single-room projects for identifi-

dismissed Dugger and Medalla’s use of Lenin and Mao

ably distinct space within the exhibition. This sense of

as “extremely valuable in academic terms” but limited

ownership was neither new nor foreign, but it was a

107  Collectivity, Temporality, Festival Culture

Dugger’s invitation to other artists to join him was

slightly awkward position to take with art that required

public-seeking practice. He needed fellow artists,

a public for interaction and documentation for legibility.

Medalla and Stevens, to widen that space, to broaden

I would argue that this friction between single authority

the population of participants for the immediate

and the exhibition was an important part of the insti-

project but also in the object-form enterprise of his

tutional growth of conceptual art, one that Szeemann’s

participation art. The Pavilion was, in many ways, a

documenta brought into the conversation about con-

satellite of the practices from which he had grown as

temporary art in the early 1970s. This was, after all, the

an artist, specifically those of the Exploding Galaxy

documenta that sought to democratize the reception

and Lygia Clark. But in the manner of the debacle on

of art by showing things that were, at the time, barely

the opening night of the PoPA show, Dugger’s Pavilion

legible as such.

became a hub for artists and visitors to hang out during



the opening events. Its placement on the grounds

Even by Szeemann’s criteria for what constituted

anti-art or nonart, Dugger seemed to be moving in the

of the Fridericianum made it a centerpiece of the

opposite direction, lessening his authorship more and

opening’s spectacle, but it also diminished its object

more as the pavilion was being built. Though attributed

status, for of all those that came, walked through the

to him by Szeemann, it is now often described as a col-

water, forced the artificial flowers to blossom, sewed

laboration with Medalla. In title, the People’s Participation

on strips of cloth suspended in the air, and bounced

Pavilion seemed to imply a collective anonymous entity

up and down on Steven’s transmobile, few seemed to

that sprang into being for an unnamed nation. The

recognize the Pavilion as an object and their role within

name, of course, arose from Dugger’s infatuation with

it as participants. In the same manner that Kienholz’s

China and valorization of the Maoist plan for commu-

“inquiry into reality” was read too literally, Dugger’s

nal work and life. And the pavilion seemed to function

“red house” appeared too much like a lounge for the

that way: people came and went, other artists sought

exhibition rather than art within it. By the same token,

it out, and Dugger’s, Medalla’s, and Stevens’s objects

Dugger’s offering of the exotic was outmatched by the

were largely indistinct from one another, as if they were

atmosphere of documenta, which did not need to rely

representing some utopian nation.

on the appropriation of Asia for spectacle.



Perhaps that utopia was London. Dugger brought

to documenta a sample of the kind of free-form, performance-based practice that was happening in

Proposition

London in the early 1970s, which was a direct result of the social changes brought about by the preced-

Following documenta’s opening in June 1972, Dugger

ing decade’s international civil-rights movements.

made his first trip to China, where he remained for

Dugger’s invocation of a “people’s space” was his

several weeks before returning to London in the late

space in London, a place that welcomed him and his

summer.28 After his return, the Artists Liberation

108  L O ND ON ART WOR LDS

Front, the political art group to which he belonged

Pavilion in Kassel. According to Vicuña, this was the

with Medalla, began to take a more demonstrative

beginning of Artists for Democracy (AFD). All agreed

role. Medalla declared all acts ones of art and poli-

on the following manifesto:

tics, and Dugger made banners in response to various national and international events. The Chilean coup on

1. To give moral, cultural and financial support to genu-

September 11, 1973, galvanized the group, just as the war in Vietnam, the Cultural Revolution in China, and the events of May 1968 in Paris had similarly done.

ine liberation movements all over the world 2. To propagate[,] in a living and creative way, democratic culture everywhere; to encourage all forms of

29

These were profound moments that provoked their art for political means and drew them into conversations

progressive, experimental art 3. To explore and develop ways of integrating our varied

that seemed to be concerned with issues of greater

artistic theories and practices with the struggle for

civic import than those of the immediate context of the

emancipation of the international working class and

London art world.

all oppressed people.32



Sometime between September 1973 and the spring

of 1974, Medalla, Dugger, and the art critic Guy Brett



met the Chilean artist Cecilia Vicuña, whose 1973 exhi-

described AFD as “an organization of radical artists who

bition at the ICA, Pain Things and Explanations presented

openly supported the anti-imperialist struggle in the

her response to the civic unrest in Chile. In the press

Third World, by organizing art festivals, exhibitions and

release for the show, Vicuña stated: “My painting is

regular discussion meetings.”33 As Araeen suggested,

political in a personal way. My canvases are born as

AFD used its art as a public service, specifically that of

representation of a socialist paradise where everything

social justice. The material composition and forms of

is possible.”

AFD’s art reflected this ideal: Dugger sewed large fabric



30

Their sometime collaborator Rasheed Araeen

Exiled in London, she became one of a few Chileans

banners and made temporary architectonic objects;

in Britain able to give firsthand accounts of the country’s

Vicuña constructed ephemeral body sculptures and

turmoil. In London she was, through the Chile Solidarity

room-sized installations of string; and Medalla printed

Campaign, a surrogate for other South American artists

posters, while Brett delivered lectures. All of the objects

and writers who were unable to leave the region or

and activities fitted physically and ideologically into the

speak openly. During one of the lecture performances

space of Dugger’s structures.

that accompanied her show at the ICA, she joined with



Brett, Dugger, and Medalla to do something for Chile

in the Studio International office. There they planned

in the vein of their work on China and Mao, which

an exhibition and a series of “part-art” events to raise

had been integral to both their more recent Artists

money to support the victims of Chile’s dictatorship.

Liberation Front actions and the People’s Participation

The committee of Brett, Dugger, Medalla, and Vicuña

31

109  Collectivity, Temporality, Festival Culture

Over the summer of 1974 the members of AFD met

Fig. 5.5 Arts Festival for Democracy in Chile, Royal College of Art, London, 1974. © John Dugger.

Chilean workers in various modes of production. Hung outdoors, as it was intended, the strips fluttered in the wind, breaking up the scenes to reveal the banner’s delicacy. Speaking from a podium on September 15, 1974, Señora Allende appeared against the backdrop of Dugger’s banner as the smaller trade-union banners hung below her.36 The fabric banners served as simulations of the Chilean flag, which had been symbolically ruptured by the coup. Dugger’s banner brought to the very center of London that aspect of spectacle which had been so crucial to his work, and others’, on display at documenta. designated themselves secretary, co–festival coordina-



tor, chairman, and co–festival coordinator, respectively,

Democracy in Chile at the Royal College of Art was

of the Arts Festival for Democracy in Chile. Their titles,

the single most visible event/action for AFD.37 Part

like the Maoist worker jacket that Dugger wore, were an

exhibition and part environment, it drew attention from

admission of their shared relationship to this endeavor,

international artists, including Roberto Matta, Claus

and a whiff of Marxism carried over from their previous

Oldenburg, Christo, Meret Oppenheim, Sol Lewitt, Jorg

collectives (Exploding Galaxy and Artists Liberation

Immendorf, Fluxus associate Jon Hendricks, as well

Front) and exhibitions (Vicuña’s ICA show, PoPA, and

as British artists Rasheed Araeen, Su Braden, David

the Peoples Participation Pavilion). Chile was the perfect

Hockney, Tina Keane, and R. B. Kitaj.38 Most artists con-

project-cause for Dugger after China and documenta.

tributed individual objects to be raffled at the close of

Given that Pinochet’s government had overthrown the

the festival, while others attended the events. During its

Marxist Allende, this was a clear fight for Marxism.

run some of these works were displayed inside a space



that Dugger designed.

34

Just before the opening of the festival, AFD

Open on October 14, 1974, the Arts Festival for

cosponsored a march and rally for Chile on Trafalgar



Square featuring Hortensia Bussi Allende (Salvador

this unnamed structure transformed the RCA’s interior

Allende’s widow), trade-union representatives, and the

public area into a cohesive environment that loosely

Swedish ambassador to Chile, Gustav Harald Edelstam.

resembled Dugger’s documenta pavilion (fig. 5.5).39

Dugger’s first large-scale banner, Chile Vencera (1974),

Like the previous biomasses that he conceptualized,

was draped behind Allende on Nelson’s column (see fig.

this one drew on the idea of tropical architecture as

I.4). Constructed of twenty vertical strips, the banner,

a model for art as social justice. The space included

when still, depicted a continuous, unbroken scene of

the now-familiar features of painted wood, multiple

35

110  L O ND ON ART WOR LDS

Returning to Clark’s proposer/proposition model,

chambers, areas of display interspersed with areas for

other ways, his sculpture’s insistence on radicality fell

congregation and participation, and artificial grass.

flat inside a conceptual art practice that placed a prior-

The banners, posters, and wood scaffolding created, as

ity on making flowers and interpersonal connection via

the other installations had, a kind of imagined “Third

plastic tubes. Moreover, the use and reuse of “tropical

World” stage suggesting that the festival was squatting

architecture” without climatic or environmental neces-

the RCA.

sity seemed also to make light of the real stakes named



in Dugger’s practice. As Jiat-Hwee Chang and Anthony

Unlike the other installations, the RCA version did

not announce itself as sculpture; it was untitled and

D. King demonstrate, tropical architecture is a colonial

undesignated in the list of art donated to the festival.

construction in thought and practice.41 By the time

Instead, it was a kind of armature for the performances

he designed the festival environment for the RCA, its

(dance, live art, music, poetry, puppet theater, and

model’s original purpose as a Buddhist spiritual retreat

Liliane Lijn’s Power Game), lectures (notably by the

in Asia essentialized an already tenuous relationship to

actress Constance Cummings; the writer and recently

postcoup Chile as just another Third World site. By 1974,

deposed cultural adviser to Allende, Ariel Dorfman; and

what, after all, would have been either unique or even

the activist German painter Jörg Immendorff), sym-

aesthetically relevant about the imposition of the exotic

posia, and other smaller, topical discussions that took

onto conceptual art? Furthermore, after Hornsey and its

place within its confines. Likely the last of Dugger’s

teach-ins, art schools in England already expected art to

quasi-architectural objects, it was also the one most

be engaged with the world via the site of the school.

collaboratively executed and purpose-built.





40

And yet, there is something compelling about

One of the chief similarities between the RCA,

the ways in which Dugger’s large-scale temporal

Microcosm, and documenta structures was their reliance

quasi-architecture routinely went unnoticed. The

upon material exoticism. Constructed explicitly on

previous invisibility at Kassel was doubled at the RCA

a “rains retreat” model, all of the quasi-architectural

as his “sculpture” effectively faded into the background

spaces used the idea of a tropical environment as a

while events at the art college commanded attention

ready-made utopia wherein art as participation was

for Chile and attendant concerns about art practice

oversimplified as play and where it overly essentialized

and politics.42 In the former, Dugger’s divestment of his

the normative engagement of undertheorized political

role as artist by inviting other artists into the space had

views, be they Marxism, socialism, or, in the case of

subsumed his individual ideas. Collaboration, in this

the RCA, an evocation of the realities of Chile under a

case, had not been a form of compromise but rather one

dictatorship. In some ways, Dugger’s projection of the

of concealment.

exotic into London and Kassel might be understood as



an extension of the protest concepts of 1968 that often

the theorization of later interactive art under the rubric

incorporated theater, civil disruption, and collectivity. In

of relational aesthetics in which the social experience

111  Collectivity, Temporality, Festival Culture

This part of Dugger’s practice occurred well before

of audience and artist formed the basis of the artwork.

projects on the political nature of food production and

What it does share with relational aesthetics, however,

consumption. Like Dugger’s constructions, the plain

is the way in which he set a stage of variable condi-

wood structures Tiravanija builds to prepare and serve

tions (such as the manipulation of space, provision of

the food are rarely discussed as distinct objects. Seghal,

props, or presentation of directives) that allowed the

by contrast, does not make objects. Instead, he places

art space, be it in a museum or the public realm, to

performers into exhibition spaces to speak to, dance

become a temporary social space for equally imper-

with, make music for, or otherwise engage public audi-

manent and unexpected engagement. For the artist,

ences. The resulting work is, like most live art, focused

the entrance of the participant made it an artwork,

on the experiential interaction between performer and

whether readily acknowledged by the participant or

audience.

not. What the failure of the PoPA show demonstrates



is not so much a failure of the interaction as a disjunc-

his audience was not conditioned to see its success.

ture between the concept and its comprehension. The

One might argue the opposite, that its seamlessness

size, scale, and sheer wealth of resources, both human

within the fabric of documenta’s permanent buildings

and financial, that were used to make Dugger’s struc-

and legible art, together with the audience’s response

tures underscore the multiple ways in which art can be

to the Chilean coup, was more conceptually rich than

perceived and—perhaps should be—misperceived. Later,

a practice that announced itself as art rather than life.

when participants readily recognized art that inherited

If documenta 5 was as groundbreaking as art history

this legacy, like that of Adrian Piper’s cards, Rirkrit

has deemed it to be, it was so because of the modern-

Tiravanija’s meals, or Tino Seghal’s conversationalists, it

ist examples of world’s fairs and universal exhibitions

was not due to its success in communicating itself, but

from which it emerged. Inside documenta 5, the People’s

rather to the ability of the participants (largely art-world

Participation Pavilion retained some of that modernist

cognoscenti) to move knowingly into its realm.

undertone as a small-scale model of the exhibition’s



aims. That Dugger looked toward the exotic, rather than

Social practice has taken many forms, but Piper,

Dugger’s work was no less successful because

Tiravanija, and Seghal represent three notable examples

the exploratory, for currency, is proof that he too was

that have influenced other artists and helped muse-

struggling with a modernist/postmodernist binary in

ums shape their exhibition and collecting practices

the form of the conceptual object. He found himself so

of this form. In the 1970s Piper produced a series of

attached to the form that he could not fully realize his

calling cards that she handed out in social situations

idea. Dugger’s quasi-architecture seems to point toward

to respond to specific moments of racism or sexism.

a postmodernist understanding of space while clinging

Similarly, Tiravanija’s makeshift spaces for communal

to modernism’s evocation of time, situated tenuously in

meals are read variously as felicitous opportunities to

between these realms in his insistence on the recogni-

encourage group interaction or as public-awareness

tion of participation.43

112  L O ND ON ART WOR LDS

Notes











1. See, for one, Buchloh, “Documenta 7,” 109. 2. Alloway, “‘Reality’: Ideology at D5,” 36. 3. Dugger’s biography is drawn from a number of sources, including interviews with the author and James, John Dugger. 4. For an extended review of the Exploding Galaxy, see Drower, 99 Balls Pond Road, and Keeler, Planted. 5. John Dugger interview with the author, August 11, 2009. 6. Clark, “We Refuse.” 7. Ibid., 106. 8. Clark to Hélio Oiticica, Paris, November 14, 1968, in Butler and Pérez-Oramas, Lygia Clark, 232. 9. Gullar, “Manifesto Neoconcreto.” Clark was one of the signatories of the manifesto. 10. John A. Walker’s account of this installation calls Dugger’s work Canalization of Psychic Energy. Walker, Left Shift, 48. The title that I use, Biomass Installation, was supplied by the artist decades after the close of the event. Based on extant installation images and contemporary descriptions, the differing titles reference the same work of art. 11. John Dugger, “In Paris with Lygia Clark,” unpublished text, 2011, 14. 12. See Hélio Oiticica: Whitechapel Experiment. 13. It is unclear what action Clark, Oiticica, and Li Yuan-Chia might have taken in response to the atmosphere of the opening, as they were not present. See Hutton, “Things to Wear”; “Art Preview Ends in Uproar”; Hutton, “Artists Call Spectators Philistines”; “Over-involved”; Everitt, “PoPA at MoMA”; Tisdall, “Participation in Art”; Brett, “Just a Few Hours of Participation.” 14. Floe, “‘Everything Was Getting Smashed.’” Floe notes that she borrowed Dugger’s term “over-participation” but that she has modified its definition. For a comparison of the two uses of the term, see Dugger, “In Paris with Lygia Clark,” 19, 23, and 25. 15. The Microcosm group exhibition was on view at Camden Arts Centre from April 4 to May 2, 1971, while Dugger’s solo contribution opened two days later, on April 6. The music-and-film event held at the Roundhouse in Chalk Farm, Camden Festival ’71, ran from April 25 to May 1, 1971. 16. Trained in cabinetry and woodworking, Krauss opened his gallery in 1968, which occupied the street-level floor of his shop at 29 Neal Street, Covent Garden, London. The gallery was a small enterprise that shared space with his frame shop, which supplied Marlborough and other West End galleries with frame-making services. Sigi Krauss interviews with the author, August 19, 2008, and October 23, 2010. 17. John Dugger e-mail correspondence with the author, January 3, 2012. 18. Steiner, Macrocosm and Microcosm. 19. Krauss’s first wife was Miriam Tinguely, daughter of Swiss artists Jean Tinguely and Eva Aeppli, through whom he was connected

113  Collectivity, Temporality, Festival Culture

to artists in their orbit. Shortly after Dugger’s show ended, Krauss closed the gallery and founded Gallery House, a nonprofit space that became an important venue for experimental art in London in the 1970s. 20. Harald Szeemann to John Dugger, January 25, 1972, collection of John Dugger. 21. Advertisement, Artforum, June 1972. Despite the artists’ call for a more nuanced understanding of their profession, the repeated use of the male pronoun “he,” despite Dorothea Rockburne’s role as one of the nine signatories to the advertisement, suggests the limits of their radicality. 22. The People’s Participation Pavilion included most of Dugger’s series to date: the sonar body series Singing the Body Electric (1969); the part-art flexible construction Let a Hundred Flowers Blossom (1970); a bio-installation with a live snake, Snake Pit (1971); the part-art events Landscape Hats (1968) and Prismatic Conversation in Silver Space (1970); a portrait of Ho Chi Minh, An Inch of Earth Is an Inch of Gold—U.S. Aggressors Get out of Indo-China; the posters Victory to the Just Struggle of the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola—M.P.L.A.! (1972) and The Masses Have Boundless Creative Power—Mao Tsetung (1971); and the Artists Liberation Front banner Socialist Art Through Socialist Revolution (1971). See Szeemann, Documenta 5, 47. 23. A Stitch in Time was included in A Survey of the Avant-Garde in Britain, Part 1, September 12–30, 1972, Gallery House, London. Krauss confirmed this description of A Stitch in Time. Sigi Krauss interview with the author, August 21, 2008. According to Medalla, there were several versions of the installation: Museum of Modern Art, Oxford (1970–71), Camden Arts Centre as part of the Camden Arts Festival (1971), the Toeval exhibition at the University of Utrecht (1972), documenta 5 (1972), Gallery House (1972), and the Architectural Association in London (1973). Cited in Benitez, “David Medalla: The 60s and 70s.” 24. Bishop, Artificial Hells, 185–86. Bishop, like Guy Brett before her, also links Medalla to Clark and Oiticica. 25. Braden, “Politics in Art.” 26. Graham Stevens interview with the author, July 21, 2014. The transmobile included in documenta had previously been shown in Willoughby Sharp’s group show, Air Art, which traveled extensively to venues throughout the United States from March 1968 to March 1969. See Sharp, Air Art. 27. Dan Graham’s series of freestanding steel-and-glass public structures, called pavilions, are but one example of the ways in which Dugger’s early example of quasi-architecture in conceptual art has been built upon. See Colomina, “Beyond Pavilions.” 28. Dugger states that he was invited to China in 1972 as a part of a cultural delegation. Telephone interview with John Dugger, August 11, 2009. For a longer discussion of Dugger’s trip to China, see Walker, Left Shift, 87.

29. Backed by the military, Augusto Pinochet led a coup against the elected president Salvador Allende on September 11, 1973. Allende died during the coup, his family went into exile, and Pinochet’s authoritarian rule lasted until 1990. 30. Press release (no. 182, dated 18.4.73) for Pain Things and Explanations, which was on view from May 8 to May 27, 1973, at the ICA. 31. Cecilia Vicuña interview with the author, February 5, 2008. 32. “News and Notes,” 226. May 6 marks the anniversary of protests against the police raid on the Sorbonne that led to rioting by students, teachers, and others in Paris in 1968. A copy of the original handwritten manifesto (from Vicuña’s archive) is reproduced in Artists for Democracy: El Archivo de Cecilia Vicuña, n.p. 33. Rasheed Araeen, “Black Umbrella” organization proposal (January 1984), Panchayat Archive, University of Westminster, Harrow. 34. The Chile Working Committee also included Su Braden, RoseLee Goldberg, Steve Pusey, Conrad Atkinson, and Hugh Cowe. Chile Working Committee notes, May 6, 1974, Cecilia Vicuña Archive. In a CV from 1977, Brett listed himself as the co-organizer of the festival and cofounder of AFD. Correspondence between Guy Brett and N. Wadley, March 17, 1977, Jasia Reichardt Letters, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles. 35. See Leggett and Hopkins, Chile Lucha. 36. The march and rally were organized by the British Joint Labour Movement and the Chile Solidarity Campaign, of which Vicuña was a leader. 37. The Arts Festival for Democracy in Chile was on view at the Royal College of Art from October 14 to October 30, 1974. The London-based artists were not the only ones to take on the issue of Chile following the coup. In October 1974 the Venice Biennale hosted theater and cinema under the title Libertà per il Cile. Dorfman came to London directly from the events in Venice. In New York, the Chile Emergency Exhibition took place March 2–16, 1974. The committee of organizing artists included Carl Andre, Dore Ashton, Rudolph Baranik, Arnold Belkin, Hortense Carpentier, Enrique Castro-Cid, Karen Clahassey, Gonzalo Fonseca, Juan Gomez-Quiroz, Judie Hand de Gomez, Edys Hunter, Li-lan, Lucy Lippard, and Irving Penn. Chile Emergency Exhibition to Sylvia Sleigh, March 27, 1974, Sylvia Sleigh Papers, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, Accession no. 2004.M.4, Box 30, Folder 9.

114  L O ND ON ART WOR LDS

38. According to the exhibition checklist, 326 artworks were donated to the event. Untitled document, Cecilia Vicuña Archive. 39. My description of the RCA event is compiled from several sources, including interviews with Araeen, Brett, Dugger, Tina Keane, Krauss, Lynn MacRitchie, Medalla, Jonathan Miles, John Phillips, Jun Terra, Stevens, and Vicuña, and MacRitchie’s film, Festival for Democracy in Chile, 1974. Save for Dugger, none of those interviewed gave conclusive descriptions of his structure at the show. MacRitchie, Phillips, and Vicuña have, however, identified some sort of structure within the RCA space that may have been spearheaded by Dugger. MacRitchie went so far as to describe the structure as either a “favela” or a “shantytown,” descriptions that support a contemporary comprehension of Dugger’s Pavilion refitted for use as a stand-in for Chile postcoup. 40. The festival’s schedule details a wide-ranging program, from discussions on Chile and its art movements to performances of Indian classical music and the Chicago ballet. Importantly, the festival united disparate avant-garde art groups in the following subject-specific symposia: Latin American Art and Culture (October 15), Asian and Middle East Art and Culture (October 18), African and Caribbean Art and Culture (October 25), and Experimental Forms of Art (October 29). See “International Arts Festival for the Chilean Resistance at the RCA and AMP,” Lynn MacRitchie Archive. 41. Chang and King, “Towards a Genealogy of Tropical Architecture.” 42. Dugger’s sculpture aside, the festival, including exhibition and auction, was wildly successful as an art enterprise though less so as a fundraiser for Chile. The festival solidified the group’s relationship to British art during this period, confirmed their widespread international art networks, and set the stage for the politically motivated events that AFD would support for the remainder of its short existence. Though AFD splintered almost immediately after the festival ended, several of the artists involved formed their own groups. Jonathan Miles and others left to form the Poster-Film Collective. John Phillips and Pippa Smith founded Paddington Printshop (now London Print Studio) in west London. By 1977 Medalla had re-formed AFD in Fitzrovia as a physical space for exhibitions, performances, live art, and film, modeled on the multidimensional documenta exhibition. 43. For a longer discussion of postmodernism as space and modernism as time, see Lee, New Games, 26–28.

6. 6. 6. 6. 6. 6. 6. 6. 6. 6.

Taking the Trouble to Sound It Mediating Conflict in the Work of Rita Donagh Catherine Spencer

Between 1973 and 1974 Rita Donagh worked on a paint-

and 1980s after the reemergence of sectarian violence

ing that, although influenced by “the events taking place

between Loyalist Unionists and Nationalist Republicans,

in Northern Ireland,” remained for the majority of its

who wanted to break away from Britain. While the

maturation “a more generalized expression of conflict.”1

Loyalist Ulster Volunteer Force claimed responsibility

In May 1974, however, the temporal and spatial poli-

for the 1974 irruption of violence in the Irish Republic’s

tics of what ultimately became Evening Papers (Ulster

capital, it was later alleged that British intelligence had

1972–74) (1973–74) crystallized decisively when Donagh

been involved, demonstrating the web of agency and

encountered a photograph in the Sunday Times showing

responsibility in which Donagh’s oeuvre is imbricated.4

the aftermath of a car bomb in Dublin (fig. 6.1).2 The

The critic Paul Overy noted in 1977 that Donagh had

documentary photograph of a body lying prone in the

produced “some of the few paintings to have dealt

street, covered with newspapers from a nearby vendor

with the troubles in Ireland.”5 Her work attends to a

in an attempt to grant the dead a degree of decency

context that has tended to recede into the background

after “three separate car bombs went off without

of discussions about art in Britain during the late 1960s

warning . . . causing carnage during the evening rush

and 1970s.6

hour,” triggered multiple studies and sketches, providing



a visual and conceptual anchor for Evening Papers. This

Union made Ireland part of Britain. By the early twenti-

painting marked the beginning of Donagh’s sustained

eth century, however, support for home rule had gained

investigation into Northern Ireland during the 1970s

traction, and following the Government of Ireland Act

3

After centuries of colonization, in 1800 the Acts of

Fig. 6.1 Rita Donagh, Evening Papers (Ulster 1972–74), 1973–74. Oil, pencil, and collage on canvas, 140 × 200 cm. British Council Collection. © Rita Donagh.

of 1920 and the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921, Ireland was

engagement with Northern Ireland. Donagh’s family

partitioned, with the “Six Counties” of Northern Ireland

had roots in Ireland, but she herself was born in

remaining part of Britain, separated from the Irish Free

Staffordshire.10 As Donagh has reflected, “during the

State (later the Republic of Ireland) in the south. By the

’70s I spent a long time trying to make an image, a

late 1960s tensions within Northern Ireland between

painting, of a victim of a car bomb, a young woman

the predominantly Catholic Republicans and Protestant

who was killed, whose photograph I saw in a newspa-

Unionists had again reached a crisis point. The inter-

per. Living in England, it was necessarily a very distant

secting influences fomenting this restlessness spanned

view of the event, and most of my information at that

religion, politics, class, and economics: the historian

time came obviously from the media.” Donagh’s work

Andy Beckett recounts that “by the late sixties,”

of the 1970s searches for critical purchase on this

despite attempts by Northern Ireland’s prime minis-

“persistent separation,” testing out the paradoxical

ter Terence O’Neill to modernize the country’s ailing

state of detached proximity offered by the mass media

industrial sector, “the empire and the boom were over,

of newspaper, radio, and television via the record-

and Belfast’s empty factories and patchy government

ing and transmission technologies of photography,

regeneration projects were a bleak vision in lumpy con-

sound, film, and video.11 Considering Evening Papers

crete and orphaned brick of what might await the rest

(Ulster 1972–74), Overy noted “the horrible irony of the

of the UK.” Many members of the Catholic minority

picture of a body covered in newspapers appearing

felt particularly disadvantaged by unemployment and

itself in a newspaper,” encapsulating the ramifica-

uneven housing allocation, leading to the formation of

tions of Donagh’s chosen image, which combined the

the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association in 1967

affective qualities of visceral trauma with the dis-

and mounting civil unrest, protest, and violence, focused

tortions and disjunctions of press reportage viewed

on Belfast and Derry. On August 14, 1969, after days of

from the remove of England.12 Indeed, Donagh initially

confrontation between Catholic citizens and the Royal

believed from contemporary press reports that the

Ulster Constabulary in the Bogside area of Derry (also

body under the newspapers was that of the vendor: in

known as Londonderry), and the spread of severe fight-

1976 she made a “pilgrimage” to the site, where she

ing to Belfast, the British Army was sent in to restore

was told that the victim was a male bystander, before

order; although supposedly a temporary measure, these

eventually discovering it was a teenage girl.13 The

events “initiated over thirty years of violence, murder

newspaper’s veiling effect also correlates with govern-

and mayhem.”9 In response, during the 1970s Donagh

ment and internal censorship of the British mainstream

started to address these conditions of conflict and

media’s reportage on Northern Ireland throughout

mediation in her work.

the 1970s and into the 1980s. As Liz Curtis and other



historians have demonstrated, this had its roots in the

7

8

It is significant that a newspaper photograph

printed on the British mainland prompted Donagh’s

117  Taking the Trouble to Sound It

decades after partition, when, “coupled with the veto

Fig. 6.2 Rita Donagh, Reflection on Three Weeks in May 1970, 1971. Oil and graphite on canvas, 152.4 × 152.4 cm. © Rita Donagh.

on parliamentary discussion and the absence of ‘the

late 1970s and 1980s she spent increasing amounts

Irish question’ from school and university curricula, the

of time in Belfast, where she was a visiting lecturer

media silence meant that British people were scarcely

and external examiner at the art school, this chap-

aware of the existence of the Six Counties, let alone of

ter concentrates on her exploration of information

the perverse and abusive system that was being oper-

transmission over distance.15 Contemporary critical

ated in their name.”14

responses underscored the differences between



Donagh’s work, then, is concerned with both the

Donagh’s paintings and the experimental forms of

mediatization and the mediation of conflict from the

artistic production that were perhaps more readily

vantage point of mainland Britain. Although in the

associated with the art worlds of London and Britain

118  L O ND ON ART WOR LDS

during the 1970s. Marina Vaizey argued that Donagh’s

Soundings: Mapping the Studio

painting “demonstrates, in a way . . . conceptual art does not, that thought into art can work; that what

For the writer Cherry Smyth, Donagh acquired with

appears a tracery of lines, some delicate odd shapes

Evening Papers (Ulster 1972–74) “a signature that was

can [be] . . . meaningful and far from cold-blooded.”16

to endure for over a decade,” which involved “placing

Yet Donagh did have links with conceptual art, and

components of a tragedy on the canvas like exhibits

she developed an expanded painterly practice that

in a murder trial and letting the multiple subjectivi-

not only holds abstraction and figuration in tension

ties interrelate.”18 Donagh’s account of how the image

but incorporates collaged elements such as photo-

showing the Dublin car-bomb victim “was not intro-

graphs, tracing paper, graph paper, and newsprint

duced” into Evening Papers (Ulster 1972–74) “until it was

fragments, and has expanded into installation. Equally,

well advanced” intimates that the painting developed in

although Donagh’s work did not engage directly with

the manner of a diagram or map, onto which she could

the women’s liberation movement of the 1970s, it was

plot distinct events over time, enabling later additions

shaped by the debates that movement sparked in the

and evolving relationships.19 This approach was forged

art world. Ultimately, her paintings are concerned with

through Donagh’s large-scale early work Reflection on

the politics and ethics of communication and reception,

Three Weeks in May 1970 (1971), where cartography

addressed through abstraction.

emerges not simply as an organizing device for visual



material but as a conceptual strategy that mediates

17

In order to understand the particular perspec-

tive that Donagh’s work brought to bear on Britain’s

between image and experience (fig. 6.2).

geopolitical situation in the 1970s, this chapter begins



by establishing her development of abstract painting

in “a specific period in a specific studio.” Donagh

as a mode of mediation, grounding this in her experi-

set herself the “challenge” of translating events and

ence of teaching. It then demonstrates how this led to

activities conducted with her students at the School of

her formal and conceptual engagement with the act of

Fine Art, University of Reading, in the south of England

mediation, arguing that while Donagh’s works deliver

near London, where she taught between 1964 and 1972,

the viewer into conditions of distance and indetermi-

onto “the flat surface of a painting” and into a network

nacy, they nonetheless remain invested in the politics

of geometric, predominantly abstract pencil marks and

of particular times, places, and bodies. The resulting

passages of paint.20 Donagh recalled how “on the first

images test the slippery, elusive quality of national

day a room was painted white throughout, including the

identity, exposing the elisions between constructs such

floor. A student devised a grid as a means of regulating

as “England” and “Britain,” and the pressure brought

movement within the space. Crosses were put on the

to bear on such terms by decolonization, protest, and

grid to mark squares where movement was prohib-

conflict in the postwar period.

ited.” As a result, “the studio became a stage—action/

119  Taking the Trouble to Sound It

Reflection on Three Weeks in May 1970 was grounded

performance being a natural expression of group

side a thin wavering ribbon of red runs from the top

creativity.” This new environment of the studio/

to the bottom of the picture plane. These derive from

stage provided a forum for undertakings that “included

drawings made by the American transcendentalist

drawing and writing, and lots of discussion in reac-

writer Henry David Thoreau in his 1854 book Walden,

tion to circumstances inside and beyond the studio.”22

which recorded his attempt to “live deliberately,” by

During the three weeks, Donagh and the group “took

a pond in Massachusetts, for a year.25 In one section

many photographs,” which record the students explor-

Thoreau recounts how he surveyed the pond’s previously

ing the interactive zone they had established, moving

unmeasured depths: “As I was desirous to recover the

around the crosses marked on the white floor. One

long lost bottom of Walden Pond, I surveyed it carefully,

image shows a student preparing to make a life study of

before the ice broke up, early in ’46, with compass and

another standing several feet away, the first holding up

chain and sounding line. There have been many stories

the nub of a pencil (or a thumb) in order to gauge the

told about the bottom, or rather no bottom, of this pond,

scale. In another photograph, a figure moves off to one

which certainly had no foundation for themselves. It is

side of the frame, leaving behind scattered detritus—

remarkable how long men will believe in the bottomless-

reminiscent of rags left over from cleaning paintbrushes.

ness of a pond without taking the trouble to sound it.”26

The camera tracks the students as they move away

Donagh’s imagination snagged on the “sensitive plot-

from traditional learning activities and toward a more

ting” that Thoreau undertook.27 She had already traced

collaborative and experimental approach.

and retraced the contours of the maps that Thoreau



made of the pond’s circumference and depth, subjecting

21

23

The final canvas shows the studio grid and its

crosses transposed onto the surface both diagrammat-

them to sustained investigation in a painting entitled

ically and in three-dimensional perspective, but the

“taking the trouble to sound it” (1970). Donagh pushes the

actions and bodies of the students are implied rather

contours of Thoreau’s map through a series of mirror

than represented. The modulation between flatness

reflections, refractions, and reversals to create a restless

and depth across a series of tessellating creamy-white

overlay of rippling lines (fig. 6.3). As in Reflection on Three

squares and triangles has a disorienting effect. Tim

Weeks in May 1970, planar flatness oscillates almost

Hilton concludes that Donagh often uses perspective

queasily with perspective, while shading suggests both

“not to pin things down and locate them in space—its

the undulation of indeterminate landscapes and a series

traditional function—but to veil or obfuscate their

of overlapping watermarks. Thoreau’s account of “taking

position.”24 Yet this constant fluctuation also conveys an

the trouble to sound” Walden Pond offers empirical

active sense of process and translation. This is under-

measurements, but Donagh’s citation of his charts and

scored by Donagh’s incorporation of motifs that allude

maps undermines the notion of a sure terrain.

to mapping and charting: to the right Donagh placed



an outline shaped like a sliver of glass, while on the left

using abstract signs and the convention of perspective,

120  L O ND ON ART WOR LDS

Donagh herself described how she hoped, “by

Fig. 6.3 Rita Donagh, “taking the trouble to sound it,” 1970. Oil, pencil, and colored pencil on hardboard, 91 × 122 cm. Arts Council Collection, Southbank Centre, London. © Rita Donagh.

to find equivalents for experience and feeling while at

from perceptual experience and from the specificities

the same time conveying precise information about

of locality and named spaces, her treatment of abstrac-

a particular time and place.” Yet as Sarat Maharaj

tion allows room for the body.30 Reflection on Three

notes, Donagh also “teases out and plays upon a

Weeks in May 1970 contains the traces of performance

particular feature of the map: the fact that, if it gives

and movement and reveals Donagh mediating between

us what we tend to take for granted as an accurate

haptic experience and the formal grid. As Briony Fer

account of the ‘world out there,’ it also looks radically

has written of the American artist Agnes Martin,

unlike what it represents.” The act of mapping enables

Donagh’s grids are “repetitive but never mechanical.”31

Donagh to acknowledge the abstraction and distortion

Equally, Donagh’s work manifests what Sven Lütticken

that might occur during knowledge transmission, but

describes as the aim “not so much to oppose abstrac-

rather than present abstract mark making as divorced

tion with ‘concrete facts’” as “to make concrete the

28

29

121  Taking the Trouble to Sound It

omnipresence of abstraction.” Although Lütticken is

regarded as post facto: discussion groups, political

talking specifically about the “concrete abstraction” of

treaties and philosophical tracts became required read-

finance and technology, Donagh would become partic-

ing.”37 The collaborative, discursive structure Donagh

ularly concerned with the abstracting processes of the

established also reverberates with the widespread

mass media.32

student unrest of 1968, which in Britain achieved its



most prominent manifestation at the Hornsey College

This expansive attitude toward abstraction can be

traced to Donagh’s Basic Design training, developed by

of Art occupations in London. Lisa Tickner records that

the artists Richard Hamilton and Victor Pasmore in the

student demands at Hornsey included “the freedom

Fine Art Department of Durham University, Newcastle

to formulate and develop a more flexible ‘network’

upon Tyne, in the North East of England, where she

structure of education; and an atmosphere in which

studied between 1956 and 1962. Hilton attributes

grievances could be freely vented and changes intro-

the difficulty of categorizing Donagh’s practice to the

duced.”38 The three weeks of experimental activity that

fact that she “is not the product of any real school of

Donagh meditated on during the construction of her

painting but of the ‘Basic Design’ courses of provincial

painting, whereby students occupied and sounded out

art schools in the early Sixties.” Basic Design exercises

their studio space at Reading, resonates with con-

sought to refocus students’ attention on mark making

temporaneous debates about the nature and purpose

and were concerned with “relating [the] introspective

of education, particularly in the art-school context,

consideration of abstract elements through analytical

resulting in an attempt to diagrammatize the politically

drawings of objects to the visual world surrounding

charged state of collectivity.

33

34

the student.” Reflection on Three Weeks in May 1970 35

expands this experiential process to incorporate the entirety of the studio. The pedagogic context, involving

Disruptions: Kent State and Civil Disobedience

the construction of creative environments conducive to information exchange, can be seen as a formative

Reflection on Three Weeks in May 1970 moreover

influence on Donagh’s handling of mediation, as her

explicitly registers student antiwar protest. Among

“sounding” of interactive processes demonstrates.

the painting’s vectors and shaded squares, positioned



36

There are affinities between the experiment

just to the center left of a hairline divide bisecting the

Donagh undertook with her Reading students and those

composition, a faint pinkish spill in the shape of an

at other art-education institutions in this period, notably

island can be discerned, which “perturbs” the geomet-

Peter Kardia’s teaching and his 1969 “Locked Room”

ric grids.39 While its contour echoes the topographical

initiative at St. Martin’s School of Art. Kardia’s studio

marks on the right, derived from Thoreau, it also

space became “a quasi-seminar room” where students

references the occasion on which students protesting

were encouraged “to draw upon sources previously

against U.S. military intervention in the Vietnam War

122  L O ND ON ART WOR LDS

Fig. 6.4 Rita Donagh, Bloodstains, 1971. Pencil, gouache, and collage on paper, 51 × 76.5 cm. Private collection. © Rita Donagh.

were shot by Ohio National Guardsmen at Kent State

placing this reproduction at the intersection of a hor-

University on May 4, 1970, news of which entered the

izontal and vertical line (fig. 6.4). This has the effect

studio in Reading via the radio.

of fusing the “crossed-out” areas of the studio floor



with a reference to the crosshairs that fix a target in

One of the many studies that Donagh made in

connection with Reflection on Three Weeks in May

the sights of a gun. A smear of blue gouache paint

1970—which include First Perspective (1970), White

pools like blood over the figure in the lower right-hand

Room (1971), and White Studio (1971)—is entitled

corner of the photograph, while the standing student

Bloodstains (1971). Like other works in this series,

has been erased completely, reduced to a bright white

Bloodstains draws on the photographs made of

vacuum, bearing out Hilton’s observation that “often it

Donagh’s students during their studio experimenta-

seems that the impulse of Donagh’s brush is to obliter-

tion. Here she has transposed the photograph of one

ate.”40 Donagh’s return to the images of events in the

student preparing to make a life drawing of another,

studio conveys a sense of the photographs themselves

123  Taking the Trouble to Sound It

as performative, functioning as reminder, prompt, and

media theorist Marshall McLuhan’s assertion in

provocation. Equally, Donagh’s treatment of mediated

Understanding Media (1964) that media technologies

images—her combination of photographs with pencil

had “extended our central nervous system . . . in a global

drawings and her exclusion of them entirely from the

embrace, abolishing both space and time. . . . action

final painting—reiterates the interpolation of distance

and the reaction occur almost at the same time.”43 In

and difference, both geographic and temporal. To the

Reflection on Three Weeks in May 1970 the space of dis-

left of the composition, the bloodstain shape from

course is similarly widened and dissolved by the mass

Reflection on Three Weeks in May 1970 appears four

media. The irruption of blood registers not just the

times in black, crimson, and white silhouette, and

blurring of public and private effected by communica-

twice as a pencil outline against a grid. This back-

tion technologies but also the burden of responsibility

ground emulates the graph paper that Donagh used in

that accompanies interconnection.

other preparatory studies, emphasizing the obsessive



quality of this attempt to plot and rationalize the stains

bloodstain” used by Donagh as a photograph taken

and the impossibility of containing their traumatic

by her partner, the artist Richard Hamilton, of the

implications.

TV screen during a live newscast of Kent State.44 Yet

In Reflections on Three Weeks in May 1970 the

the difference between Donagh’s and Hamilton’s

bloodstain is all the more troubling because of its

responses to Kent State is instructive. Hamilton

singularity, which contrasts with the surrounding

recounts how, in the early months of 1970, “it had been

geometric forms, but also because it contaminates

on my mind that there might be a subject staring me

the series of red guide dots that underpin the grid

in the face from the TV screen. I set up a camera in

with a shared implication of bodily fluids. Drawing on

front of the TV for a week. Every night I sat watching

blood’s status as an index for a specific body, Donagh

with a shutter release in my hand.” Although among

establishes a link between paint and flesh, connecting

the images flickering over the screen there were “many

the students in the studio with their peers on another

possibilities” that Hamilton avidly “snapped,” the Kent

continent. Donagh recalled: “Of course we talked about

State shootings produced “the most powerful images

it and everybody felt acutely that we were in such a

that emerged from the camera,” although he felt “a

privileged position. We were all having a really marvel-

reluctance to use any of them.”45 When commissioned

lous time, working away in the studio thinking about

to make a print later that year, however, it was to

art, while students in America were being shot on

the Kent State images that he turned, homing in on

campus.” The stain signals the collapse of geographic

footage of the student Dean Kahler, who, although

distance through mass-media technologies, and the

not killed in the attack, was left paralyzed. Kent State

resultant bond of solidarity, but also of unavoidable

(1970) was a complex print because of the multiple

implication, transmitted across borders. This echoes

different colors involved; Mark Godfrey describes how

41

42

124  L O ND ON ART WOR LDS

Suzi Gablik cites the source for the “contour of a

a large amount of time and labor was “devoted to

Transmissions: Northern Ireland in and out of the News

crafting and disseminating a picture that would keep alive an image of an atrocity that television producers

Although Donagh’s change in focus from the space

were content to flash before their audiences and then

of the studio to the theater of war in Northern Ireland

replace with the next news item.”46 Both Hamilton’s

might seem unexpected, Reflection on Three Weeks

print and Donagh’s painting attempt to slow down the

in May 1970 and her later works share a consistent

rapidity of media dissemination and in so doing create

engagement with civil resistance. As Caroline Tisdall

opportunities for thought, remembrance, and memo-

observes, Donagh’s reference to Thoreau in the 1971

rialization. Through their interventions, both artists

painting might invoke his 1849 essay Resistance to Civil

arrived at degrees of abstraction—Hamilton’s decom-

Government as much as Walden.49 Together with the

posing, ragged blur and Donagh’s subtle stain—which

crumpled mass of newspaper derived from reportage

simultaneously relay information and convey a sense

of the Dublin bombs in 1974, Evening Papers (Ulster

of loss, underscoring the potentially deadening experi-

1972–74) contains two other elements that relate to the

ence of daily media inundation even as they mine it for

emergence of the civil-rights movement in Northern

residual meaning.

Ireland and to the events that ensued in the Bogside



area of Derry between 1968 and 1972. These two

Their responses diverge, however, in that Hamilton

suspends the televised broadcast through the silk-

elements are the dark-blue trapezoid just below the

screen’s alternate mode of reproduction, while Donagh

center left of the image, marked by a black cross in one

situates her reference to Kent State within a painting

corner, and the upper left-hand rectangle containing the

that maps a shared zone, however ephemeral or tran-

blinding flash of an explosion surrounded by a shimmer-

sient the communal space of the Reading studio might

ing penumbra of cloud.

have been. In this respect John Russell’s analysis of the



final image as “not so much a portrait of the scene as

and tinged with bruised purples and blues, is one that

a portrait of its nervous system” is perceptive, regis-

Donagh returned to elsewhere. A year after she finished

tering the image’s implicit demand that it be conceived

Evening Papers, Donagh used it as the basis for an

of in relation not only to McLuhan’s vision of global

experimental display at The Gallery in London. Founded

interchange but to an embodied network of individual

by Nicholas Wegner in 1972 and directed collabora-

The image of the explosion, rendered in dark brown

actors. The disruption of relational space Donagh

tively with other artists, including the sculptor Vaughan

charted in Reflection on Three Weeks in May 1970, using a

Grylls, The Gallery promoted ironic conceptual gestures

process that Michael Bracewell has eloquently iden-

and, after the autumn of 1973, adopted photography

tified as “socio-analytical cartography,” provided the

as the format for all its shows. They also began dis-

foundation for her turn toward the political situation in

playing, within aluminium frames, photographs and

Northern Ireland in the mid-1970s.

photographic reproductions of works in other media,

47

48

125  Taking the Trouble to Sound It

resulting in what Tisdall has described as an “enterpris-

display this work in London venues such as The Gallery

ing programme of processing and packaging,” which by

demonstrates a subtle but nonetheless powerfully felt

the time of Donagh’s exhibit in 1975 had “become the

commitment to bearing witness, despite—and even

closest to a house style that any London gallery” had.

in an attempt to correct—the perceptual gulf between

The curator and critic Catherine Lampert observes that

mainland Britain and Northern Ireland.54

these strategies allowed each of the exhibitions “to be



treated with the same professional detachment and

Sun and the Daily Sketch and offered a visceral account

emphasis on the non-exclusive.” Donagh’s decision,

of the violence that engulfed the Bogside area of Derry

however, to use a drawing of an explosion entitled Car

after the civil-rights marches of 1968 and 1969, empha-

Bomb (1973) as the basis of her display disturbed this

sizing the adverse living conditions of many Catholics

detachment. Car Bomb was photographed and enlarged,

in Northern Ireland and presenting the conflict as “a

then printed in reverse so that it could be mounted on

colonial war, fought between the Protestant settlers,

the back as well as the front of a freestanding display

planted by the English conquerors centuries ago, and

panel. The source image came from the photojournalist

the native Catholics.”55 Limpkin’s tone chimes with the

Clive Limpkin’s book The Battle of Bogside, published in

initial support of the media, inspired by the civil-rights

1972. By taking a piece of photojournalism republished

movement, particularly after a march from Belfast to

in a book and subjecting it to further reproductions

Derry on October 5, 1968, was met with violence by

through pencil and then rephotography, Donagh seems

the Royal Ulster Constabulary.56 The civil-rights activist

to have tried to bring these gradations of distance to the

Eamonn McCann has described how, on arrival in Derry,

surface of the image.

“two police cordons moved simultaneously on the



crowd. Men, women and children were clubbed to the

50

51

52

Yet despite this percolation, it evidently retained a

Limpkin’s photobook grew out of his work for the

charge: Lampert recounts that the sharpened contrast

ground. People were fleeing down the street from the

endowed by black-and-white photography, when com-

front cordon . . . crashing into one another, stumbling

bined with the “provocative subject matter,” achieved

over one another, huddling in doorways, some scream-

“the starkness and brevity of an underground political

ing.”57 Television transmission of this violence forced

poster.” Lampert was not wholly convinced by this shift

Northern Ireland back into British consciousness. The

from what she considered the “broader visual language”

historian Robert J. Savage describes how the event was

of Evening Papers (Ulster 1972–74), but the comparison

captured on film as it unfolded in all its brutality, and

between Donagh’s photographed drawing and a polit-

the “sensational footage made its way into the BBC

ical poster conveys the residual disturbance that her

programme Twenty-Four Hours, causing uproar. . . . [It]

imagery often seems intended to cause, despite the var-

was picked up by international news organizations and

ious filters it is subjected to, from hesitant mark making

broadcast around the world.”58 There was a certain irony

to blotting out with white paint.53 Donagh’s decision to

to this sudden media efflorescence of Northern Irish

126  L O ND ON ART WOR LDS

concerns, for, as Dominic Sandbrook writes, although



discrimination against Catholics was long-standing,

1978 a furor erupted over the exhibition Art for Society:

“until the mid-sixties, Northern Ireland virtually never

Contemporary British Art with a Social or Political Purpose,

made it into the British newspapers or news bulle-

which traveled from the Whitechapel Art Gallery in

tins, usually being mentioned only in the context of a

London to the Ulster Museum in Belfast, where art

royal visit.” The appearance of images documenting

handlers refused to hang certain works by Conrad

these clashes thus paradoxically underscored the prior

Atkinson, Margaret Harrison, and Alexis Hunter,

absence of commentary, revealing attempts to repress

including Atkinson’s Silver Liberties: A Souvenir of a

and elide divergent politics.

Wonderful Anniversary Year (1978), which reproduced



graffiti from a wall in Belfast of a British soldier with a

59

The heavy-handed response of the Royal Ulster

Such censorship extended to art exhibitions: in

Constabulary led to escalating fighting in the Bogside,

nose like a pig and featured photographs of the victims

which included the gelignite bomb that provided

of Bloody Sunday. This triggered a decision on the part

Donagh with her image of an explosion. The “before”

of the trustees to cancel the exhibition, because they

image in Limpkin’s book shows a small van parked

deemed that “in the present violent times in Ulster

innocuously on a suburban street; moments later all

. . . the whole of the exhibition . . . could have suffered

identifying features apart from the trail of double-yellow

damage or destruction.”61 Their act prompted wide-

lines have been engulfed in a haze of dust and debris.

spread condemnation and extensive discussion in the

Donagh’s chosen imagery is rooted in the civilian

Northern Irish press.62 Donagh’s work featured in the

sufferings on the Bogside but offers a much less secure

show, but in contrast to the overt critique mounted

vantage point than that claimed by photojournalism.

by Atkinson’s engagement with Northern Ireland, and

The deliberate obfuscations and obliterations of her

his incorporation of documentary photography, her

mark making are significant in this respect, in that they

paintings consistently took a deliberately distanced

register the extent to which the British media, particu-

and abstracted view. While her works document the

larly BBC Television, was, by the time the imagery had

process of “taking the trouble to sound” the Northern

cohered for Evening Papers Ulster (1972–74), increasingly

Ireland situation, they acknowledge what Robert

subject to both self-censorship from within and explicit

Hewison has described as the “psychological barrier

governmental control whereby reporting considered

of the Irish Sea” and its insulating force.63 In particular,

sympathetic to the civil-rights or Nationalist cause was

Donagh’s paintings register the delays and interfer-

excised.60 This was especially so after the arrival of

ence that fragment the transmission of media imagery,

British troops in 1969, the introduction of internment

especially with regard to Northern Ireland in mainland

without trial in 1971, and the suspension of the Stormont

Britain. Yet they also contain the power to surprise with

government in 1972, which resulted in the introduction

an immediate affective, even physical relation, while

of direct rule from Westminster.

implying that discontinuities in transmission might in

127  Taking the Trouble to Sound It

and of themselves be traumatic because of their disori-

of 1972 and the Dublin bombings of 1974, but the work

enting effects.

offers equivalents for multiple experiences.





This double valence of mediation as simultaneously

This is emphasized by the right-hand side of the

marking and bridging distance informs the third incident

canvas, edged with a vertical strip of marbled purple,

plotted in Evening Papers (Ulster 1972–74). The cross

blue, and green, the abstracted lines and shapes of

relates to one of the worst atrocities in the Bogside

which suggest the modulations of an Ordnance Survey

during January 1972, when British army paratroopers

map. The brooding coloration evokes landscape and

shot dead thirteen unarmed Catholic civilians (a four-

environmental conditions; the diagonal slashes that

teenth victim died later of his wounds). The difference

cover the whole canvas like daggers of rain continue

between Donagh’s handling of the massacre and

these implications of foreboding weather. Placed in rela-

Atkinson’s in Silver Liberties is striking. Again, Donagh’s

tion to the three fragments of imagery relating to key

imagery can be linked back to Limpkin’s book. The pho-

moments of violence in Northern Ireland, the abstract-

tojournalist captured the temporary memorials created

ing processes of mapping and cartography become

to mark these deaths: small wooden crosses, each held

linked to colonizing processes. For many commenta-

together with a lash of rubber binding, which formed a

tors on the left, and for the Irish Republican Army, the

secondary cross. Donagh’s oblique reference to what

situation in Northern Ireland represented a colonial war,

became known as Bloody Sunday quietly but firmly asks

and they “could not help identifying the Londonderry

the viewer to consider “the fact of the British presence

Bogsiders with the Vietcong and the British army with

in Ulster.” At the same time, Donagh’s formal abstrac-

the U.S. in Vietnam.”66 Even though this represents

tion of the cross-shaped marker in Evening Papers

a huge simplification of the complex identifications

also connects the painting to the networked “nervous

at stake, Paul Dixon outlines how the British govern-

system” encompassed by Reflection on Three Weeks in

ment and military after 1969 undeniably approached

May 1970. Sarah Kent notes that the cross in Evening

Northern Ireland as a colonial problem: “when violence

Papers marks the deaths during Bloody Sunday but also

failed to subside the conflict was increasingly seen in

invokes “the crosses in the earlier work and by impli-

‘colonial’ terms and the use of repression was justified

cation . . . the ‘Kent State Massacre.’” Although the

to subdue ‘sinister forces.’”67 This approach increased

maplike surfaces of Donagh’s paintings often suggest

after the Conservative election victory in 1970 and

barriers or encodings that reflect the distortions and

under Margaret Thatcher’s government, from 1979. Even

distancing of the mass media, the cross in Evening

before Thatcher, the attitude of the British government

Papers also acts as a holding point or memorial marker

and establishment to the political situation in Northern

that establishes correlations between transnational

Ireland was informed by their experience of decoloni-

and transtemporal events and conflicts. The painting’s

zation, notably the Rhodesian crisis of 1965.68 Although

title ties it to a temporal span between Bloody Sunday

Donagh would subsequently use the map of the “Six

64

65

128  L O ND ON ART WOR LDS

Counties” in her work, in Evening Papers (Ulster 1972–74)

often reacting by throwing themselves into geometry, or

the fragment of landscape remains nonspecific. While

a theory or system. The risk was ‘losing the part of your-

it evokes Northern Ireland’s contested geography, the

self that has to do with feeling.’”71 This is attested by the

marbled and misted terrain situates this land within

feminist performance artist Anne Bean, who attended

the wider process of revision and renegotiation that

the University of Reading in the early 1970s and recalled

accompanied the decolonization of the British Empire,

that Donagh’s development of performative actions

as countries previously subject to British rule achieved

from life-drawing classes, of the kind photographed

independence and postcolonial diaspora movements

for Reflection on Three Weeks in May 1970, provided “an

pushed for reconceptualizations of “national” identity.

incredibly fertile ground for exploration with people and

It also gestures toward the intractability of the situation

within one’s own practice.”72

in Northern Ireland due to its longstanding history, and



the competing claims and atrocities on both sides.

ment was far from clear-cut.73 In 1977 Tisdall chose

69

Donagh’s relationship with the women’s move-

to write about Donagh for a special issue of Studio International on “women artists in the United Kingdom.” Diagramming a Conclusion: The Politics of Distance

Tisdall confessed that she was “struggling to think of Rita Donagh’s work within the context of this women’s

The experience of painting Evening Papers (Ulster

issue”—an identification the artist herself also report-

1972–74) was crucial for the development of Donagh’s

edly “finds difficult.” Rather than directly align Donagh

work, with the result that from the mid-1970s “the

with feminist politics, Tisdall alighted on “the resolution

question of Civil Rights in the North of Ireland took

of opposites” as central to Donagh’s work.74 This might

precedence” over other concerns, including the issue

sound like a compromise, but Tisdall makes a signifi-

of “women’s rights.” Yet the politics of Donagh’s

cant point about the license provided by the feminist

work nonetheless encompasses feminism alongside

reprioritization of lived, subjective experience as valid

civil rights and student protest. Sacha Craddock, a

material for art making—for “the externalization of inner

participant in the squatting communities that housed

feeling.”75 Donagh’s response to the conflict in Northern

many radical and feminist artists in London during

Ireland is indebted to, albeit elliptically, the fusion of

this period, has argued that the women’s movement

personal with political fostered by the women’s liber-

facilitated Donagh’s experiments in figuration and

ation movement in the context of artistic production.

abstraction: “students and younger artists encouraged

Both Donagh’s and Tisdall’s references to “feeling” and

her to incorporate both public and private, decorative

the experience of identification are resonant in this

and expressive, geometric and descriptive, verbal and

respect.76 While Donagh uses abstraction to register

silent, serious and playful into her work. Previously, she

distances and elisions, her paintings reverberate with

says, women worked under a sort of ‘counter-pressure,’

both bodily sensation and psychological charge: in her

70

129  Taking the Trouble to Sound It

work not only is the personal political, but the political is

that Donagh’s works ultimately convey “art’s obstinate

always deeply, irrevocably personal.

amorality.”80





With regard to both the women’s liberation move-

Yet each of these statements ignores the impor-

ment and Northern Ireland, however, it is Donagh’s

tance of location, site specificity, and sounding in

commitment to abstraction that is revealing and sig-

Donagh’s work, which has been present from her

nificant. Although Donagh has reflected that “perhaps

earliest paintings and drawings. In a later painting like

I am torn between the two poles of representation and

Shadow of Six Counties (a) (1979), as Maharaj observes,

abstraction,” abstraction functions in her work as an

“‘the map’ remains too much of a blunt reminder that

important conduit for mediation, since abstract forms

some ‘data’ needs to be communicated.”81 Mediation

can hold multiple meanings in play simultaneously

must of necessity occur within a liminal, in-between

while prompting reflection on the impact of social

zone, but it is concerned with exchange rather than

and technological abstractions on shared space and

disinterest, with showing how distance is always subject

politics.77 This adherence to abstraction—albeit within

to negotiation through communication, and constructed

a practice that has consistently incorporated figuration,

in relation to the specific localities of any given envi-

mixed media, and photographic reproduction—perhaps

ronment. This duality informs Donagh’s relationship

goes some way toward explaining the criticism leveled

with different political contexts, from the violence in

at Donagh over the years. Distance, rather than enable

Northern Ireland and the need to “bear witness” to

objectivity, itself becomes politicized, with some com-

British involvement in centuries of colonial oppres-

mentators distrusting the formal qualities of Donagh’s

sion, to the interconnectivity of mass-media networks

paintings and associating them with either a lack of

through which students in the United Kingdom experi-

commitment or self-delusion.78 For Edward Lucie-Smith,

enced repression as it happened in the United States, to

“the refinement of the design, the almost metaphysical

the women’s liberation movement and its demand that

concern with measurements and proportions, tend to

various art worlds recognize their gendered imbalances

remove what she does from the political arena. The

and restrictions.82 Ultimately, it informs her understand-

starting-point is political, but the work itself is very

ing of media communication itself, which in Donagh’s

little if at all concerned with commenting on the Irish

images carries the simultaneous capacity to place

situation specifically.” Others understand Donagh’s

people in relation as well as to mark the distances and

political statement as starting and ending with distance

differences between them.

79

alone: Ursula Szulakowska, for example, concludes

130  L O ND ON ART WOR LDS

Notes













1. Rita Donagh, in Rita Donagh: Paintings and Drawings, n.p. 2. The image caption read: “After the Talbot Street blast: a body is covered by the evening newspapers.” David Blundy and Chris Ryder, “How Death Was Driven to Dublin,” Sunday Times (London), May 19, 1974, reprinted in Rita Donagh: Paintings and Drawings, n.p. 3. McKittrick and McVea, Making Sense of the Troubles, 120–21. 4. Ibid., 121. 5. Overy, “Pale Images.” Another significant work from the 1970s to engage with the Northern Ireland conflict, also by an artist working from the perspective of mainland Britain, is Conrad Atkinson’s Northern Ireland 1968—May Day 1975 (1975–76), which combines photographs of protests, confrontations, and graffiti on walls in Derry and Belfast with text panels. 6. In the majority of surveys, references to artistic engagements with the political situation in Northern Ireland are brief: Neil Mulholland, for example, discusses the exhibitions of 1975 and 1976 that evolved from Atkinson’s invitation “by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland to present an exhibition relating to life in the province.” The Irish context is touched on by John A. Walker and Robert Hewison in their analyses of art in Britain during the 1970s but is absent from the edited volume Visual Culture and Decolonisation in Britain. Mulholland, Cultural Devolution, 24–25; Walker, Left Shift, 128–30 and 147–50; Hewison, Too Much, 163–64; Faulkner and Ramamurthy, Visual Culture and Decolonisation in Britain. 7. Beckett, When the Lights Went Out, 99. 8. For a firsthand account, see McCann, War and an Irish Town. 9. Savage, BBC’s “Irish Troubles,” 45. 10. Watkins, “Back to the Black Country,” 7–8. Donagh’s paternal grandfather was Irish, and her mother was born in county Leitrim in the Republic of Ireland, but her parents met in England and lived in South Staffordshire, where her father had been born. Rita Donagh, e-mail correspondence with the author, April 7, 2016. 11. Rita Donagh, in “Discussion of A Cellular Maze,” Institute of Contemporary Arts Talks, May 3, 1984, moderated by Caroline Tisdall, British Library Sound Archive, C95/110. 12. Overy, “Pale Images.” 13. Tisdall, “Rita Donagh,” 194. 14. L. Curtis, Ireland: The Propaganda War, 23. See also Miller, Don’t Mention the War, and Savage, BBC’s “Irish Troubles.” 15. Watkins, “Back to the Black Country,” 13. 16. Marina Vaizey, “Nigel Greenwood: Rita Donagh,” Financial Times, January 17, 1972, page number unknown, Tate Library press cuttings. 17. One of Donagh’s first exhibitions, in 1972, was at the Nigel Greenwood Gallery, which showed artists such as Gilbert &

131  Taking the Trouble to Sound It















George and produced conceptual ventures including David Lamelas’s Publication (1970). 18. Smyth, “Rita Donagh.” 19. Donagh, in Rita Donagh: Drawings and Paintings, n.p. Donagh subsequently repeated elements of Evening Papers in another painting, “. . . morning workers pass . . .” (1978). 20. Tisdall, “Calm and Precision.” 21. Donagh, in Rita Donagh: Drawings and Paintings, n.p. 22. Watkins, “Back to the Black Country,” 12. 23. Many of the photographs Donagh used for the preparatory studies and drawings for Reflection on Three Weeks in May 1970 were her own. Rita Donagh, e-mail correspondence with the author, April 7, 2016. 24. Hilton, “Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder,” 16. 25. Thoreau, Walden, and Resistance to Civil Government, 61. 26. Ibid., 190. 27. Donagh, in Rita Donagh: Drawings and Paintings, n.p. 28. Ibid. 29. Maharaj, “Rita Donagh,” 9. 30. Temporal and physical sites were important for Donagh, as her decision to exhibit her work in 1972 at the Nigel Greenwood Gallery in London under the title Locations demonstrates. The image on the private view card shows bands of regular horizontal lines like wavelengths interrupted by vectors taken from Thoreau’s “sounding” of Walden Pond. 31. Fer, Infinite Line, 51. 32. Lütticken, “Living with Abstraction,” 148. 33. The Fine Art Department was part of King’s College, Durham University; in 1963 it joined the University of Newcastle upon Tyne (now Newcastle University). For the development of Basic Design courses, see Thistlewood, Continuing Process. 34. Hilton, “Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder,” 16. 35. Hamilton, “First Year Studies at Newcastle,” 174. 36. Donagh taught consistently alongside her own practice: the painter Tess Jaray, who worked with Donagh at the Slade School of Fine Art in London between 1973 and 1981, described her as “a wonderful teacher.” Tess Jaray, interview by Judith Bumpus, London, June 16, 1996, British Library National Life Stories Collection, Artists’ Lives, Tape 16, F5384, Side A. 37. Westley, “Traditions and Transitions,” 134. Kardia ran the “Locked Room” as part of the undergraduate sculpture course. Students were locked in the studio for the day and allowed to select one tool to work with on their given material. They were not told when they would get new material, and tutors spoke only when necessary. 38. Tickner, Hornsey 1968, 34–35. 39. Tisdall, “Calm and Precision.” 40. Hilton, “Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder,” 16.

41. See, for example, Auslander, “Performativity of Performance Documentation.” 42. Rita Donagh, unpublished interview with Jonathan Watkins, July 21, 2005, quoted in Watkins, “Back to the Black Country,” 12. 43. McLuhan, Understanding Media, 3–4. 44. Gablik, “Oxford: Rita Donagh.” Hamilton has described how his own engagement with Northern Ireland politics in his three diptych paintings The Citizen (1981–83), The Subject (1988–90), and The State (1993) was indebted to Donagh’s investment in the situation. Richard Hamilton, in “Discussion of A Cellular Maze.” 45. Hamilton, “Printmaking,” 94. 46. Godfrey, “Television Delivers People,” 239. 47. John Russell, untitled, Sunday Times (London), October 22, 1972, page number unknown, Tate Library press cuttings. 48. Bracewell, “Joint Declaration,” 9. 49. Partly inspired by Thoreau’s anger against the slave trade, Resistance to Civil Government (also known as Civil Disobedience) argues for the importance of individuals’ maintaining the ability to critique state structures. Tisdall, “Rita Donagh,” 194. 50. Caroline Tisdall, “London Galleries: Mixed Shows,” March 1975, publication unknown, Tate Library press cuttings. 51. Lampert, “Rita Donagh,” 240. 52. Rita Donagh, “Press Release for Rita Donagh at The Gallery London, 11 March–5 April 1975,” reprinted in James, Depart from Zero, 75. 53. Lampert, “Rita Donagh,” 241. 54. Donagh also exhibited in Northern Ireland; in 1983 a show of her and Hamilton’s work traveled from the Orchard Gallery in Derry to the Institute of Contemporary Arts. See Donagh and Hamilton, An Inquiry Through the Medium of Art (also known as A Cellular Maze). 55. Limpkin, Battle of Bogside, n.p. 56. Miller notes that the “widespread sympathy for the civil rights protestors among the British media was to change after the IRA campaign began in earnest in 1971.” Miller, Don’t Mention the War, 77. 57. McCann, War and an Irish Town, 42. 58. Savage, BBC’s “Irish Troubles,” 31. 59. Sandbrook, White Heat, 348. 60. Miller argues: “This is partly because of the perceived national role of the BBC, but also because the government has more cards in its hand when dealing with a publicly regulated

132  L O ND ON ART WOR LDS











system than it does with the press.” Miller, Don’t Mention the War, 28. 61. W. A. McCutcheon, director, Ulster Museum, “Belfast Museum Exhibition,” Irish News, November 28, 1978, page number unknown, Whitechapel Gallery Archives, WAG/EXH/2/280. 62. The exhibition did eventually go on show, with the offending works displayed in the Arts Council Gallery nearby. Ray Rosenfield, “Art for Society in Belfast,” Irish Times, January 5, 1979, page number unknown, Whitechapel Gallery Archives, WAG/ EXH/2/280. 63. Hewison, Too Much, 164. 64. Donagh, in Donagh and Hamilton, An Inquiry Through the Medium of Art, n.p. 65. Kent, “Rita Donagh,” 78. 66. Nairn, Break-Up of Britain, 247. 67. Dixon, Northern Ireland, 98. 68. Ibid., 104. 69. See, for example, Dawson, Mongrel Nation, and, for the artistic context, Araeen, Other Story. 70. Rita Donagh, quoted in Elizabeth Hamilton, “Rita Donagh,” in Mark, Wack! Art and the Feminist Revolution, 229. 71. Craddock, “No Clear Dividing Line.” 72. Anne Bean, quoted in Battista, Renegotiating the Body, 96. 73. Donagh’s ambivalent relation to the women’s art movement is exemplified by her role as a selector for the 1978 Hayward Annual. The exhibition was one of the first in a major U.K. institution where women outnumbered male artists, prompting a storm of derogatory press. Equally, members of the women’s art movement expressed disappointment that the selection did not go far enough. See Pollock, “Feminism, Femininity.” 74. Tisdall, “Rita Donagh,” 193. In 1980 Donagh herself contributed an article on Georgia O’Keeffe to another special issue, of the Oxford Art Journal. See Donagh, “Georgia O’Keeffe in Context.” 75. Tisdall, “Rita Donagh,” 193. 76. For more on this negotiation, see S. Wilson, “Structures of Feeling,” and S. Wilson, Art Labor, Sex Politics. 77. Donagh, in “Discussion of A Cellular Maze.” 78. See Irvine, “Rita Donagh.” 79. Lucie-Smith, Art in the Seventies, 97. 80. Szulakowska, “Rita Donagh,” 31. 81. Maharaj, “Rita Donagh,” 11. 82. Gablik, “Oxford: Rita Donagh.”

7. 7. 7. 7. 7. 7. 7. 7. 7. 7.

Circulations and Cooperations Art, Feminism, and Film in 1960s and 1970s London Lucy Reynolds

A Question of Collectivity The early 1970s marked the articulation and organiza-

their argument that the imperative of collective

tion of a united voice of protest and a call for women’s

feminist practice was a “double-edged assault . . .

rights in all areas of culture and the arts, through

against the myth of individual creativity which, in

networks of emerging women’s campaign groups and

practical terms, results in isolation and exploitation for

events. The collective emphasis of these activities is

artists, and against the particular experience of women,

articulated in the 1974 statement for the Women’s

cut off from each other and from public acknowledg-

Workshop of the Artists’ Union, which laid out its

ment as artists.”1

twofold mission to be a means of mutual support and



to counter the individualized modes of authorship

burgeoned in the early days of the British women’s

common to art: “We formed as a collective of women

liberation movement register the experience of commu-

artists because of our common situation/condition. We

nity initiated by consciousness-raising groups and the

share similar, if not identical problems of isolation; both

recognition that collective organization was required for

from other women artists and the general isolation of

change, a factor already apparent in the strategies of the

artists in a society which is alien to collective creative

civil-rights movement. Spearheaded by the formation

activity.” Rozsika Parker and Griselda Pollock cite this

of the London Women’s Liberation Art Group in 1970,

text in the opening chapter of their anthology on fem-

the Women’s Workshop began operating from 1972 as

inist art practice in Britain, Framing Feminism: Art and

a powerful pressure group for female parity within the

the Women’s Movement, 1970–85. It provides support for

Artists’ Union, as well as providing an active meeting

Certainly the different interest groups that

point for debate and discourse around women and art,

examining Freudian, and later Lacanian, psychoanalytic

both theoretically and practically. Organizations such

frameworks in relation to questions of feminism and the

as the Women’s Free Arts Alliance and the Women’s

patriarchal condition. As Mulvey recalled: “It was then

Liberation Workshop later played important roles in

that we started reading Freud and thinking about psy-

advocating equality, visibility, and active support for

choanalysis. . . . As part of a group, one suddenly found

their practices through the organization of exhibitions

the confidence to ask questions from a political point of

and workshops, in response to the lack of endorsement

view. . . . The first thing I wrote, in fact, was in the Shrew

from major art institutions.

on the ‘Miss World Demonstration.’. . . reading Freud, for



all of us, was the most fundamental event of the whole

In parallel to this culture of burgeoning feminist

voices in the visual arts, there were also signs that

group experience.”3 For Kelly this early influence would

women working in film culture were addressing lost

later surface in works such as Post-Partum Document

histories and identifying the patriarchal structures

(1973–79), and for Mulvey, in her seminal text for Screen

at work within film’s modes of production, as well as

in 1975, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.”4

its on-screen representations. Initiatives such as the

Although Kelly did produce a short film of her naked

London Women’s Film Group, founded in 1972, formed

belly while pregnant, Antepartum (1973), Post-Partum

to address inequality in the film industry. The Women’s

Document, the record of her son’s development from

Event, organized by Claire Johnston and Laura Mulvey

baby to child, functions as an installation of text and

at the Edinburgh Film Festival in 1972 as part of the

sculptural forms. Likewise Women and Work (1974),

Society for Education in Film and Television’s annual lec-

made collaboratively with Margaret Harrison and Kay

ture series, sought to write women back into history by

Hunt, uses video as a mode of documentation within

screening the films of directors such as Dorothy Arzner,

the exhibition, rather than as an art form in itself.

a respected and successful director in 1930s Hollywood



who had been sidelined, with related discussions and

choosing to work with film as a creative medium at this

essays.

early moment in the British feminist movement? Can



their works be found in the collective circulations of

2

Early feminist meeting points between the two

Where then might we locate women artists

spheres of cinema and art activity were more evident in

the Women’s Workshop and the History Group or the

discourse than in practice. Laura Mulvey and Mary Kelly

discourses of feminist counter-cinema, represented by

met as part of the feminist reading group, entitled the

Mulvey or Claire Johnston? Or do they remain, either

History Group, which had formed in 1970 in response

through choice or necessity, outside these spheres of

to the first National Women’s Liberation Conference

feminist agency, working in other contexts and con-

at Ruskin College. The History Group brought together

ditions? Instances of female filmmaking can be found

artists, film critics, art historians, and writers such as

in the “Directory of U.K. Independent Film-makers”

Sally Alexander and Juliet Mitchell, offering a means of

published in the inaugural 1972 issue of Cinema Rising,

134  L O ND ON ART WOR LDS

Fig. 7.1 Cinema Rising, “Directory of U.K. Independent Film-makers,” 1972. Courtesy of British Artists Film & Video Study Collection at Central Saint Martins.

a short-lived London-based broadsheet of independent

represented might perceive themselves as engaged in

film (fig. 7.1). A brief paragraph at the beginning of the

an alternative film practice more aligned to the visual

article, written and compiled by Cinema Rising’s editor,

arts. A photographic collage of thirty-seven individual

Tony Rayns, admits that the “definition of independent

artists accompanies the article, spread over two pages,

film making is difficult, since the films differ markedly

together with individual biographies of those agreed

in approach and intent.” Rayns stresses that one of

upon by Rayns and designated experts in the field as

the key criteria for entry to the directory was that the

the most significant independent filmmakers then

filmmakers be funded outside the state television

practicing on the British scene. Cinema Rising’s snap-

and film industry, concomitantly implying that those

shot of alternative filmmaking culture thus provides

5

135  Circulations and Cooperations

rich material for a study of the alliances, ethics, and

considered a double bind of marginalization, working

approaches characteristic of that period: from the

outside the discourses of their feminist contemporaries

radical film agitprop represented by CinemaAction

at the same time that the personal orientations of their

and advocated in an article by Simon Hartog and

subject matter and their fusions of film, performance,

Simon Field, to the London Filmmakers’ Co-operative’s

and installation were dismissed by their male peers in

(Co-op) more fine-arts-aligned axis, delineated by

both film and the arts. Tracing the trajectories of their

David Curtis and Peter Gidal.

film practices, I ask if they experienced the artistic isola-



tion articulated in the Women’s Workshop’s statement

Yet any canon or survey is marked by its omissions.

Searching among the facsimiled faces, I can discern only

and consider what collective strategies they may have

four individually named women: Annabel Nicolson, Sally

turned to in order to counter it.

Potter, Carolee Schneemann, and Barbara Schwartz.

6

Elusive among the sea of male faces, their images arrest me with questions concerning the place of female prac-

The Building

tices in alternative film culture in postwar London. The lack of women in Rayns’s survey might initially seem to

Sally Potter, Barbara Schwartz, and Carolee

be explicable with reference to later feminist studies of

Schneemann all reappear in a 1972 article published in

canon formation and to Pollock’s definition of the veils

Time Out contemporaneously with Cinema Rising.8 The

of naturalization and universality, which seek to validate

piece, entitled “Interviews with Three Filmmakers,” is

what she sees as “the highly select and privileged

devoted to the question of women working in indepen-

membership of the canon that denies any selectivity.”

dent film. According to the opening text, the Time Out

However, Pollock’s critique of the patriarchal canon

feature marks the occasion of a program of films by

within the visual arts cannot provide a complete expla-

“five film makers (who are also women) at the Co-op

nation. For while female membership in Cinema Rising’s

on Saturday. If the situation in which they are being

alternative film canon might appear at first selective

presented is something of a ghetto—and it’s important

and marked by omission, the place of the woman artist

that two at least have been involved in similar shows

filmmaker in the culture of the London art world during

before—it did at least provide an opportunity for a

the early 1970s is further complicated by the lack of

discussion with three of them about their situation as

acceptance afforded to alternative film by film and the

women who make films.”9 The interviews with Potter,

visual arts more generally: neither fully an art form

Schwartz, and Schneemann variously reflect their

nor fulfilling the characteristics of cinema in terms of

conflicted position as women artists working with film

its production and aesthetic systems. This chapter

at an embryonic moment for both feminism and artists’

explores how the four women pictured in Cinema Rising

film in Britain. Their interviews clearly show that they

each negotiated the complex terrain of what might be

were aware of the context of feminism, which they are

7

136  L O ND ON ART WOR LDS

asked to discuss for the purposes of the article. Potter,

concept of an arts lab, of a sort of melting pot, of a free

for example, is critical about the potential for feminism

place in the centre of town where you could gather and

to express its political aims aesthetically, speaking of

where you could see an event or a film or a painting

how “women’s lib films I have seen all use such out-

or a talk.”13 At the same time, the rigor of Potter’s and

dated and archaic and also reactionary structures.”

Nicolson’s inquiries into film’s material surfaces and

Schwartz expresses a positive, if tentative, relationship

apparatus, as I discuss below, tempered these counter-

to feminism’s potential to be reflected in her films, refer-

cultural indeterminacies and might also be seen to have

ring to Nell Dunn’s 1965 book of interviews, Talking to

anticipated a more fine-art-oriented engagement with

Women, as a model for what she would like to explore

modernist concerns, which would later develop with the

in her films: “I guess that’s what my films are like—par-

move of the Co-op to North London in 1971.

ticulars rather than generalities—that’s how I can get to



understand the importance for instance of the women’s

and Schneemann, was making use of the rudimentary

movement.”10

film facilities offered at the Arts Lab on Robert Street,



she also pursued an ongoing interest in performance

It could be argued that Potter’s and Schwartz’s

Furthermore, while Potter, like Nicolson, Schwartz,

reluctance was shaped by their alternative engagement

through her association with the performance company

in the pluralistic arts activities of the late 1960s and

Group Events. In this context she developed techniques

early 1970s, circulating around the Arts Lab, a counter-

of improvisation and theater performance as well as

cultural space of convergence for the arts, first at Drury

street theater, happenings, and other live events. Works

Lane and then Robert Street in Camden, where the

such as her double-screen performance The Building

London Filmmakers’ Co-operative was based until 1971.

(1969) as well as her double-screen film Play (1970)

As artists interested in working with film, Nicolson,

and her later three-screen film Combines (1972) could

Potter, Schwartz, and Schneemann bridged a unique

be seen as points of convergence across these different

transitional moment between the Arts Lab imperative of

cultural contexts. Performed at the New Arts Lab and

“mix all the arts!” and the more self-reflexive and artis-

the National Film Theatre in 1969, The Building creates

anal film practices that were nurtured at the Dairy, the

a playful dialogue between film space and live space.

space at Prince of Wales Terrace where the Co-op made

Two performers—fellow Co-op filmmaker Mike Dunford

its base from 1971. Here, film was presented in close

and Leda Papaconstantinou, both of whom Potter had

proximity to experimental theater, music, and visual art.

met through her involvement with Group Events—sit on

The blurred boundaries, spatial proximities, and contin-

chairs before their screen selves, projected in negative

gencies of the Arts Lab are reflected in the distinctive

and involved in a series of actions. The movements end,

mix of performance and multiscreen projection discern-

as Potter puts it, “with the films showing their images

ible in Potter’s early film work and that of peers such as

crossing and re-crossing from screen to screen and

Nicolson. Potter remembers the “vibrancy of the whole

laughing.” At one point the two performers throw off

11

12

137  Circulations and Cooperations

Fig. 7.2 Sally Potter, The Building, New Arts Lab, 1969.

their white overalls to reveal costumes, which Potter

how an experimental intersection of performance and

describes as “red satin skin tight clothing with exag-

double-screen projection might engage with the ques-

gerated padding, so that the woman is exaggeratedly

tioning of gender. Made before the articulations and

female and the man had great padded shoulders” (fig.

activisms of the women’s liberation movement were

7.2). The purpose of this notable caricature of gender

fully established in Britain, Potter’s work uses formal

was, according to Potter in her Time Out interview, “an

experiment to make a playful and implicit examination

attempt to get across the necessity for us to destroy

of gender roles.15

our roles before we can create anything.”14 The Building



not only suggests a nascent interest in the relation-

as a beguiling address to the limitations of gender

ship between film and performance, as well as a

representation and its roles, this was not Potter’s stated

reference to theater, but could also be seen to explore

intent. She describes her primary aim for the piece as

138  L O ND ON ART WOR LDS

For while The Building might be read in retrospect

representing “pure presence” through the meeting of

have described as the “positivist science” of North

film with performance in “a sort of synthesizing and

American structural film, where the “set of rules that

reconciling of nonform and expanded form.” But the

govern it . . . delineate and restrict the area of inquiry,”

absence of overt feminist content did not prevent The

providing “no guarantee of freedom from the ideology

Building from being dismissed by her Co-op peers on the

inscribed within the very materials of film. On the

grounds of gender. Potter recalls how she felt “that what

contrary, it reflects the patriarchal ideology from which

I was doing was neither taken seriously nor respected in

it originated, and which it continues to serve.”18 The

any shape or form in that context. And especially when

performative experiments of The Building, therefore,

it started to involve things like dance.”

could be seen to place Potter outside the legitimations



of the more purist modernist practices to which, like

16

Although Potter may have been granted mem-

bership in Cinema Rising’s directory, the dismissal of

their peers in the contemporary arts, filmmakers at the

The Building on the grounds of its theatrical content

Co-op aspired, following its move from the pluralist

demonstrates that experimental forms of cinema were

conditions and countercultural associations of the Arts

engaged in an overlapping system of validation and

Lab.19

exclusion emanating from both the film industry and



the visual arts, harking back to the coded legitimiza-

implicit forms of exclusion, in which discrimination

tions and omissions of artistic practice through which

is disguised within the validations of what is deemed

male canons have traditionally been formulated. In

acceptable as art, posed profound dilemmas for women

the case of The Building, Potter’s theatrically infused

artists at the time, concerning not only the validity of

focus on the body could also be seen to exceed “the

their work but their sense of identity as artists. Potter

modernist logic of formalism,” in which, according to

would seem to confirm Jones’s notion of modernist

Amelia Jones, “the body of the artist—in its impurity—

“disinterestedness” when she recalls that validation was

must be veiled.” In her theorization of the reception

predicated on the premise that “somehow the central

of the body art associated with Potter’s contempo-

work had some kind of neutrality to it, an objectivity,

raries such as Schneemann, Jones argues that the

and then there was this other thing. Called anything

modernist critic’s maintenance of “disinterestedness”

that women made or, you know, was other than that. It

requires “a pure relation between the art object and

seemed to me [this] was inherently a form of marginal-

its supposedly inherent meaning (embedded in its

ization both conceptually and in the body of work. It was

‘form,’ to be excavated by the discerning interpreter),”

a reason to dismiss.”20 Potter, like other women artists,

something that refuses the presence and excesses of

then and now, felt the need to distance herself from an

the mediating subject, such as the performers in The

overt use of feminist discourse, in order to remove her-

Building. This same disinterestedness can also be

self from the negative associations modernism attached

identified in what Lisa Cartwright and Nina Fonoroff

to practices with gender connotations, such as dance,

17

139  Circulations and Cooperations

It could also be observed that these nuanced and

and thereby allow her practice to be taken seriously, and



not be reduced to what Potter had referred to as “this

alist conditions decried in the Women’s Workshop

other thing.”

statement? According to Potter, the 1972 Time Out



grouping of Potter, Schneemann, and Schwartz is

Nicolson also expressed ambivalence about

But is this a return to the isolated and individu-

direct affiliation or association with feminist concerns.

misleading in this respect. For while the Co-op at the

Although a later 1973 film performance, Reel Time, used

Robert Street Arts Lab and the Dairy on Prince of

two machines with gender associations—a sewing

Wales Crescent provided a meeting place for artists

machine and a 16 mm projector in dialogue—she was

interested in working with film, it did not engender

clear about the role of feminism in her art: “I don’t want

a particular collectivity among its female members.

to be making a claim that this is a statement about

It could be argued that, for Potter, an experience of

women, because I don’t think that would be quite right.

collective agency, as well as a space of liberation from

I was saying something about me. Of course I was

the constraints of a prescriptive and discriminating

aware that I’m a woman and I’m female, but it wasn’t

modernism, came from her contact with the collabo-

the political context.” Nicolson’s remarks emphasize

rative energies and ensembles of live theater. After the

individual creativity and subjectivity, which are seen as

positive experience of working with Group Events, she

the central traits of the artist in modernity. The remarks

attended a one-year course in choreography and dance

are consistent with Jan Rosenberg’s account of “a more

at the London School of Contemporary Dance in 1971,

tenuous and ambiguous relationship to the feminist film

initiating fruitful collaborations with contemporary

movement,” in her illuminating 1979 study of feminist

choreographers and dancers such as Richard Alston

film practices: “They [women filmmakers] continue

and Siobhan Davies at its resident theater, The Place.

to make films which explore personal consciousness,

This deeper engagement in performance and dance

sexuality, childhood and other ideas compatible with

continued in dialogue with expanded notions of film,

feminism from a more subjective and psychological

such as her triple-screen film performance Combines

perspective than the documentarists.” She also notes

in 1972. Evoking the temporal and spatial play of The

that, despite the patriarchal inscriptions of avant-garde

Building, Combines mirrored live performance with the

cinema, the primary orientation of these filmmakers

dancer’s on-screen image and gestures. Filmed and

is “toward the world of avant-garde film and art rather

performed within the studios of The Place, the work

than political feminism.” Conflicted by the split mod-

suggests that although film was still an intrinsic factor

ernism required between their identities as artists and

in Potter’s work, more fruitful and less limiting pro-

as women, Nicolson and Potter made a clear separation

cesses, practices, and collaborations were to be found

between their individual practices as artists and their

in the spaces and discourses of contemporary dance

involvement in the women’s movement.

and live art.

21

22

140  L O ND ON ART WOR LDS

23

Fig. 7.3 Sally Potter, Annabel Nicolson, and Barbara Schwartz (now Ess) at the London Filmmakers’ Co-operative ca. 1970.

Reel Time: Claiming Subjectivity For Nicolson, however, coming from an art-school background in painting, the Co-op provided a sympathetic space in which to nurture her growing interest in the potential of the film medium. Nicolson has alluded to the sense of “a critical mass” of other like-minded artists who wanted to explore the potential of film, where “we weren’t the first generation, because there had been other people doing it—other artists in history—but in a way we were the first generation that had a number of us” (fig. 7.3).24 Like Potter, she taught herself the fundamentals of filmmaking on the equipment at the New Arts Lab, resulting in works such as Anju (1970) and Slides (1971), whose sewn, painted, and scratched surfaces demonstrated her interest in film’s material qualities. She became fully involved in the Co-op’s organizational activities, later curating its cinema programs as well as engaging in the modernist debates of process and surface that cemented the Co-op’s reputation for a rigorous practice of formal, or so-called structural, filmmaking during the 1970s.25 Unlike Potter, the materialist qualities of Nicolson’s work, which emphasized abstraction rather than drama, enabled a level of acceptance of her work that accounted for its inclusion in programs on structural film at the National Film Theatre and Tate. Returning to Jones’s concept of “disinterestedness,” it could be argued that the containment of her work within this modernist frame of reference was sustained by a narrow mode of interpretation, which was descriptive rather than associative. Allusions to the traditionally gendered activities of stitching or cloth, as

141  Circulations and Cooperations

a fruitful means to offer alternate interpretations of the

(1973), where a paper bird dangles and dances in front

threaded fragments of Slides, for example, were largely

of the projector beam, extend the artisanal focus of

absent from contemporaneous readings of her work.

experimental film practice into a tactility that evoked

26

Furthermore, the narrow frame of reference within which

life outside the studio and the gallery. As Guy Brett

the work was originally received also stresses just how

has noted: “Whereas the typical male attitude has

early in their development the articulations of feminism

stressed professionalism in art as a special realm from

within the sphere of art were in the early 1970s. Potter

which the other parts of life are shut out, women made

is clear in retrospect that, when making films between

no break between their lifestyle and their art practice,

1968 and 1970, “there was not a vocabulary. At that

they often extracted meanings from materials directly

time there wasn’t really a sort of driving sense of pride

associated with their lives, not with art history.”29 Such,

about reclaiming female vocabulary.”27 Although the

it could be argued, was the case with Nicolson’s film

performances, sculptures, and films of artists as diverse

performance Reel Time. For while the projector and

as Yoko Ono, Niki de Saint Phalle, and VALIE EXPORT

the sewing machine that structure the performance

may already have asserted a female perspective during

make compelling allusion to the gendered labor of the

the 1960s, contemporaneous developments drawing on

sweatshop and the projection booth, Nicolson is more

an explicitly feminist discourse did not become preva-

focused on how the apparatus reflects the creative

lent in the United Kingdom until 1971, with the drawings

privacy of her studio. She refers to the way in which

and paintings of artists such as Margaret Harrison and

“so many things happened once I got those [projec-

Monica Sjöo, both members of women’s art groups.

tors]. Because they were in my studio. Even though

28

Furthermore, the extent to which either Potter or

there were projectors upstairs, in the Co-op, because

Nicolson was aware of the 1972 formation of the Women

it was in the same building, once I got my own projec-

Artists Workshop or other related initiatives is unclear,

tors, I just had a relationship.”30 By laying a subjective

suggesting that at this early point, at least, they were

claim, which enfolded her own female identity, to the

not connected to these circles. The National Women’s

gendered territory the cinema apparatus connoted,

Liberation Movement Conference held in London in 1972,

she might be seen to have changed the terms by which

attended by Potter, addressed more explicitly political

this technology was understood, bringing it closer to

agendas to do with equal pay, child care, and domestic

her own experience and creative practice as an artist,

abuse, which could be seen to account for the perception

in which a feminist message was implicit rather than

by both Potter and Nicolson that, while the Women’s

overtly stated (fig. 7.4).

movement might improve women’s living conditions, it



had little impact on their art practices.

during what proved to be a high point of activity for a



version of “expanded cinema” distinct to the British

However, works such as Nicolson’s Slides, Reel

Time (1973), and her film performance Jaded Vision

142  L O ND ON ART WOR LDS

Reel Time was first presented at Co-op in May 1973,

context. Collective working processes were crucial to

Fig. 7.4 Reel Time film performance by Annabel Nicolson, North East London Polytechnic, 1973.

the convergences of film, performance, and installa-

impromptu feeling to them—they record streets,

tion realized by Nicolson and the close-knit group of

faces, rooms but always without self consciousness

artists connected to the Co-op. In this experimental

and without descending to the uncritical myopia of

climate Nicolson and the other Co-op members sought

home movies. They’ve wit, perception, immediacy.”33

to rethink film spectatorship, opening it up to the

Schwartz’s use of a film gauge, associated more with

temporal/spatial conditions of the gallery through the

the amateur and the domestic, recalls Brett’s observa-

interposition of performance and multiscreen projec-

tions of an art that draws on the sphere of life. It also

tion. Working with peers such as Malcolm le Grice,

suggests an ambivalence toward the Co-op’s empha-

William Raban, David Crosswaite, and Gill Eatherley,

sis—particularly at the Dairy—on 16 mm filmmaking

Nicolson was able to further her examinations of the

and its connotations of an artisanal-artist film practice,

potentials of the projection process and its appara-

rooted in the traditions of experimental film’s post-

tus for a live situation. The results, as one spectator

war practices. However, it was Schwartz’s interest in

remembered, were an evocative interplay of different

experimental film—first kindled in response to the

sensations: “It’s very hard to pin down your things, my

films she saw at the Ann Arbor Film festival while

mind is full of images, colours, light, natural light and

pursuing a degree in English literature at the University

artificial light, beams moving, nothing still, all these

of Michigan, and second nurtured at Ken Jacob’s film

things come to mind.” At this point in the development

workshops at Anthology Film Archives in New York—

of her practice, the dialogues and collaborative events

that encouraged her to come to London to attend the

with which Nicolson was involved through the Co-op

London School of Film Technique in 1971. Finding the

provided a collective support for the development of

school too industry focused, she shifted her attention

her work with film, without recourse to a specifically

to the more sympathetic context of the Co-op and

feminist discourse or its networks.

became involved in the activities and films emerging

31

32

from it. Schwartz found the Co-op a “mutually supportive scene” and a “hotbed of film experimentation,” Home Movies and Roundhouse: London Networks

one that also connected her to experimental music and particularly Cornelius Cardew’s Scratch Orchestra.34

Like Nicolson, the films of Barbara Schwartz (now

Inflected with the Arts Lab culture of contingency and

Barbara Ess) also blur the separation between life

improvisation, her 8 mm films were often projected

and art sanctioned by modernism. Shot on 8 mm,

as expanded film performances and were shown at

their titles are tantalizingly evocative: Home Movies,

relaxed and intimate gatherings in her flat above the

Gina, Everything’s Gonna Be Alright. As Verina Glassner

Co-op. Nicolson recalls an event Schwartz performed

describes them in her article “Interviews with Three

at the New Arts Lab, where she “showed several of

Filmmakers”: “Her films are personal; with a genuine

her films and then handed round jars of bubbles and

144  L O ND ON ART WOR LDS

asked people to blow them. You could see the bub-



bles rising in the projector beam and the circles on

rotas and at screening events, Schneemann, records

the screen. Her work always had a beautiful quality

suggest, was not so intimately involved in the film-

of informality. Watching her films in the cinema was

making community at the Co-op as Nicolson and

like watching them upstairs in the flat where she lives,

Potter. Green has contended that Schneemann, when

images of her friends and people she was close to.”

she arrived, was “already formed, joining a scene in

In her Time Out interview Schwartz raises the issue of

formation.”38 Indeed, a generation older, she was well

the lack of women filmmakers in Britain, apparent in

established as an artist in the context of the American

Cinema Rising’s mug shots, and modestly claims this

postwar conceptual movement. Her Kinetic Theater

as the reason for the focus on her work: “I guess it’s

events at the Judson Memorial Church, as well as

just because there’s not many women making films in

large-scale group performances such as Meat Joy

35

Appearing as an occasional name on workshop

this country that I get my films shown.” Certainly she

(1964) and politically charged expanded film perfor-

would have noted a stronger female presence in the

mances such as Snows (1967) and Illinois Central (1968),

more established canon of American experimental film,

had received notoriety, perhaps most infamously in

from founding figures such as Maya Deren to those

the case of Fuses (1964). Her artwork, as well as her

associated with both underground film and structural

writing, clearly articulates her relationship to her

filmmaking such as Chick Strand and Joyce Wieland.

sexuality and gendered corporeality, in contrast to the

Indeed, the American influence in the realm of British

role-playing performances in The Building or Nicolson’s

art and experimental film practice through the influx

orchestrating body—attentive to projector and sewing

of artists from the States proved significant during this

machine—in Reel Time. Rather, Schneemann’s confident

time, and Schwartz was not alone in her migration to

presentation of her own body in the act of perfor-

London. For fellow artist Carolee Schneemann, London

mance elicits what Amelia Jones has described as an

also provided an important, if temporary, place of

“intersubjectivity of the interpretative exchange” with

residence. But while Schwartz perceived London as a

the audience, encouraging a reciprocity that acknowl-

place of new promise, Schneemann, as Alison Green

edges and makes meaning from the contingency of

has suggested, considered the four years she spent in

the moment and the intimacies and particularities of

London, from 1969, a period of rehabilitation, even exile,

this exchange.39 Alongside the innovations of other

from difficulties she had been encountering in America

pioneers such as VALIE EXPORT and Yoko Ono,

across the intertwined strands of her personal life and

Schneemann’s use of performance might be seen as

her practice as a performer and filmmaker. By going first

one of the earlier instances in which a distinct female

to Paris and then London, Schneemann “was escaping

creative agency has been exerted, overturning the

but also joining other friends and entering what she

traditional role assigned to her by painting and sculp-

hoped was a more hospitable cultural climate.”

ture as a figure of representation, to become an active

36

37

145  Circulations and Cooperations

subject of her own art making, unfolding through the

The range of the work that she developed during her

live event.

time in London attested to the opportunities afforded



her through the networks of the city’s art community,

However, as her diaries and recollections show,

Schneemann experienced hostility, sometimes of an

but also indicated that she did not limit her conceptual

aggressive nature, in response to the explicit nature

explorations to works solely on film or in performance

of her happenings and performances in London. A

but also produced series of works on paper. These

harbinger of this negative reaction occurred on an

were sometimes in line with her visceral body-centric

earlier visit to London, in July 1967, when she partic-

practice, such as Blood Work Diary from 1972, which

ipated in the Dialectics of Liberation congress at the

displayed paper documents of her menstrual blood.41

Roundhouse, alongside countercultural luminaries as



diverse as Herbert Marcuse, Allen Ginsberg, and R. D.

and Eatherley found a measure of collective support

Laing. As Schneemann observed of the event: “I was

for their practices, albeit outside the auspices of the

a participant among men who validated each other’s

feminist collectivism that the Women’s Workshop

work—each other’s transgressions of established

espoused, Schneemann remained an isolated figure.

culture and myth—but who at the same time implic-

For Green, her marginalized status can be theorized as

itly mythicized the female as auxiliary, adjacent.”

an exilic condition, within and without her own coun-

40

But it could be argued that, while Potter, Nicolson,

Schneemann’s comments recall the frustrations of

try. I would go further and argue that Schneemann’s

Potter upon the dismissal of The Building for being

experience clearly reflects the divisive conditions under

“other” in relation to accepted modes of modernist

which women artists were expected to practice. Just

validation, and the distrust and misunderstandings

as dismissive reactions to The Building warned Potter,

that Schneemann had already experienced by virtue

the hostility Schneemann courageously endured for her

of the foregrounding in her work of her subjective

transgressive visceral practice was punitive, isolating

gendered experience were by no means dispelled upon

her from her peers in the male-dominated art world.

her residence in London.

The negative reactions of both artists’ male colleagues



also suggest the extent to which content, as well as

However, Schneemann found sympathetic net-

works across London’s creative communities during her

form, that transgressed beyond the codes of modernism

years in London. She worked closely, for example, with

provided the rationale for a gender-based oppression.

the artist John Lifton at the New Arts Lab, orchestrated

As Schneemann wrote in an unsent letter to Allan

the ambitious group performance Thames Crawling at

Kaprow in 1974, “essentially I have stood alone for too

the International Underground Film Festival in 1970.

long, having been methodically repulsed by those with

Michael Kustow, a friend and director of the ICA, also

whom I felt affinity. . . . You see I understand men helping

invited her to present a number of events and screen-

me to sustain what I had but not to enlarge its scope or join

ings, such as Fuses and her Naked Action Lecture of 1968.

them in their world.”42

146  L O ND ON ART WOR LDS

Three Friends: Collective Possibilities

windows with doves flying round against the light. After a while she gave out some hand wound film viewers

But if Schneemann continued to suffer the divisive

for people to look through privately and pass round.

politics of patriarchy and Potter moved sideways toward

The images were like those of the dovecote projected

more sympathetic communities in dance and live art,

on the walls. She had a transparent box with images

there was also a shift toward collective organization

from the film drawn on it.”43 Alongside Schneemann

among women artists working with film. One outstand-

and Schwartz, Liss also attests to the significant and

ing example involved Barbara Schwartz and her friend

galvanizing American presence in London’s filmmaking

and fellow American Fluxus artist Carla Liss. Liss was

scene during this period, as evidenced by the London

the distribution secretary at the Co-op from 1969 until

Co-op’s foundation by Americans Steven Dwoskin and

the mid-1970s. Her appointment had been strategic

Simon Hartog. There is little written on her ephem-

because the foundation of the Co-op’s distribution

eral and responsive film practice, and yet Liss’s name

collection relied on the donation of prints of American

can be traced through other, more feminist-inflected

underground films from Jonas Mekas at the New York

art networks from 1972 onward. It may be that Co-op

Film-makers’ Co-operative, on the condition that a paid

colleagues would not have been aware that she not only

member of staff would be on staff in London to admin-

guest-edited the October 1973 issue of Art and Artists,

ister and care for them. As a member of Fluxus and

devoted to women’s art, but also engineered with

part of New York’s informal countercultural networks,

Schwartz and fellow American artist Susan Hiller one

Liss was connected to Mekas and the New York Co-op

of the last exhibitions at Gallery House, in June 1973.44

and was invited to take up the role. As the only paid

Notably, the title of their exhibition, Three Friends, could

member of staff in a cooperative structure, she may

be seen to reflect the nonhierarchical forms of collabo-

have been resented by other members giving their time

ration and connection that would become a key strategy

and support without monetary return. What is seldom

in feminist art practices.

mentioned in the records of the London Co-operative or



the screening programs of this period, however, is her

a larger exhibition of women’s work, but the curators

presence as an artist and filmmaker also working with

Rosetta Brookes and Sigi Krauss rejected it. A preview

an expanded practice at the interplay between objects

of the exhibition in Spare Rib lamented this, criticizing

and film projection. Nicolson remembers her “making

the lack of female representation in an earlier Gallery

perspex boxes with things in them, objects from the

House exhibition, The Survey of the Avant-Garde, which

countryside, steam, water.” Other works included a

had included Schneemann but gave “little clue what

four-screen film that evoked a dovecote, which Nicolson

women are doing now.” Spare Rib, along with an editorial

has also described: “Some people were gathered in a

Liss wrote for Art and Artists, gives some detail of the

dark room. High above were images of small circular

exhibition, which featured Dove Cote and screenings

147  Circulations and Cooperations

Hiller, Liss, and Schwartz had originally proposed

of a number of Schwartz’s films, including, according

sound, and expression compelling to feminist film

to Spare Rib, HomeMovie, “a highly personal explora-

theorists such as Teresa de Lauretis, who saw in her

tion of different techniques, and images that caught

work “the elaboration of strategies of address that alter

[Schwartz’s] eye.” Hiller contributed Transformer,

the forms and balances of traditional representation.”48

a wall work constructed of sheets of tissue paper

By the end of the decade, Nicolson—moving away

that, with its craft materials, haptic quality, and glit-

from film and toward a performance and sculpture

tering ephemeral surface, anticipated an emerging

practice that celebrated women’s collectivity, such as

feminist-influenced art, where Brett’s observation of a

the 1981 piece Menstrual Hut—likewise explored the

materiality referencing the sphere of lived experience

possibilities of collaboration and collectivity, as one of

outside the formal hierarchies of the studio might

the founding members of the women artists’ film- and

take root. In Hiller’s Art and Artists interview, however,

video-distribution collective Circles and later as a guest

an ambivalence about how involvement in feminist

editor of the “Women’s Space” issue of Feminist Art

activism might connect to her work remains, qualifying

News in 1982.49 Schwartz, Schneemann, and Liss all

how “the experience [of the women’s movement] is

returned to America during the decade, where Schwartz

valuable, but the issues are stated in dichotomies which

developed her beguiling film and photographic prac-

can’t be resolved except in the abstract language of

tice as Barbara Ess, bringing a feminist dynamic to the

politics. I don’t think in the abstract anymore, I live that

post-punk music scene as part of the band Y Pants, with

far away from words.”

the artists Gail Vachon and Virginia Piersol.50





45

46

However, as Three Friends and Liss’s 1973 issue of

The diverse creative and geographic paths that

Art and Artists indicate, the collective working dynamic

Nicolson, Potter, Schneemann, and Schwartz followed

espoused by the Women’s Movement was soon to

could not thus have been predicted from their pres-

burgeon, bringing with it the discourses of Spare Rib,

ence in the pages of Cinema Rising and Time Out. But,

The Shrew, and the Women’s Workshop and encour-

as I have argued, these images and interviews from

aging a mode of practice where feminist discourses

1972 crystallize the contradictions apparent for artists

were explicit rather than enfolded: as seen in the

working with the moving image at this early juncture in

films, video, and tape-slide works of Tina Keane, Lis

the emergence of feminist art practice. Their scarcity

Rhodes, or Catherine Elwes, for example. Feminist

among the mug shots of Cinema Rising speaks of the

sensibilities can be more overtly traced in Potter’s later

continued marginalization of women within the valida-

performative collaborations with Rose English and her

tions of artists’ independent film, just as the excesses

long working relationship with the musician Lindsay

of performance and theatricality, or depictions of the

Cooper. Her films Thriller (1979) and The Gold Diggers

commonplace in their work—from domestic interiors

(1983) celebrate the centrality of strong female per-

to sewing machines—might bar them under the subtle

formances through a discursive mode of movement,

rules of modernist validation. At the same time, their

47

148  L O ND ON ART WOR LDS

reluctance to adhere to the feminist agenda implied

Potter, Nicolson, Schwartz, and Schneemann, Liss and

in Glassner’s Time Out article shows that they did not

Hiller, found in the diverse worlds of London’s creative

see the answer to their vexed position in the collective

community, from dance and live art to film and Fluxus,

causes of the early Women’s Movement.

in order to make room for their practice in lieu of



specifically feminist spaces. This creative negotiation

How to negotiate the space between visibility and

acknowledgment while asserting an artistic practice

manifests in the convergences, conflicts, and dia-

concerned with subject matter more intangible than

logues of their expanded films and performances and

that associated with feminist activism? As Hiller has

installations. Through their excessive and fragmented

recalled: “We wanted to say other things, not neces-

forms—often centered on the body and drawing on

sarily feminist political things, but other kinds of things,

other disciplines from outside the validations of film

and you couldn’t do that without inventing other ways

or visual arts—they address the entwined questions

of going about the whole procedure of making art.”

of identity and creative practice at this moment of an

Like Potter, Nicolson, Schwartz, and Schneemann, Hiller

emergent feminist art practice. Hiller concludes: “All

asserts a subtle opposition to modernism’s patriarchal

that being an artist means is being able to feel and act

validations: one expressed in the realization of creative

at a certain level of intensity and meaning. And this can

potential of the materials deemed “that other thing”—of

be extended to anything, like doing the dishes, sitting in

the body, and of everyday ephemera. This look askance,

a cafe. I think that’s really where it’s at.”52

51

at “other kinds of things” and “other ways of going about,” could be connected to the creative succor that

Notes







1. “Women’s Workshop of the Artists’ Union Collective Statement,” Spare Rib, no. 29 (July 1974): 38, cited by Rozsika Parker and Griselda Pollock, “Fifteen Years of Feminist Action,” in Parker and Pollock, Framing Feminism, 3. 2. Founding members included Esther Ronay, Linda Wood, Susan Shapiro, Francine Winham, Fran MacLean, Barbara Evans, and Midge Mckenzie. They actively campaigned for equal opportunities and made collective films such as The Amazing Equal Pay Show (1974). See Dickinson, Rogue Reels. 3. “Mary Kelly and Laura Mulvey in Conversation,” in Mary Kelly, Imaging Desire (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1996), 30–31, cited in Nixon, “‘Why Freud?’ Asked the Shrew,” 132. 4. Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” 5. Rayns, “Directory of U.K. Independent Film-makers.” 6. Yoko Ono is represented with John Lennon. 7. Pollock, Differencing the Canon, 4.

149  Circulations and Cooperations





8. Glassner, “Interviews with Three Filmmakers.” 9. Ibid., 46–47. Annabel Nicolson recalls how she was one of the other filmmakers showing in the program, which was arranged by Peter Gidal, then responsible for the cinema programs at the London Filmmakers’ Co-operative and connected to Time Out through the monthly film column he wrote for them. Although Glassner and Time Out visited the Co-op to interview and photograph the participants in the program, Nicolson was not included in the article. It has not been possible to ascertain the other filmmaker included in the forthcoming screening mentioned in the article. 10. Ibid., 46. 11. For further information on the Arts Lab, see Reynolds, “‘Non-institution.’” 12. D. Curtis, “English Avant-Garde Film,” 112–13. 13. Sally Potter in conversation with Lucy Reynolds, December 2013.

14. Glassner, “Interviews with Three Filmmakers,” 46. 15. The first meeting of the Women’s Movement in London occurred in 1970. 16. Potter in conversation with Reynolds, December 2013. 17. Jones, Body Art, 35. 18. Cartwright and Fonoroff, “Narrative Is Narrative,” 137. 19. For a detailed account of this shift, see Zoller, “Aural History.” See also D. Curtis, History of Artists’ Film and Video. 20. Potter in conversation with Reynolds, December 2013. 21. Annabel Nicolson in conversation with Lucy Reynolds, March 2009. 22. Rosenberg, Women’s Reflections, 41. 23. Potter recalls attending the first Women’s Liberation Conference in London, 1971. 24. Annabel Nicolson interviewed by Lucy Reynolds, March 2009. 25. The term “structural film” was first coined by P. Adams Sitney to discuss tendencies toward a formalist foregrounding of process, material, and film apparatus in late 1960s American artists’ filmmaking. This formalism acquired a different emphasis in Britain, where key spokesmen were Malcolm le Grice and Peter Gidal. However, it should be stressed that practices at the Co-op during this period were varied and did not all adhere strictly to nonnarrative and formal principles. 26. The contemporary exception to this is Laura Mulvey’s 1978 lecture to the Oxford Women’s Studies Committee, “Film, Feminism, and the Avant-Garde,” in which she, citing Reel Time, refers briefly to how Nicolson “has used the old tradition of women’s applied arts to experiment with film as material.” Mulvey, “Film, Feminism, and the Avant-Garde,” 213. For contemporary readings of Nicolson’s films, see Sparrow, “Annabel Nicolson,” and Reynolds, “British Avant-Garde Women Filmmakers.” 27. Potter in conversation with Reynolds, December 2013. 28. For more detailed information about early feminist art initiatives, see Parker and Pollock, “Fifteen Years of Feminist Action,” and Battista, Renegotiating the Body, esp. 17–21, for context and information on Kelly and Schneemann. 29. Brett, Through Our Own Eyes, 149. 30. Nicolson interviewed by Reynolds, March 2009. 31. For a contemporary account of British Expanded Cinema of the period, see Dusinberre, “On Expanding Cinema.” For more recent accounts, see Reynolds, “Filmaktion: New Directions in Film Art,” and Reynolds, “Magic Tricks? The Use of Shadowplay in British Expanded Cinema.”

150  L O ND ON ART WOR LDS

32. Annabel Nicolson, “Annabel Nicolson at the Co-op,” in Light Years: A Twenty Year Celebration of the LFMC, leaflet published October/November 1986, 43. 33. Glassner, “Interviews with Three Filmmakers,” 46. 34. Barbara Ess (formerly Schwartz), e-mail correspondence with the author, January 2015. 35. Nicolson, “Annabel Nicolson at the Co-op,” 41. 36. Glassner, “Interviews with Three Filmmakers,” 47. 37. According to Green, what had made New York inhospitable was not only the persecution that Schneemann feared for films and performances critical of U.S. policy in Vietnam, and the hostility and marginality she still experienced within the art community there, but also a need to find a space to recuperate following the painful breakup of her marriage to James Tenney. A. Green, “Intermedia, Exile, and Carolee Schneemann,” 141. 38. Ibid., 147. 39. Jones, Body Art, 34. 40. Schneemann, More Than Meat Joy, 152–57, quote on 155. 41. See Battista, Renegotiating the Body, 38–39. 42. Schneemann, More Than Meat Joy, 195. 43. Nicolson, “Annabel Nicolson at the Co-op,” 42. 44. See Art and Artists 8, no. 7 (October 1973). The issue contains an interview with Joan Jonas and Simone Forti, as well as Hiller, Liss, and Tillman, “Elements of Science Fiction.” 45. Parker, “Arts Editorial,” 19. 46. Hiller, Liss, and Tillman, “Elements of Science Fiction,” 33. 47. See Battista, Renegotiating the Body. 48. De Lauretis, “Rethinking Women’s Cinema,” 158. 49. Nicolson developed a dome-like structure as a space for female reflection and contemplation for her 1981 curatorial residency at the Norwich School of Art, which culminated in the exhibition Concerning Ourselves, including herself alongside other artists. 50. Ess also played and toured with The Static and Daily Life and initiated the multifaceted art-publishing project Just Another Asshole. Schneemann continued her unique and multifaceted practice, engaging questions of identity, gender, and relationships in drawing, installation, film, and video. Liss also returned to New York later in the decade, where she continued her association with Fluxus and a practice engaging with video and performance. 51. Hiller, “3,512 Words,” 130. 52. Hiller, Liss, and Tillman, “Elements of Science Fiction,” 33.

8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8.

Project sigma An Interpersonal Logbook Andrew Wilson

The question of how to introduce an account of project

Lettrist International (LI) between 1955 and 1956.6 It

sigma1—variously described by its orchestrator, the

was also in Paris that Trocchi started on his lifelong use

novelist Alexander Trocchi, as a “Meta-Categorical

of heroin and other narcotics; this had partially framed

Revolution,”2 an “Invisible Insurrection of a Million

his introduction to the LI, which in turn led directly to

Minds,”3 or a “Spontaneous University”4—necessitates

his friendship with Guy Debord. This was a friendship

addressing the manner in which Trocchi moved from

that was mediated by his immersion—signaled through

one environment and situation to another, forming and

Merlin—in an existential worldview.7

reflecting different kinds of networks. His experiences in



Paris, New York, and California in the 1950s determined

the view of a person, an outsider facing an absurd world,

the character and aims of sigma as much as they also

the direct experience of which, unmediated by any

account for its genesis. Trocchi left Scotland for Europe

external orientation from any kind of belief structure,

in 1950, having just gained a master’s in philosophy

provides (and undermines) the only hope for meaning.

from the University of Glasgow and a Kelmsley traveling

As he stated in an exchange with Hugh MacDiarmid at

scholarship, settling for the main part in Paris between

the 1962 Edinburgh International Writers’ Conference, “I

1952 and 1956. In Paris Trocchi’s changing outlook can

think the question of human identity is the only central

be tracked through the founding and editorship of the

question and it is a question of a man alone.”8 Trocchi’s

literary magazine Merlin between 1952 and 1955,5 which

sense of engagement was not political but engagé, a

was immediately followed by his association with the

perspective obtained through the life of an outsider: a

It is this existential view that guided Trocchi’s steps:

form of dégagement—from a prevailing understanding of

hypothetical. . . . All sense of objectivity is annihilated.”13

reality or social orthodoxy—that was itself a critical act

For Trocchi, the role of the addict was that of the out-

rather than a passive stance. The overriding message

sider, where the death of reality and the death of the

of Trocchi’s Merlin editorials constituted an attack

word was the reality: both the cultural revolution he was

against the mechanics of the Cold War. For instance,

starting to formulate and his use of drugs were deeply

the editorial for the third issue asked: “In what way

identified with each other.

can a literary magazine most effectively combat the



tendency in the human being to form rigid and uncom-

Merlin was, for Trocchi, losing its raison d’être. Having

promising attitudes? . . . Obviously as was suggested in

been the first magazine to publish Eugene Ionesco in

Merlin Number Two, it must proceed by hitting at fixed

English and regularly print work by Samuel Beckett, Jean

categories, by persuading men to analyse their own

Genet, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Corneille, Merlin become

attitudes, to suspend their responses, to think critically,

more widely accepted. The LI reinforced Trocchi’s sense

and then, in the historical context, to act.”10 Whereas the

of both refusal and engagement. He regularly received

final editorial, published in the sixth and penultimate

the group’s magazine, Potlatch, between July 1954 and

issue, was an extended attack on the moral, linguistic,

the spring of 1956, and the twenty-third issue of Potlatch,

and scientific absolutism that Trocchi believed fed Cold

for October 13, 1955, carried a note informing the reader

War politics and as a result had to be resisted to renew

of Trocchi’s resignation from the editorship of Merlin

culture and social relations. To be engagé in such a

and his subsequent membership in the LI. However,

situation was to go beyond politics, beyond categories

only a few months later, in April 1956, he left Paris for

and categorization, beyond tradition, beyond language

America, an act that itself signified a decisive break. He

as it had been and was generally manifested.

wrote: “The fact that I had to commit a criminal act in



One indication of this was his early drug use,

failing to notify the American authorities on my applica-

whereby he could, as he described it, become “an alien

tion for a visa that I had knowledge of narcotics seemed

in a society of conformers.” Through his use of narcot-

to set the key for the whole journey. (Had I admitted to

ics he felt able to evade or renounce one self-identity

that knowledge, there is every reason to believe the visa

(that which is a part of the social structure he rejected)

would have been refused.) I came and went a criminal,

in search for that other identity freed of alienation,

or more exactly, a member of a new underground.”14

which could undertake to build a new society. As he



described this state at the time: “I was the invisible

found work with the Trap Rock Corporation as a captain

catalyst of a complex process of experience. [. . .] I find

for a scow on the Hudson River, a situation in which he

heroin useful to give myself over to thought. Then I am

could write undisturbed. In the late summer of 1957,

able to sustain a flow . . . the hashish carries one like a

with an advance for his novel, he moved to Taos in New

sleepwalker into many postures, all experimental, all

Mexico, where he experimented with LSD with the

9

11

12

152  L O ND ON ART WOR LDS

His introduction to the Lettrists came at a time that

Trocchi’s first move was to New York, where he

psychotherapist Oscar Janiger. In Tijuana he married his

play. The notion of play and leisure became a strong

second wife, Lyn, and then moved to Venice Beach and

associative thread throughout sigma, particularly in

into the orbit of Wallace Berman. A habitué of the scene

relation to constructing a basis for a new social order, as

that existed around Stone Brothers Printing and the

it had also been for the Lettrists and would become for

Ferus Gallery,15 Trocchi published his first excerpt from

the Situationists. Such a standpoint rejected not just the

his novel Cain’s Book in the second issue of Berman’s

work ethic but also state structures that were bolstered

magazine, Semina, before moving back to New York in

by an instrumental attitude toward life.

the spring of 1958 in search of more support from his



publishers. Cain’s Book is largely autobiographical: the

with events when the Situationist International (SI) was

narrator is captain of a scow on the Hudson River, a job

formed in 1957 by the amalgamation of the International

on the margins of society that came to provide the main

Movement for an Imaginist Bauhaus with the Lettrist

locus for the book. The eight sentences from the book

International. However, Guy Debord recognized him as

published in Semina, however, give a direct impression

a founder-member of the SI, just as he had also added

of the heroin experience and the dissolution both of

Trocchi’s name to a Lettrist tract—Toutes ces dames au

identity and of language that this entailed when carried

salon!—that had been issued in 1956, some months after

forward as a systematic way of life. For Trocchi, the use

he had left Paris. So when Trocchi and his wife were

of heroin led to what he termed an “evasion of percep-

stranded in the grasp of the federal police for contraven-

tion,” which could be part of a “curative ambience” both

ing American drug laws, the SI took up his case during

personally and for society—this would later come to

their fourth congress, held in London in 1960. Its resolu-

be an important aspect of sigma. As he wrote in Cain’s

tion identified him as “a new type of artist, the pioneer

Book, being an addict “is born of a respect for the whole

of a new culture”;19 it was printed in the fifth issue

chemistry of alienation.”

of Internationale Situationniste that December,20 two



months after the circulation of the “Hands off Alexander

16

17

Trocchi’s time in America, like his last year in Paris,

Trocchi was in America and so was out of touch

was spent searching for life on the margins. Whether

Trocchi” proclamation (figs. 8.1 and 8.2). Bailed before

he was living in the Venice, California, apartment he

his trial in April 1961, Trocchi fled America for Canada,

named Musée Imaginaire (described in chilling detail by

before getting a boat for Aberdeen and then arriving

Irving Rosenthal as “Trocchi’s Pad” in his novel Sheeper,

in London via a short stay in Edinburgh, where he was

a crash-pad staging post for beatniks, decorated with

sheltered by his friend the editor Alex Neish.21

heroin) or on the scow on the Hudson, he occupied the



same field of survival as the mad and the diseased. The

garnered more public attention after participating with

ritual of the heroin fix might have related to alienation,

William Burroughs at the writers conference organized

but in another sense it created the conditions for an act

by John Calder for the 1962 Edinburgh Festival. At a

of sedition through Trocchi’s participation in unearned

press conference he admitted to being a heroin addict,

18

153  Project sigma

Not long after his arrival back in Britain, Trocchi

Fig. 8.1 “Hands Off Alexander Trocchi,” declaration signed by Guy Debord, Jacqueline de Jong, and Asger Jorn, October 7, 1960.

Fig. 8.2 “Resolution Concerning the Imprisonment of Alexander Trocchi,” published in Internationale Situationniste 5 (December 1960).

“a cosmonaut of inner space,” as he put it.22 Trocchi

he continued in this vein, stating that artists should be

acted never as an apologist for drugs, and specifically

involved in a “tentative, intuitive and creative passivity.

heroin, but as a prophet for substances that he saw as

A spontaneity leading to what André Breton called the

agents of creative change. During the conference he

found object. A found object is at the other end of the

elaborated on Burroughs’s statement that the future

scale from the conventional object. To free themselves

of the novel lay in a manipulation of space rather than

from the conventional object and thus pass freely

time, asserting that a new language of experience could

beyond non-categories, the twentieth-century artist

be found in the fragmentation and dematerialization

finally destroyed the object entirely.”24

of narrative. Trocchi argued that “modern art begins



with the destruction of the object. All vital creation is at

was then back in touch with Debord and by 1962

the other side of nihilism. It begins after Nietzsche and

was listed on the editorial board of the magazine

after Dada.” Categories were no longer relevant, and

associated with the SI—a group that subverted and

23

154  L O ND ON ART WOR LDS

The reference to Breton was not arbitrary; Trocchi

extended surrealist tenets of surprise, play, and desire

being like victims burnt at the stake, signalling through

toward a cultural revolution that superseded art.

the flames.”28 It is a tract born of the times of possible

25

In parallel Trocchi began to work on his belief in a

nuclear holocaust, and so, in a logical development

“meta-categorical revolution” that he would later call

of his standpoint since Merlin, he rejected the whole

sigma, which was largely suggested by his heroin expe-

political and social structure that had contributed to this

rience. He recounted this in a particularly lucid passage

state of affairs. His cultural revolution was to be “the

in Cain’s Book: “For centuries we in the west have been

necessary underpinning, the passionate substructure

dominated by the Aristotelian impulse to classify. It is

of a new order of things.”29 Artaud’s significance for

no doubt because conventional classifications become

Trocchi was his call not only for the death of the object

part of prevailing economic structure that all real revolt

and what that signified but also for a new experiential

is hastily fixed like a bright butterfly on a classificatory

language of the theater that went beyond represen-

pin. . . . Question the noun; the present participles of the

tation and turned toward life and living itself. Trocchi,

verb will look after themselves.”26

following Artaud, was not nihilistically contemplating a



symbol of an absent void but instead offering a positive

One of the key issues that sigma grappled with and

illustrates (as does the SI) was the question of how to

declaration for a new cultural and social way of living.

escape recuperation by the forces of dominant culture—



how a countercultural force could remain and evolve on

here he was producing a tract not so much for revolu-

its own terms. For Trocchi, the answer was to be found

tion as for evolution; what he called for was “(r)evolt,”

in a structure he defined as the interpersonal logbook;

which he characterized as “a transition of necessity

this relied upon a personal network that would elude

more complex, more diffuse than [the coup d’état] and

identification by the wider society and would in turn

so more gradual, less spectacular. . . . What is to be

shape the course of an invisible insurrection.

seized is ourselves.” This was a cultural shift achieved



by “seizing the grids of expression and the powerhouses

In issue number 8 of Internationale Situationniste

Trocchi liked to play on words in his writing, and

(January 1963) Trocchi published “Technique du coup

of the mind . . . the cultural revolt is the necessary

du monde,” which was essentially the founding text

underpinning, the passionate substructure of a new

for project sigma. It was slightly amended and retitled

order of things. . . . There is in fact no such permanence

Invisible Insurrection of a Million Minds when it was dis-

anywhere. There is only becoming.”30 In a similar way he

tributed as item 2 of the sigma portfolio that autumn.27

described the early formation of sigma as necessarily

The text commences with reference to Antonin Artaud’s

“imperfect, fragmentary and inarticulate . . . it is now

essay collection The Theatre and Its Double, a reference

in the process of becoming conscious itself.”31 It was

that illuminates the core of Trocchi’s proposal: “And

this impermanent, imperfect nature that might have

if there is still one hellish, truly accursed thing in our

prevented sigma’s ossification and recuperation by the

time, it is our artistic dallying with forms, instead of

dominant culture to which it was opposed.

155  Project sigma



Toward the end of Invisible Insurrection of a Million

described in sigma: A Tactical Blueprint, to be pasted up

Minds Trocchi sets out his stall, beginning with the

on advertising hoardings on the London Underground

construction of a prototype “spontaneous university”

as well as distributed in coffee bars. It contains texts

as a “cultural jam session” that owes much to Black

by Trocchi, Burroughs, Artaud, and Kenneth White.

Mountain College in North Carolina—an institution

Although unsuccessful—London Transport refused to

Trocchi then describes in terms of its nurturing of a

allow them to be pasted up, although no reason was

“free play of creativity.” He unsuccessfully sought a

ever given—one indication of how the portfolio worked

brick-and-mortar base of this type into the early 1970s,

as a way of connecting up the growing community of a

and his description of what such a building might entail

million minds is the effect sigma had on a young New

was immediately suggestive of Black Mountain. In his

York psychiatrist, Dr. Joseph Berke.36

view, this “‘experimental laboratory’ will locate itself,



our community-as-art and begin exploring the possible

in production for a few months, circulating not just

functions of a society in which leisure is the dominant

Trocchi’s founding texts but also texts submitted by

fact, and universal community, in which the conven-

R. D. Laing, poet Michael McClure, and filmmaker Stan

tional assumptions about reality and the constraints

Brakhage.37 The circumstances surrounding the contact

they imply are no longer operative, in which art and life

between Trocchi and Berke are both coincidental and

are no longer divided.” And such a stance also recalls

complex, cutting to the heart of how sigma operated on

Debord’s unitary urbanism built from psychogeographic

an interpersonal level. Trocchi understood that the first

analysis of the dérive, or even the Fun Palace envisaged

essential, if project sigma was to flourish, was the need

by architects Joan Littlewood and Cedric Price that was

to underpin already-existing networks of cultural dis-

never built.34

sent and to link with and enlarge them. So, in sigma: A



Tactical Blueprint, he stated: “The first essential for those

32

33

From one perspective the building he was looking

By October 1964 the sigma portfolio had been

for to house and nurture the spontaneous univer-

whose purpose it is to link mind with mind in a supra-

sity can be identified as the sigma portfolio, both the

national (transcategorical) process, is some kind of

content and the way it could be received and acted on

efficient expanding index, an international ‘who’s who.’

performed his notion of no permanence, only “becom-

It is a question of taking stock, of surveying the variety

ing.” The first item in the portfolio is not a theoretical

of talent and goodwill at our disposal.”38 This purpose

statement of aims, which is contained in the second

for sigma he soon identified as an “interpersonal log” in

and third items (Technique du coup du monde / Invisible

the Subscription Form: “In subscribing to the sigma port-

Insurrection of a Million Minds and sigma: A Tactical

folio, you are stimulating the growth of an interpersonal

Blueprint); instead, it is a calling card of, for, and to

log constructing itself to alert, sustain, inform, inspire,

the margins that the SI admired but avoided associ-

and make vividly conscious of itself all intelligence from

ation with. Moving Times was a poster intended, as

now on.”39 Trocchi’s introduction to Potlatch additionally

35

156  L O ND ON ART WOR LDS

explains: “I append a list of people to whom I am sending

was for Nuttall “a paper exhibition in words, pages,

this first statement. If you respond, we shall have your

spaces, holes, edges and images which drew people in

contribution roneod and distribute it to those people on

and forced a violent involvement with the unalterable

the list. If you wish to add names to the list, do so. We

facts. The message was: if you want to exist you must

shall extend the chain. The thing should develop into an

accept the flesh and the moment. . . . The magazine . . .

interesting interpersonal work-in-progress.” Joseph

used nausea and flagrant scatology as a violent means

Berke appears on both of the lists, of participants and of

of presentation. I wanted to make the fundamental con-

“people interested,” that Trocchi circulated in October

dition of living unavoidable by nausea. You can’t pretend

and then in December 1964 (figs. 8.3 and 8.4). In June

it’s not there if you’re throwing up as a result.”44

1964 Trocchi had made contact with the psychiatrists



Aaron Esterson, R. D. Laing, and David Cooper, who the

revisited Currell-Brown’s letter and then reaffirmed his

following year instituted the Philadelphia Association

support of sigma in its aim to bring together those who

to support centers for the treatment and research that

held to the “simple premise—that people must now

Trocchi recognized was close to his idea of spontaneous

change or become extinct.” The editorial ends with a

university. Sigma’s creative ambience was a reflection

list of the names of the like-minded people and orga-

of what became the curative environment of the first of

nizations identified by Nuttall as furthering “an actual

these centers (Kingsley Hall) with regard especially to

evolutionary change within the cells of the human mind.

schizophrenia, for which the identity and categories of

To be sigma is not to await guidance or acknowledg-

psychiatrist and patient were dissolved.

ment from 6 St Stephens Gardens (chez Trocchi). It is,



for each of these people/groups, simply to continue as

40

41

42

Trocchi had also been receiving Jeff Nuttall’s

In 1965, in an editorial for My Own Mag, Nuttall

magazine My Own Mag, intended as a “project to found

they are doing.”45 The following year the editorial of My

a committed art group that would confront the prob-

Own Mag comprised a longer list of names (figs. 8.5 and

lem of living in the shadow of imminent destruction.”

8.6), which was, because it also included addresses,

The magazine was a direct result of a letter published

closer in function to sigma’s “interpersonal log.” Nuttall

in Peace News in 1962; written by Peter Currell-Brown,

explains: “subversion is revolution by infiltration rather

it called on artists to be “committed” both in life

than confrontation. I give here a list of individuals,

and as artists. This led to the formulation of a group

organizations, institutions, magazines which seem to me

exhibition for the Crypt at St. Martin’s that, if it had

to be concerned with subversion rather than literature,

ever taken place, would have expressed “the shriek

art, pornography, underground movies, heroin or other

[Nuttall] wanted to smear across the public face.”

quaint rural handicrafts.”46 Many of the names intersect

Failure to mount the exhibition (Nuttall also contacted

with those associated with sigma, and Trocchi’s address

the Whitechapel Art Gallery to no avail) led Nuttall to

is listed as c/o St. Martins School of Art, where he was

remake it as a mimeographed magazine. My Own Mag

by this time an occasional tutor.

43

157  Project sigma

Fig. 8.3 Project sigma—Public Relations—List of People Interested, sigma portfolio 17 (London: project sigma, December 1964).

Fig. 8.4 Project sigma—Public Relations—List of People Interested, sigma portfolio 17 (London: project sigma, December 1964).

Fig. 8.5 Jeff Nuttall, ed., My Own Mag 15 (April 1966), showing list of addresses.

Fig. 8.6 Jeff Nuttall, ed., My Own Mag 15 (April 1966), showing list of addresses.



Earlier, in July 1964, Nuttall had organized a

and assemble the portfolio items with Trocchi; and the

weekend meeting to bring Trocchi and the nascent

following year Nuttall constructed the sTigma environ-

Philadelphia Association together with the artist

ment in the basement of Better Books as a sign of his

John Latham, the poet and organizer of Group H Bob

allegiance.50

Cobbing, and the theater producer Beba Lavrin, who

sTigma was more than just a sign of Nuttall’s alle-

worked with Arnold Wesker’s Centre 42. Nuttall’s

giance to sigma, as its genesis lay in Nuttall’s exchange

recollection of the event, in his book Bomb Culture,

with Peter Currell-Brown in 1962—their exhibition

as a drug-and-alcohol-drenched shambles has both

may not have happened, but sTigma was considered

the air of truth and the ring of fiction in equal mea-

by Nuttall to be the result of a congruence with the

sure. Trocchi’s own unpublished account, written the

ideals of sigma. It was not an “exhibition,” for the group

following week as “Junkie Jottings,” underlines the

behind it (predominantly Keith and Heather Musgrove,

deep-seated difference between him and Nuttall about

Criton Tomazos, John Latham, Bruce Lacey, Islwyn

the latter’s need for a defined position akin to that of the

Watkins, and Dave Trace) had come together to make

Committee of 100. Trocchi writes:

an “experience . . . a labyrinth designed to make people

47

48

feel more.”51 Once in the labyrinth there was no immeThere were nearly 30 people waiting for me in the

diate way out, and the viewer was immediately put face

conference room—“they,” Jeff had called them, not

to face with images of war atrocities, pornography, and

“we.” . . . The kind of community I have described

abortion, after which the corridor narrowed to darkness.

in the Invisible I [Invisible Insurrection of a Million

The walls were lined with tin, glass, wet bread, plastic,

Minds] and sigma a t-b [sigma: A Tactical Blueprint]

and sponges. Before emerging, via a zigzag corridor of

is one in which normal limits and constraints are

polyethylene, the visitor encountered a group of figures

not operative. Leisure and relative plenty a struc-

“gathered around a dentist chair which had itself been

tural fact. All the competitive gestures deriving

turned into a figure, with sponge rubber breasts and

from a world in want are no longer operative. The

a shaven head. On the seat of the chair was a cunt

“pilot” group should have spent less time pretend-

made out of a bed-pan lined with hair and cod’s roe.

ing to ask “what are we here for?” and should have

Detergent bubbles spluttered from between the slabs

concentrated on discussing possible actions and

of roe, which remained spluttering and stinking for four

reactions to the “play situation.” The question was

weeks.”52 This led on via a bank of TV screens to a café

not “Why are we together?” (together we must

with food left moldering and a replica living room from

be!) but “how are we together?”

which visitors had to exit by crawling through a “vaginal

49

tunnel of inner tubes scented with Dettol” and then out Perhaps not a success, as such, but Laing contributed

via a womb room in which was nailed a plastic model

to sigma; Nuttall and Cobbing continued to print up

of an aborted fetus. Recordings of the voices of Trocchi

161  Project sigma

and William Burroughs (who contributed regularly to

Philadelphia Association’s Kingsley Hall.56 When Berke

My Own Mag),53 along with BBC Radio, could be heard

finally moved to London in the summer of 1965 to work

from concealed speakers. There was no relief from

at Kingsley Hall, this vision led first to his assistance in

the oppressive obscenity and bleak misogyny of the

the establishment of the London Free School and then in

environment that Nuttall saw as little different from the

1968 to the formation of the Antiuniversity.57

atrocity of the H-bomb that conventional society had



embraced.

through inner space toward the formation of a new soci-



ety provided a corollary to the position of the mad in an

A few months after the meeting at Brazier’s Park,

Trocchi’s alienated drug addict on a journey

Laing went to America furnished with, among other

institutional culture that banished them to the margins.

things, an introduction from Trocchi to Timothy Leary

It is understandable, given these circumstances, that

(a flyer for Alpert, Leary, and Metzner’s Castalia

the study of madness—and specifically schizophrenia—

Foundation at Millbrook was portfolio item no. 28).

should hold a significant position in the identification for

Laing also made contact with Berke, who the previous

cultural revolution.58 Just as sigma was understood by

year had worked with him in London for some months.

Trocchi as an interpersonal logbook, the basis of Laing’s

Laing introduced Berke to sigma by passing on to him

study of schizophrenia in The Politics of Experience

the portfolio items in print at that time. Berke imme-

(1967) was the mapping of a field of interaction that he

diately wrote to Trocchi, informing him that sigma

termed “inter-experience,”59 as that which cannot be

“reiterates and develops ideas which I and others here

seen but must be felt and which informs the reappraisal

have been on to for some time, I really dig the project.

of the relationship between doctor and patient. The

. . . I showed the folio to Allen Ginsberg which really

resemblance to Trocchi’s “Invisible Insurrection” is no

turned him on as he dug your letter in the first place.”54

coincidence. Again it was not to be sigma, but Berke

Later in the month Berke attended a demonstration

and the Institute for Phenomenological Studies—part

against the seizure of the Living Theatre’s assets: “At

of the Philadelphia Association—that in 1968 set up

1am we stopped and I read excerpts from the Moving

another approximation of the spontaneous university as

Times and some other people read poetry. This must

the Antiuniversity, described by the poet Harold Norse

have been the first public oration of project sigma in the

as a “spontaneous experiment.”60 Its prospectus echoes

U.S. so it was without a doubt a historical moment.”55

Trocchi: “many of the original and radical artists, activ-

For the next ten months or so Berke became one of

ists and intellectuals of London and Europe, America

sigma’s most vocal advocates in New York. Most impor-

and the Third World have a place to meet among them-

tantly, he, along with Allen Krebs, in 1965 cofounded the

selves and discuss their ideas and work. The emphasis

Free University of New York, a countercultural school

is on diversity of approach, but we shall work to unify

built on principles that Trocchi had elaborated and that

disparate perspectives. Above all we must do away with

Berke encouraged Trocchi to duplicate in London at the

artificial splits and divisions between disciplines and art

162  L O ND ON ART WOR LDS

forms and between theory and action.”61 Indeed, part of

Horovitz, and Pablo Fernandez) wrote out in Trocchi’s

their purpose was the creation of interactive teaching,

flat as a list naming some of the intersection points

“‘spontaneous universities’ . . . where people will have

of an international underground moving between

the opportunity to listen to, discuss, challenge and turn

London, New York, San Francisco, Athens, Paris, and

on to a multifaceted analysis of what is going on.”62

Amsterdam. It was read out as an invocation at a press



conference a week before the event: “World declaration

Project sigma—read especially through the course

of the sigma portfolio—provides an identification of

hot peace shower! Earth’s grass is free! . . . Skullbody

the concerns of the underground in the mid-1960s

love-congress Annunciation, duende concordium,

and the strategies it adopted in its attempt to find

effendi tovarisch Illumination, Now! Sigmatic New

and evolve a new language of expression and action.

Departures Residu of Better Books & Moving Times in

Trocchi typified this as the destruction of “language to

obscenely New Directions! Soul revolution City Lights

see all the limitations of language, to see how language

Olympian lamb-blast! Castalia centrum new conscious-

limits experience—to break through language” in a

ness hungry generation Movement roundhouse 42

way that operates as a refusal to categorization. The

beat apocalypse energy-triumph! You are not alone!”64

distribution of the sigma portfolio shines a light on the

Trocchi’s conception of project sigma as both a sponta-

wide and international arc of linkages making up the

neous university and an interpersonal logbook proposed

countercultural community, which the International

that each individual could come to an understanding of

Poetry Incarnation at the Royal Albert Hall in June 1965

his or her own reality and that of the wider society. This

publicly emphasized. This event was organized by a

would be achieved by enacting a personal critical dis-

coalition of sigma, Michael Horovitz’s poetry forum,

course within networks of impermanent communities

New Departures, and John Esam, with help from Jill

that were in a perpetual state of “(r)evolt”; discourse

and Dan Richter of Residu magazine. Trocchi was the

would be self-generative: “becoming.”

compere, but it was not so much the poetry or the poets



but the audience of seventy-five hundred that held

International Poetry Incarnation was, for Trocchi, an

significance for him. This exemplified a shared com-

example of the “Invisible Insurrection” in action: “the

munity of purpose, a new cultural network, that could

(r)evolt is taking place at the level of symbols: there is

operate beyond barriers of language and nationality.

no question of us ever meeting the forces of reaction

It showed that the Invisible Insurrection was perhaps

head on in a war on their terms. But it is happening.”65

not so invisible and could be named. For the Poetry

The Poetry Incarnation provided a direct impetus to the

Incarnation, this was mapped by cultural coordinates

founding of the underground newspaper International

that ten of the participants (Trocchi, John Esam, Allen

Times the following year. In its fourth issue, the link with

Ginsberg, Paolo Leonni, Harry Fainlight, Lawrence

sigma was made explicit; on its masthead the newspa-

Ferlinghetti, Dan Richter, Simon Vinkenoog, Michael

per declared itself to be “A Sigmatic Newspaper,” and

63

163  Project sigma

The visualization of the communities at the

opposite this Trocchi announced the establishment of a

hitherto sustained it. This is vitally important,

sigma box office at 102 Southampton Row (also at this

that the project should not be associated with

address were the Indica Bookshop and the offices of the

this or that individual or group. There is a sense

International Times). However, this was not conceived

in which “sigma” is merely a word, a tactical

to give sigma more visibility. The project should not be

symbol, a dialectical instrument. . . . We are all

seen as a building or a set of documents held together

individuals and for each of us the first problem is

in a folder. Sigma’s identity could only be realized

himself-in-the-present. It is not so much a question

through the forces of personal self-discovery and action

of choosing to co-operate as of discovering oneself

that the interpersonal logbook encouraged, and as such

in and of the invisible insurrection by virtue of one’s

it was an identity that was not fixed but evolving. As

practical posture.66

Trocchi asserted: Now, at last, sigma can develop here in London more independently of the personalities that have

Notes



1. In Trocchi, sigma: A Tactical Blueprint, sigma portfolio 2 (London: project sigma, 1964), 2 (later editions, 1), Trocchi states, “In general, we prefer to use the word ‘sigma’ with a small letter, as an adjective rather than as a noun.” 2. In ibid., 5 (later editions, 3), Trocchi uses the word “transcategorical”: “our strength lies not so much in what has so far been done purposively in our name as in the availability of other intelligences to our transcategorical inspiration.” However, in sigma: General Informations, sigma portfolio 5 (London: project sigma, 1964), 3, this term—indicating a range across categories—was exchanged for “metacategorical.” If the boundaries between categories and actions were held as nonexistent, then sigma for Trocchi embodied a view of culture and society that could be arrived at by ignoring boundaries and moving beyond existing categorizations. In his preface to an unpublished collection of his writing to be titled The Invisible Insurrection of a Million Minds, Trocchi writes that “every creative act, whatever its end-product . . . is a tactical particle in what I think of as a continuous global, and metacategorical process of (r)evolt.” Two typescripts with holograph alterations, dated 1966 and 1966 altered to 1971, Trocchi Papers. The papers of Alexander Trocchi are held at Washington University, St. Louis, as MSS116. These papers are made up of a number of purchases between 1967 and 2013; the final purchase, from the estate, contains most of the organizational and administrative records of project sigma,

164  L O ND ON ART WOR LDS

manuscripts for unpublished or unfinished texts, translations, collaboration with Michael X, as well as Trocchi’s correspondence with Guy Debord and others. This essay is based on research into these papers carried out in 1990, when I catalogued them for the estate. The catalogue of the Trocchi holdings at St. Louis can be consulted at http://archon.wulib.wustl.edu/index​ .php?p=collections/controlcard&id=567. 3. Alexander Trocchi, Invisible Insurrection of a Million Minds, sigma portfolio 2 (London: sigma project, 1964). 4. Ibid., 5; Trocchi, sigma: A Tactical Blueprint, 3, 6–11 (later editions, 2, 4–6). 5. Merlin was edited by Trocchi and published by the American Jane Lougee (the final issue was published by Olympia Press) with a close-knit group of contributors comprising Patrick Brangwyn, Patrick Bowles, Charles Hatcher, Christopher Logue, Richard Seaver, and Austryn Wainhouse. In Merlin 1, no. 3, Seaver is listed as “Advisory Editor and Director”; in 2, no. 3, he is listed as an “Associate” alongside Wainhouse, Bowles, and W. Baird Bryant; and for the final issue, 2, no. 7, Seaver is listed as part of a “Committee,” also including Bowles, Baird Bryant, Corneille, Robert Creeley, Ben Johnson, and Shinkichi Tajiri—while Wainhouse is listed alongside Trocchi as “Editor.” Apart from publishing the magazine (seven issues between May 1952 and Spring 1955), the Merlin group also published books in collaboration with the Olympia Press, notably Watt (1953) and

Molloy (1955) by Samuel Beckett; Wand and Quadrant (1953) by Christopher Logue; The Thief’s Journal (1954) by Jean Genet; and Hedyphagetica (1954) by Austryn Wainhouse. The Merlin writers also wrote for Olympia Press, with Trocchi contributing a sequence of pornography under the pseudonyms Frances Lengel and Carmencita de las Lunas between 1953 and 1956, including the first version of Young Adam, in 1953. For more on the scene around Merlin, see J. Campbell, Paris Interzone; de St. Jorre, Good Ship Venus; Kearney, Paris Olympia Press; and Logue, Prince Charming. 6. Potlatch 23 (October 13, 1955): 2, carries the note “Vite Fait” on Alexander Trocchi’s membership in the Lettrist International (LI), which followed the cessation of publication of Merlin. Potlatch, the duplicated magazine of the LI, could only be given and passed between friends, rather than bought, and was a direct model for the papers issued within the sigma portfolio. 7. The single-page typescript note “Trocchi: Tactics: Lettrisme, No. 1” states, “Existentialisme became Lettrisme became Situationnisme became sigma. . . . Existentialisme expressed man being alone, a phenomenologist trapped in his own skull. Lettrisme found him trying to communicate beyond a necessary nihilism.” N.d. [ca. 1964/66], Trocchi Papers. The importance of Trocchi’s friendship with Debord should not be understated. In his founding “Administrative Notes (Practical)” for project sigma, dated January 10, 1962, Trocchi lists Debord as one of seven main “contacts” for the “University” that he saw at the heart of the project (the others were Robert Creeley, William Burroughs, Tony Landrau, Norman Mailer, Bill Heine, and Trocchi himself). Two handwritten sheets, Trocchi Papers. That the founding text of project sigma was first published in French translation in Internationale Situationniste, that Trocchi recast Debord’s statement “Nous ne voulons pas travailler au spectacle de la fin d’un monde, mais à la fin du monde du spectacle” (from Internationale Situationniste 3 [December 1959]: 8) as “Si nous ne voulons pas assister au spectacle de la fin de monde, il nous faut travailler à la fin du monde du spectacle” in Trocchi, Invisible Insurrection of a Million Minds, 3, and, especially, that he made free reference to the Situationists and their embrace of leisure and play within their theories in both this text and also sigma: A Tactical Blueprint should also make clear the debt Trocchi owed to Debord and the Situationist International (SI) in his formulation of project sigma. Furthermore, one of the key productions of project sigma was a new translation of the Manifeste Situationniste—sigma portfolio 18 (London: project sigma, 1964)—translated and updated by Trocchi and Phillip Green. It had originally been published as “Manifeste,” Internationale Situationniste 4 (June 1960): 36–38. Significantly, Trocchi understood his use of heroin in Situationist terms, so that he wrote in the late 1950s, while in America, recalling words from Potlatch: “The fix: a purposive spoon in the broth of experience. (Il vous faut construire les situations.)” Trocchi, Cain’s Book, 236.

165  Project sigma

8. International Writers’ Conference, 1962 (transcript, August 21, 1962), 12. This transcript was mimeographed and distributed in very small numbers; the publisher is unknown, British Library (11881.g.1.). 9. Dégagement was a term much used by Trocchi—for instance, in writing about his experiences in Paris in the early 1950s: “In that city, at that time, for better or for worse, de Gaulle was thrusting himself to power for the second time, I began to realize for myself the only valid commitment was beyond an extreme form of dégagement.” Alexander Trocchi, “Drugs of the Mind, an experiential investigation and general and historical survey” (unpublished typescript, ca. 1970), 22, Trocchi Papers. 10. Alexander Trocchi, “Editorial,” Merlin 1, no. 3 (Winter 1952–53): 117. 11. Alexander Trocchi, “Editorial: Words and War,” Merlin 2, no. 3 (Summer–Autumn 1954): 141–43 and 209–27. 12. Alexander Trocchi in Jamie Wadhawan, dir., Cain’s Film, 1969: “The identity of the junkie (not only a figure of the underground, but the social leper of the 1950s in New York) was consciously chosen. The resulting experience is by definition that of an alien in a society of conformers.” 13. Trocchi, five-page typescript and holograph fragment for “Drugs of the Mind” (ca. 1970), 2–3. (There are a number of different versions and states for this unpublished work.) Trocchi Papers. 14. Trocchi, “Drugs of the Mind” (unpublished typescript, ca. 1970), 24, Trocchi Papers. 15. Trocchi took part in readings at Stone Brothers on Sawtelle Boulevard in West Los Angeles in September 1957, shortly before the space opened, initially as a place for Robert Alexander to print exhibition announcements for Ferus; the poster for one such reading—listing Trocchi with many of the contributors to the second issue of Semina (published in December)—is reproduced in Duncan and McKenna, Semina Culture, 1. 16. Guy Debord sent Trocchi a driver’s license from Paris so that he could drive back from California to New York and, it was hoped by Debord, return to Europe and participate in the newly founded SI; as described in a letter from Debord to Mohamed Dahou, November 18, 1957, translation available at http://www.notbored​ .org/debord-18November1957.html. 17. Trocchi, Cain’s Book, 33. 18. The apartment was at 81 Brooks Avenue, at the junction of Main Street and Brooks; the building no longer exists. Rosenthal, Sheeper, 217–37. 19. Guy Debord, Jacqueline de Jong, and Asger Jorn, “Hands off Alexander Trocchi!” (October 7, 1960). This tract explicitly states his allegiance with the SI, describing him as “the former director of the revue Merlin, and now he participates in experimental art research in collaboration with artists from several countries, who were regrouped on 28 September in London in the Institute of Contemporary Arts (17 Dover Street). On that occasion, they unanimously expressed in public their solidarity with

Alexander Trocchi, and their absolute certainty of the value of his comportment.” 20. “Resolution Concerning the Imprisonment of Alexander Trocchi” (September 27, 1960), Internationale Situationniste 5 (December 1960): 14. “The conference . . . calls in particular upon the cultural authorities of Britain and on all British intellectuals who value liberty to demand the setting free of Alexander Trocchi, who is beyond all doubt England’s most intelligent creative artist today.” 21. Graham Rae, “Jabberwock Talk: The Scottish Drug (Literature) Connection,” gives a useful account of Trocchi’s arrival in Aberdeen and the short period he spent with Neish in Edinburgh. http://realitystudio.org/interviews/interview-with-alex-neis h-editor-of-jabberwock-and-sidewalk. 22. Trocchi coined this phrase at a press conference (August 22) during the International Writers’ Conference organized by John Calder and Jim Haynes for the 1962 Edinburgh Festival. The audio recording of the conference is held by the British Library, London, under the catalogue reference NP550-NP561. He reiterated the main points of the press conference later in the day, saying that “the important exploration is the exploration of the self. I rather sensationally described myself as a cosmonaut of inner space.” International Writers’ Conference, 1962 (transcript, August 22, 1962), 22. 23. Alexander Trocchi, “The Destruction of the Object,” one-page typescript note, 1962, Trocchi Papers. The transcript of the writers’ conference records this statement incorrectly. 24. International Writers’ Conference, 1962 (transcript, August 24, 1962), 11. 25. In September 1961 Trocchi had been a signatory, with Guy Debord and Raoul Vaneigem, to the “Hamburg Theses,” which, though unpublished, defined the second phase of SI activity. A few months later Trocchi was elected to the SI central council and the editorial board, alongside Michele Bernstein, Debord, Attila Kotanyi, Uwe Lausen, J. V. Martin, Jan Strijbosch, and Vaneigem. 26. Trocchi, Cain’s Book, 59–60. 27. This text was first published in English in New Saltire Review 8 (June 1963); it was also reprinted in America in City Lights Journal 2 (1964). 28. Trocchi, Invisible Insurrection of a Million Minds, 1. This short indicative quotation is also printed in The Moving Times—project sigma, sigma portfolio 1 (London: project sigma, 1964). This first issue of the portfolio was produced as a poster broadsheet. The distribution of its second edition—printed double foolscap both verso and recto—coincided with the 1965 Poetry Incarnation at the Albert Hall, London. 29. Trocchi, Invisible Insurrection of a Million Minds, 1. 30. Ibid. 31. Trocchi, sigma: A Tactical Blueprint, 2 (later editions, 1).

166  L O ND ON ART WOR LDS

32. Trocchi, Invisible Insurrection of a Million Minds, 6. For more on Black Mountain College, see Harris, Arts of Black Mountain College, and Katz, Black Mountain College. 33. Trocchi, sigma: A Tactical Blueprint, 10 (later editions, 5). Although Trocchi was unsuccessful in setting up such a center in London, the sigma centrum in Amsterdam operated between November 1966 and July 1967; organized by Simon Vinkenoog, it received a grant from the Amsterdam city council. For more on Vinkenoog and sigma centrum, see Pas, “In Pursuit of the Invisible Revolution.” 34. Joan Littlewood and Cedric Price, Joan Littlewood presents . . . , sigma portfolio 11 (London: project sigma, 1964). Trocchi and Price met a number of times in 1964 to discuss the Fun Palace project. An offprint of Joan Littlewood, “A Laboratory of Fun,” New Scientist, May 14, 1964, 452–53, can be found within the Trocchi Papers along with correspondence with both Price and Littlewood and a group of Price’s architectural drawings. In many respects, the plans for the Fun Palace—especially its informality, lack of permanent structures, and capacity for evolution and flexibility—echo much of Trocchi’s conception of a spontaneous university. For more on the Fun Palace, see Cedric Price: Works ii, 56–61, and Mathews, From Agit-Prop to Free Space, 82–176. 35. A note published in “Sur des publications de l’I.S.,” Internationale Situationniste 10 (March 1966): 83, regarding the division between Trocchi and the SI since his circulation of sigma portfolio from the autumn of 1964, states: “Upon the appearance in London in autumn 1964 of the first publications of the ‘project sigma’ initiated by Alexander Trocchi, it was mutually agreed that the SI could not involve itself in such a loose cultural enterprise. . . . It is no longer as a member of the SI that our friend Alexander Trocchi has since developed an activity of which we fully approve of several aspects.” On October 12, 1964, in a letter to Trocchi, Debord had informed him that he had been ousted from the SI; however, this was rescinded in a letter of December 1, 1964, in which he describes Trocchi as “our friend, someone who shares our fundamental goals,” and they remained in correspondence until at least 1967. Letters to Trocchi translated at http://www.notbored​ .org/debord-12October1964.html and http://www.notbored.org/ debord-1December1964.html. 36. Application to paste up Moving Times on London Underground advertising boards was made on September 3, 1964, by Beba Lavrin for “Sigma Associates.” A letter to Lavrin from London Transport Advertising dated December 16, 1964, rejected the application. Trocchi Papers. 37. R. D. Laing, The Present Situation, sigma portfolio 6 (London: project sigma, 1964). This is a paper that Laing delivered to the 6th International Congress for Psychotherapy in London in August 1964; in the introduction for the portfolio it was explained how “Dr Laing’s statement that ‘we are all implicated in this state of affairs of alienation’ calls for a therapeutic situation closely resembling the experimental ambience of Trocchi’s ‘spontaneous

university.’” Letter from Stan Brakhage to Robert Kelly, sigma portfolio 10 (London: project sigma, 1964). Letter from Stan Brakhage to Alexander Trocchi, sigma portfolio 19 (London: project sigma, 1964). Michael McClure, Essay: Revolt, sigma portfolio 21 (London: project sigma, 1964)—reprinting this work from McClure’s Meat Science Essays was preferred over the initial idea of distributing his Dream Table (Poems) as sigma portfolio 9, which in the event did not take place, though one poem from this sequence was published the following year in Jeff Nuttall, ed., My Own Mag 11 (February 1965). 38. Trocchi, sigma: A Tactical Blueprint, sigma portfolio 2 (London: project sigma, 1964), 5 (later editions, 3). 39. Subscription Form, sigma portfolio 12 (London: project sigma, 1964), 1. 40. Potlatch, sigma portfolio 4 (London: project sigma, 1964). 41. Project sigma—Public Relations—Selective List of Individual Participants appears to be an early version of Trocchi, Project sigma—Public Relations—List of People Interested, sigma portfolio 17 (London: project sigma, 1964). 42. Kingsley Hall was a community center in Bow lent to the Philadelphia Association in June 1965. The Philadelphia Association had been set up as a charity that April by the psychiatrists R. D. Laing, David Cooper, and Aaron Esterson, and at Kingsley Hall they were joined by Joseph Berke, Leon Redler, Morton Schatzman, and Jerome Liss to create an “anti-psychiatry unit” to treat schizophrenia in an environment where the categories of sane/insane or counselor/patient were dismantled in favor of an inner journey toward rebirth. In 1969 a fundraising brochure stated: “If one thinks of oneself primarily as a patient, doctor, social worker or nurse, one will find it difficult to meet across the subtle ambiguities and pressures that exist in families and mental hospitals. To explore the contradictions in communication that at times may lead any of us to act, or to be seen, as mad, we needed a community with a flexible structure, where people did not have to be forced into such roles as doctor, social worker, nurse or patient. . . . Kingsley Hall has been a melting pot, a crucible in which many, if not all, of our initial assumptions about normal-abnormal, conformist-deviant, sane-crazy experience and behaviour have been dissolved.” Philadelphia Association Report, 1965–1969 (London: Philadelphia Association, 1969), 6–7. The Philadelphia Association occupied the building from June 1965 until August 1970, and for a short time John Latham had a studio in the building. In 1967 the Institute of Phenomenological Studies (set up by a number of those involved with the Philadelphia Association) organized the Dialectics of Liberation conference. Berke’s earlier agitation for a London version of the Free University of New York would eventually lead to the foundation of the Antiuniversity in 1968 at Rivington Street in London (although he had hoped this could also have been located at Kingsley Hall), for which the institute was the main sponsor. 43. Hewison, Too Much, 106.

167  Project sigma











44. Nuttall, Bomb Culture, 151. 45. Jeff Nuttall, “Editorial,” My Own Mag 12 (May 1965), n.p. 46. Jeff Nuttall, “Editorial,” My Own Mag 15 (April 1966), n.p. 47. Launched in 1961, Centre 42 was an attempt to make the best in the arts available to everyone without the need for class-based patronage or subservience to the forces of the market. It described itself in its launch brochure as “a cultural hub which, by its approach and work, will destroy the mystique and snobbery associated with the arts. A place where artists are in control of their own means of expression and their own channels of distribution . . . where the artist is brought into closer contact with his audience enabling the public to see that artistic activity is a natural part of their daily lives.” Centre 42 launch brochure as cited in Hewison, Too Much, 19. After organizing festivals throughout Britain in 1961 and 1962, Wesker worked to secure a base for its activities and in 1964 took the sixteen years remaining on the lease for the Roundhouse in Camden. For more on Centre 42, see Hewison, Too Much, 17–24, and Wesker, Fears of Fragmentation. In Invisible Insurrection of a Million Minds, 4–5, Trocchi identified with Centre 42’s aims in attacking divisions between art and life but criticized what he felt to be a lack of ambition in realizing those aims. 48. For contrasting descriptions of this meeting, see Nuttall, Bomb Culture, 221–27; Walker, John Latham, 71–73; and Alexander Trocchi, “Junkie Jottings,” unpublished manuscript, 1964, Trocchi Papers. 49. Trocchi, “Junkie Jottings.” 50. Better Books was opened in the autumn of 1947 by the bookseller, later publisher, Tony Godwin and the actor John Clarke (later better known as Bryan Forbes) in premises at 92–94 Charing Cross Road. In 1964 Godwin opened a paperback bookshop—betterbookz—next door at 1, 3, and 5 New Compton Street, designed by Germano Facetti and managed successively by Bill Butler, Barry Miles, and Bob Cobbing as a multidisciplinary space offering readings, talks, lectures, exhibitions, film screenings, and performances in addition to its broad selection of avant-garde writing and publishing. This range of activities suited its location near St. Martin’s School of Art. Collins publishers bought the bookshop in 1966, and the following year Cobbing left after the new owner curtailed the range of activities. For more information, see A. Wilson, “This Is Not an Advertisement.” 51. Nuttall, “Editorial,” My Own Mag 12 (May 1965), n.p. Alongside this editorial are printed two photographs of the environment as well as a cut-up description of it. 52. Nuttall, Bomb Culture, 236. Another account is Dick Wilcocks, “sTigma—a Kick at Soporifics,” Peace News, March 12, 1965, 10. 53. Nuttall, Bomb Culture, 154. Cut-up contributions by Burroughs appeared in the following issues of My Own Mag, often as a magazine within a magazine, variously titled The Burrough or The Moving Times: 2 (December 1963/January 1964?); 4 (April 1964?); 5 (“Tangier Special Issue”), as Moving Times (May









1964?); 6, as The Burrough (July 1964?); 7, as The Moving Times (July 1964?); 8, as The Burrough (August 1964?); 9, as The Moving Times (November 1, 1964); 11, as The Moving Times (February 1965); 12, as The Apomorphine Times (May 1965); 13 (“The Dutch Schultz Special,” August 1965); 15, as The Moving Times (April 1966). 54. Joseph Berke to Alexander Trocchi, typescript letter, October 5, 1964, Trocchi Papers. 55. Joseph Berke to Alexander Trocchi, autograph letter, October 26, 1964, Trocchi Papers. 56. The influence of sigma on the founding of the Free University of New York is made clear by Berke in a handwritten letter to Trocchi from the spring of 1965, a typewritten copy of which is held with the Trocchi Papers. In this letter Berke writes, “the beginning of the Free University of N.Y. is a key sigma project. It incorporates the concept of University of which you speak in Invisible Insurrection. . . . The Sigma Brotherhood will begin to manifest itself. . . . Free University of London has existed in the persons of you, Ronnie, etc. Now is the time for it to achieve an even more tangible expression.” 57. The London Free School was set up by Hopkins in March 1966 with Michael de Freitas, John Michell, Graham Keen, Dave Tomlin, Joe Boyd, Harry Fainlight, Berke, and others. For more on this, see A. Wilson, “Spontaneous Underground,” 77–79. For Berke’s part in the Antiuniversity and the Free University of New York, see Berke, Counter-Culture, 12–34 and 212–81. 58. If Trocchi’s thought was largely determined by his prioritization of an alienated view on the world, this was also one starting point for R. D. Laing as it defined the detachment of humanity “from its authentic possibilities.” For Laing, as for Trocchi, “[n]o one can begin to think, feel or act now except from the starting-point of his or her own alienation.” Laing, Politics of Experience, 11. 59. “The task of social phenomenology is to relate my experience of the other’s behaviour to the other’s experience of my behaviour. Its study is the relation between experience and experience: its true field is inter-experience.” Ibid., 15.

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60. Norse, Trocchi, and Tasher, “Three views on the Anti-University”; Norse here also suggested, in a way that chimes with sigma, that the Antiuniversity should be a “Free School, founded on the principle that a revolution in the mind itself as a necessary condition for a changed value system is the only possible hope for the moribund human race, [which] could really provide a focus for research into the self.” 61. Antiuniversity of London: Catalogue, n.p. This was produced for the first semester (February 1968). The catalogue for the second semester (July 1968) was produced and printed by Bob Cobbing. 62. Ibid. Among those who participated in sigma’s “interpersonal log” and were listed also on the faculty or visiting faculty of the Antiuniversity for its first and second semesters were Joseph Berke, William Burroughs, David Cooper, Jim Haynes, Allen Ginsberg, R. D. Laing, John Latham, Jeff Nuttall, and Cedric Price. 63. Alexander Trocchi response in typescript transcript of Something to Say 4: Daniel Farson Interviewing William Burroughs and Alexander Trocchi, Slate 1 / Take 1, Telerecording, January 6, 1964, 9–10, Trocchi Papers. 64. This was printed in the program for the International Poetry Incarnation, Royal Albert Hall, London, June 11, 1965 [folded card], and also reprinted in “International Poetry Incarnation,” Wholly Communion (London: Lorrimer Films, 1965), 9, and “Poetry Internationale,” ICA Bulletin 150 (August–September 1965): 12–13. 65. Alexander Trocchi, “International Poetry at the Royal Albert Hall, London: What Happened at the Royal Albert Hall?” Topolski’s Chronicle 13, nos. 5–6 (1965), n.p. 66. Trocchi, “sigma.” A report of the opening of Sigma Centrum in Amsterdam appears on page 3 of the same periodical.

The Artist as a Speaker-Performer The London Art School in the 1960s–70s Elena Crippa

Artists have been standing up and speaking about art

delivered a lecture titled “Authentic Paranoiac Phantom”

for centuries. In the tradition of the art academy, artists

while wearing a deep-sea diving suit and using a

would teach, lecture, and give speeches about their

decorated billiard cue as a pointer for the accompany-

work, as well as theories of perspective and anatomy

ing slides.2 In 1952 Eduardo Paolozzi, on the occasion

and issues of style and technique. It was with the

of the first, intimate gathering of the Independent

historical avant-garde that artists started mixing tech-

Group, delivered his lecture, titled “BUNK,” using an

niques akin to those of academic presentations with

epidiascope to project images, in random order and

elements of performance. The London art world has,

with no verbal commentary, from his large collection of

since the early twentieth century, hosted any number

American color magazines.3

of avant-garde artist presentations. Filippo Tommaso



Marinetti used his favorite medium, the public lecture,

speaker-performer. In London the figure of the intel-

or conferenza, to deliver a number of performances.

lectual who stands up and gives an aesthetic and

These included his “Futurist Speech to the English”

often highly performative embodiment of his or her

at the Lyceum Club in 1910 and the recitation of his

ideas through public presentations became increas-

poem “Zang Tumb Tuuum,” with drum accompani-

ingly common in the 1960s and early 1970s. By 1974

ment by Christopher Nevinson, at the Doré Gallery in

this trend was so apparent and distinctive that the

1914. Salvador Dalí, as part of the program of events

art critic Richard Cork, standing in the auditorium of

planned for the International Surrealist Exhibition, of 1936,

the Royal College of Art, began his lecture “Sculpture

1

These are early examples of the artist as a

9. 9. 9. 9. 9. 9. 9. 9. 9. 9.

Now: Dissolution or Redefinition” by stating: “Consider,

1960s and 1970s and, to a large degree, fostered by the

for a moment, the possibility that the event you are

teaching imparted within the art school. I also investi-

attending this evening is a lecture-sculpture—not a

gate the conditions and constraints that inspired artists

straightforward talk, given by a writer, who has been

to give form to such hybrid interventions, exploring

invited to prepare and deliver it in the ordinary way, but

alternative ways of articulating language and commu-

a carefully dramatized enactment, which takes its place

nication in order to reject the increasingly common

among other, related works by a sculptor, who sees his

figure of the artist as a defiantly confident and articulate

expressive potential within the format of a conventional

being, and also as a figure who was, invariably, male.

lecture.” With this potent introduction, Cork translated



back into the practice of the critic what had become

higher education are particularly relevant to this history.

a prominent, if not clearly defined, practice among

In 1960 a national reform aiming to raise academic

contemporary artists: that of performing knowledge

standards established the study of art history and other

through the staging of hybrid forms of lectures and per-

theoretical subjects as compulsory and fundamental

formances, as sites of convergence between academic

aspects of the training of artists in all art schools.5

and artistic modes of expression.

Through those curricular changes, art schools played



a decisive role in shaping the figure of the artist as

4

This history of the artist as a public speaker-

Two important transitions in the teaching of art in

performer is difficult to narrate, because of the art’s

an intellectual, in charge of the theoretical develop-

ephemeral nature, the scarcity of documentation, and

ment underpinning his or her work. Even earlier, since

the work’s lack of commercial currency or a place

the 1950s, Bauhaus-inspired formats of teaching and

within art history at the time of its delivery. At times it

exercises adopted across Britain played a key role in

may even seem dubious whether specific instances of

initiating the training of the artist as a thinker. Teaching,

such public events should be considered artworks at all

rather than focusing mostly on training the eye and the

rather than ludic interventions with little art-historical

hand, ultimately consisted in training the mind toward

relevance. Despite such legitimate reservations, this

a thinking process that would underpin the making of

chapter is motivated by the belief that this history is

works. Artists were not to draw or paint forms as they

indeed important. It attempts to recognize the vitality

saw them, but as they thought them. Students were no

and cultural relevance of this type of live manifestation

longer asked to copy from the cast and the figure, but

and understand its coeval as well as later influence on

to establish their own principles and develop their ideas

the development of practices that merged academic

in the making of artworks, following a continuous and

and theatrical types of delivery. Looking back at this his-

rational process.6

tory, this essay proposes that, if the figure of the artist



as a speaker-performer first emerged as part of the his-

the artist was learned and practiced were the sessions

torical avant-garde, it was more widely promoted in the

of group criticism, or “crits.” Group discussions have

170  L O ND ON ART WOR LDS

The most important arenas in which the new role of

been a common feature of art academies since the

According to Caro, ongoing discussion among tutors

sixteenth century. Nevertheless, the history of group

and students was the major instrument through which

criticism, as a more clearly formulated and regularly

they questioned conventional assumptions on what

conducted pedagogical format responding to new and

sculpture was and how it should be made.10

specific needs in the training of artists, can be traced



back to the teaching of the Bauhaus, where it played

tutors and students started as a continuous and

a central role, and later to Britain, initially through

informal activity, it was soon to be formalized into the

courses of the Basic Design type. Group criticism was

weekly group “crits,” or “forums,” which were to become

to constitute a vital component of teaching. The format

strongly identified with the St. Martin’s Sculpture

was linked to a more systematic scrutiny of the relation-

Department. In this context, group criticism did not

ship between the work, the artist’s intention, and the

just constitute a pedagogical model among others—it

work’s sensorial, psychological, and intellectual impact.

became a forum that acted as a rite of passage for stu-

It trained students to articulate their visual concerns

dents seeking public recognition as fully formed artists,

verbally. It also helped develop a collective exchange

and proved a highly influential model for many other

on personal experiences and fostered an agreement

art schools. Around half a dozen finished works would

on principles of form and on the solutions that hold

be displayed in the main hall of the college building.

most interest. As a result, it also inevitably started

Much of the work presented was rejected by the other

functioning as a regulating and prescriptive tool, which

participants. Yet it was precisely the artists’ need to face

would sanction what type of work was to be considered

such disparagement and to defend their own work that

successful and why.

was considered essential for them in forming their voice



and learning how to “forge and sharpen their views.”11

7

8

In Britain, the teaching paradigm changed from the

If the conversation between Caro and his fellow

traditional easel visit to the group tutorial, or “crit,” in



the mid-1960s. For Stephen Chaplin, former archivist at

progressively embraced a formalist idiom derived from

the Slade School of Art, such a move meant a clear shift

Greenbergian criticism. This was the result not only of

in the relationship between the verbal and the visual

the influence of American Abstract Expressionism on

and played a major role in the discursive turn of higher

the tutors and students but also of the phenomenal

art education. In 1960s London, nowhere else was

endorsement offered by Clement Greenberg and the

group criticism as central to the teaching of art as in the

rapid success of St. Martin’s sculptors. The specific

Sculpture Department at St. Martin’s School of Art. The

idiom of “high modernism” was a matter not just of con-

artist Anthony Caro was a part-time tutor who, in the

tent but also of style. It set up camps of opposing forces,

1950s–60s, contributed significantly to the transforma-

discerning between good and bad, and established a

tion of St. Martin’s modest Sculpture Department into

condition of probity whereby success was linked to the

a powerhouse of sculpture on an international level.

forcefulness and directedness of the assertion. In the

9

171  The Artist as a Speaker-Performer

In the discussion of work during the forums, tutors

context of the forums, such style was described, in the

ingrained assumptions of what constituted the sculp-

words of the head of the Sculpture Department, Frank

tural medium, implicitly criticizing sculptors of his

Martin, as an “adversarial sort of situation.”

tutors’ generation for failing to take into account the



modalities of presentation and experience of their work.

12

Sculpture provided the occasion for a ritualistic

type of performance, with a number of artists staging

It was also a performance—a staged intervention that

a routine with relatively fixed formats of discussion

played with conventions of how artists were expected

and styles of presentations. Some of the students

to make and discuss their work. The critic Mel Gooding

were quick to identify and condemn the prescriptive

convincingly defined it as “a proto-performance, an

character of these public sessions of discussion and

exercise in pose, a lecture-sculpture precisely devised

the posturing of their teachers. Commenting on the

for its context.”18

“crits,” Bruce McLean, who studied in the department



between 1963 and 1966, famously stated: “Twelve adult

formulaic and authoritarian way of presenting and dis-

men with pipes would walk for hours around sculpture

cussing art may have instigated the development of the

and mumble.” Yet while being critical of this postur-

performances that marked the beginning of Gilbert &

ing, some of the students—including McLean—did not

George’s joint career, launching them into the interna-

reject but took on and started playing with formats of

tional art arena as “living sculptures.” Gilbert & George

presentation and public discussion. Key is that these

first performed their famous piece Singing Sculpture,

students, while taking on the performance of public

with the original title Our New Sculpture, at St. Martin’s

deliveries, counteracted them through speech acts that

on January 23, 1969, in their final year at the school.

made visible and disrupted the reproductive power of



the “texts” performed with the art school, and proposed

a few brief remarks from the artists about the nature

alternative ways of posing, articulating views, and relat-

of sculpture, in which Gilbert & George suggested that

ing to one another.

the work originated in response to the way in which



In October 1968, two years after having completed

sculpture was discussed in the department.19 Although

his studies in the Sculpture Department, McLean went

no audio documentation or transcript of the preface to

back to St. Martin’s to deliver a lecture. The slides he

the performance exists, it is possible that it did not differ

showed were not of existing works. Instead, he shot

greatly from their “Laws of Sculpture,” which featured in

several rolls of slides of objects from the urban environ-

“A Magazine Sculpture,” a text dedicated to the pre-

ment, such as brick walls, garden edges, park benches,

sentation of Underneath the Arches, published in Studio

and curbstones. McLean explained to his audience

International in May 1970.20 The laws of sculpture read:

13

14

15

16

A similar contempt for and desire to reject a highly

This first incarnation of the piece was prefaced by

that the work consisted in observing these different elements and recognizing them as sculpture.17 This intervention was a lecture that radically questioned

172  L O ND ON ART WOR LDS

1. [Always] be smartly dressed, well groomed relaxed friendly polite and in complete control.

2. Make the world to believe in you and to pay heavily for this privilege.

title Impresarios of the Art World. For the piece, Gilbert & George would inquire about particular works by

3. Never worry assess discuss or criticize but remain quiet respectful and calm.

established artists, many of whom were teachers at St. Martin’s, from Anthony Caro to William Tucker, and

4. The lord [chisels] still, so [don’t] leave your bench for long.

McLean would respond by physically mimicking the characteristics of the work in question. While McLean acted out the different works, Gilbert & George sat

These laws seem to refer to and parody the way in

down on a stage applauding or took photographs of

which students presenting their work in the forums

the works being performed, showing a clear awareness

were expected to perform the confidence, rigor, and

of the role of documentation in the currency of per-

assertiveness associated with the figure of the artist.

formance art.23 Although this work has conventionally

Although it is debatable whether Gilbert & George

been defined simply as a performance, it undoubtedly

are here accomplishing an act of more or less overt

represented a form of critical presentation and artic-

criticism of the art establishment, their use of language,

ulation of knowledge, albeit in a satirical and mostly

rhetorical style, and attitude strongly contrasts with

plastic, rather than verbal, way.

those experienced in the school. The following sardonic



statement expresses the duo’s concerns about group

artists who, while students at St. Martin’s School of

criticism: “We were not in favour of groups of people

Art in the 1960s, started playing with the format of the

standing around talking about sculpture.” What they

lecture. They realized artworks that mimicked lectures

resisted in the teaching of the “New Generation” group

while at the same time criticizing established forms

was the elitism of their work and discourse: “We real-

of knowledge that tended to perpetuate themselves

ized that with all the discussions around sculpture at the

through repetition in conversations and public discus-

time, they were building up a language that was outside

sions. The absence or limited use of a poetic or informal

life and which the minute you got onto the Charing

discourse, in favor of academic language, is one of the

Cross Road would not mean a damn thing. It was only

elements that defined these early examples, which

within that club. It was too elitist.” In this respect

engaged in critical debate by subverting the traditional

their criticism had roots very similar to McLean’s, and

oratory strategies and presentation techniques expe-

it is not a coincidence that the three artists developed

rienced in lectures and public presentations, while

collaborative projects.

mediating broader observations on artistic production



and the rules governing art making. Those presentations

21

22

In April 1969 they realized Interview Sculpture, also

McLean and Gilbert & George are among the first

referred to as Sculpture in the 60s, first presented at

also had rhetorical and choreographic qualities. They

the Royal College of Art, then at St. Martin’s School of

relied on paying great attention to the setting and decor.

Art, and finally at the Hanover Grand, under the new

The artists often decided to stage their performances in

173  The Artist as a Speaker-Performer

lecture theaters, making use of the furniture, decorative

had recently completed their studies started being

elements, and technologies typical of an academic set-

invited to speak to students only a few years their junior.

ting, such as desks, blackboards, and slide projectors.

Artists were not expected to deliver formal lectures on



24

In the years after leaving art school, McLean

objective issues. Rather, they represented important

continued to develop his practice, taking as his major

models of being artists, in their public stance and in their

subject the posing and the language of the art world. In

nonacademic or antiacademic styles of delivery.

the Shadow of Your Smile, Bob (1970), a 16 mm black-and-



white film with sound, is a playful and irreverent take

created the position of student adviser, the only position

on the dominant tenets dictating the way in which

co-elected by staff and student representatives, with

artists appear and behave. McLean sits in front of the

the task of organizing events and lectures in consulta-

camera, taking on thoughtful poses and speaking in

tion with the student body. The artist Stuart Brisley was

front of microphones while also insistently rubbing his

the first person to hold this post, from 1968 to 1970.28

nose. He also adopts an iron and a tape recorder as

Brisley invited a relatively wide range of people to speak

working tools, as if mocking the increasingly fashion-

to his students, including established artists and others

able apparatus of conceptual art practices. The film

who were less known, as well as curators or critics. It

relates to and is exhibited alongside a reproduction of

was Brisley who invited Gilbert & George to perform

a photograph of the artist Robert Morris. In the photo-

Underneath the Arches in 1969. Among the other artists

graph, the American Minimalist artist—who McLean

he invited to give lectures on their work was also Gustav

otherwise admired—poses against a heavy metal

Metzger, a practiced speaker who had given his first

structure, playing the self-assured, assertive artist.

25

During the late 1960s the Slade School of Art

public presentation on Auto-Destructive Art as early as

Having parodied the work and attitude of his teachers

1959.29

at St. Martin’s School of Art, McLean made a mockery



of the dominant figure of the confident macho artist,

lecture on his work. Before starting his presentation,

promoted by first-generation New York School artists

Hockney asked if any student would help him put his

and pursued by Minimalist artists in their style of posing

slides into the carousel. No one volunteered—possibly

for the camera.

because they felt intimidated by the artist’s fame or did



26

McLean and Gilbert & George’s Interview Sculpture

Brisley also invited David Hockney to deliver a

not dare intervene in what they felt was a staged affair.

was staged not only at St. Martin’s School of Art but

As a result, Hockney proceeded to set up the carou-

also at other art schools, including the Royal College

sel on his own. Once presenting slides of his work, he

of Art and the Slade School of Fine Art. Young artists

introduced each with a statement such as “That is an

were bringing back to the art school a mode of making

upside-down drawing of a tree” or “That’s a sideways

that bridged performance and the educational model

version of . . . [a different work]”.30 Such a performance

of the lecture. It is at this point in time that artists who

shows the artist capitulating to the growing demand

27

174  L O ND ON ART WOR LDS

to discuss his work. Such a performance ultimately

RoseLee Goldberg, at the time a recent graduate

testifies to the convergence of artistic and academic

from the Courtauld Institute, worked for two years as

formats, and the widening of art practice to include

exhibition organizer at the Royal College of Art. In this

new modes of discussion and oral presentation.

capacity Goldberg organized a wide range of events,

Nevertheless, Hockney resisted taking on the role of the

lectures, and performances to coincide with a rich

assertive and confident artist who articulates his inten-

program of exhibitions. Goldberg’s ongoing concern, in

tion in a convincing narrative of the making of his work,

the program of activities planned for the Royal College

playing instead with the stereotype of the eccentric and

of Art, was to ensure that seminars and lectures

technologically inept artist.

accompanied each exhibition. Every Tuesday night she



would organize an event in the lecture theater, with

In 1975, after Paul Harris, David Medalla, and

Conrad Atkinson had briefly held the post of student

the artists David Tremlett, John Stezaker, Susan Hiller,

adviser at the Slade School of Art, the role was taken

McLean, and the art historian Barbara Reise as regular

on for two years by Lynda Morris, a recent graduate

attendants.33

from the Royal College of Art who had been working



at the Nigel Greenwood gallery and in the bookshop

records, selected by the critic Germano Celant, on

of the Institute of Contemporary Art, gaining a direct

which artists had used their voices to produce sound

knowledge of the contemporary art scene. Between

works, following the example of Futurists and Dadaists.

1975 and 1976, Morris organized a vast range of activ-

The oldest record played was Yves Klein’s Conférence

ities and events. She invited Mark Boyle and John

à la Sorbonne, from 1959, an example of audio poetry

Stezaker, among other artists, to lecture on their work,

that used one of the artist’s own lectures as material for

while Gerard Hemsworth was asked to discuss a solo

the recording.34 The exhibition demonstrated an early

exhibition he had recently opened in London. Morris

awareness of the historical development of art forms

also invited Tim Head to give a seminar on architecture,

mixing oratory and performance, using the spoken word

Gilbert & George to present a martial-arts film, Daniel

as their primary medium.

Buren to give a lecture on art and politics, David Dye

Goldberg’s Structure & Codes, 1975, represents

to show one of his film works and give a seminar, Art

an important example of an exhibition structured as

& Language to organize a conference, Marc Camille

a series of overlapping events involving artists’ par-

Chaimowicz to give a performance and seminar, and

ticipation and discussion. The display focused on the

André Cadere to devise a project for a short series of

work of British artists who had been engaging with

seminars.

contemporary culture through an analysis and syn-

31



32

Similarly, between 1973 and 1975—a few years

The exhibition Record as Artwork, in 1973, presented

thesis of its codes and structures. It included works by

before publishing the first edition of her seminal

John Blake, John Latham, Peter Smith, John Stezaker,

research on performance art—the critic and curator

and Stephen Willats. The exhibition was an attempt

175  The Artist as a Speaker-Performer

to develop a dialogue between, on one side, predomi-

major issue in the art world. Nevertheless, it was at this

nantly structuralist theories that focused on the ways

very time that female artists started seeking alterna-

in which meaning constructs social and cultural reality

tive spaces of discussion and presentation, where they

and, on the other side, artistic practice that did not aim

felt able to shape their own activities and articulate an

to transcend culture but was concerned with the type

alternative voice and style of delivery.

of cultural meanings that should be given form. Given



this objective of working between theory and artistic

opened in December 1975, was the last one that

practice and of drawing relationships between the

Goldberg organized at the Royal College of Art, working

different ways each operated, it seems apt that a series

with the architect Bernard Tschumi, a teacher at the

of lectures and seminars were organized “as an integral

Architectural Association in London. For the exhibi-

part of the exhibition.” The program of events included

tion, a number of artists and architects had each been

lectures by the artists Toni del Renzio and John Stezaker,

invited to submit an image and a text, no longer than

alongside those by the anthropologist Mary Douglas

a thousand words, addressing the notion of space, to

and the writer and Royal College of Art professor of film

be displayed on gallery panels as well as published in

and television Stuart Hood.

the exhibition catalogue.38 The exhibition itself was the

35

36



37

These examples point to the fact that the rise of

The exhibition A Space: A Thousand Words, which

result of a year of discussions and activities relating to

the contemporary artist as a public figure and spokes-

teaching and published texts on the notion of space,

person—nearly always a man—who would engage in

and was followed in January 1976 by a one-day con-

the discursive framing of his practice coincided with

ference at the Architectural Association.39 Titled Real

the ascent of the figure of the young curator and event

Space, the conference aimed to tackle the two very

organizer, such as the important women Goldberg and

different aspects of space that had emerged during

Morris. What is more, they illustrate that, in London in

the previous activities: one that deals “with concepts,

the 1970s, the art school became an important center

theory, semantics, archetypes and abstraction,” and

for the display, production, and discussion of artists’

“one that deals with experience, performance, praxis,

work through exhibitions, lectures, seminars, and

etc. . . . [that is,] with real space.”40 Those two aspects

project-based activities. The artists who, during their

of space mirror the two facets of the otherwise varied

time as students, had developed a discursive approach

format of public presentation that bridges lecture and

to their practice, would return to the art school to pres-

performance: the simultaneous engagements with the

ent, perform, and share their ideas on the development

articulation of an intellectual position and with the more

of their work with other artists, tutors, and critics. That

experiential and often less rational stance inherent in

male artists were by far the dominant voice in teaching

performance-based activities.

and performing, while women would at best take on the



role of organizers and enablers, was and has remained a

tudes toward the use of space included Paul Richards

176  L O ND ON ART WOR LDS

Artists invited to present and discuss different atti-

and McLean from the recently dissolved collective Nice

showed slides from three carousels: of her paintings

Style, Daniel Buren, COUM, John Stezaker, and Brian

and constructions, of Kinetic Theater works, and of

Eno. One can imagine the contributions of such diverse

collages alternating with performances, to demonstrate

speakers and performers, as concept based and yet

formal, textural, and haptic relations with the work of a

concerned with embodied and sensorial experience, to

number of artists, from Velasquez and Cézanne to de

have bridged the two seemingly irreducible approaches

Kooning.43 At the end of the lecture, two male audience

to art making and architecture the conference intended

members volunteered to strip and perform a collage

to tackle. The conceit of such a conference lineup, while

action with the artist. Once the three had left the stage,

demonstrating an early take on the artist as researcher,

Schneemann’s experimental erotic film Fuses, 1965, was

is also symptomatic of a desire to give visibility to the

projected. The artist stated: “Naked Action Lecture asked

different way in which artists, in the 1960s and 1970s,

the questions: can an artist be an art historian? Can an

started engaging with a different type of knowledge

art historian be a naked woman? Does a woman have

production. They began to mix the factual with the

intellectual authority? Can she have public authority

imaginary, adopting loose associations as much as log-

while naked and speaking? Was the content of the

ical argumentations. Ultimately playing with, twisting,

lecture less appreciable when she was naked? What

and questioning the established rules that underpin rig-

multiple levels of uneasiness, pleasure, curiosity, erotic

orously argued and inflexibly defended narratives, they

fascination, acceptance or rejection were activated in

also chose to use their bodies or other props in order to

an audience?”44 Discussing the piece, Schneemann has

express ideas that words would render too reductive or

pointed out that it at least partially emerged from her

monolithic.

experience as an art student: “The inanities that were



The same distrust for the rigid, prescriptive,

acceptable in teaching for maintaining the position of

and reproductive nature of language was also at the

the ‘hapless girl student’ who could never amount to

core of a number of performances that, while taking

anything as an artist, but who could be the life model.

place outside of the art school, directly addressed

Which I did to help pay my tuition.”45

the way in which knowledge is produced and repro-



duced within such institutions. This is, for example,

discouraged, if not alienated, was undoubtedly shared

the case of the American artist Carolee Schneemann

across the Atlantic. At about the same time, the work

who, while in London in the late 1960s, performed

of a number of artists in London started to emerge from

Naked Action Lecture, 1968, at the ICA. From the stage

their engagement with feminism and their realization

Schneemann gave a thirty-minute lecture on her work

that the language of fine art was irremediably shaped

and its relationship to historical antecedents in paint-

by a patriarchal tradition that denied women a voice

ing, while dressing and undressing and walking back

and a capacity for intellectual and artistic expression

and forth with a pointer. As part of the lecture, she

unless they operated within a framework of terms and

41

42

177  The Artist as a Speaker-Performer

The experience, as a female art student, of being

expectations they perceived as “male” and extraneous

times mesmerizing. Her Mistress’s Voice (1977) involved

to them. If, for artists like McLean and Gilbert & George,

different sections, with different objects—including an

the language of art making and art discussion was

electric train on a track, a stuffed magpie, and a dial, or

heavily overdetermined by the attitude, posturing, and

indicator—being manipulated and activated. A section

lexicon of an increasingly reductive, prescriptive, and

of the performance involved the prerecorded sound of a

combative approach to art making, vividly encapsulated

child’s earliest noises being played over the amplifier, an

in the quarrelsome sessions of group criticism, there

attempt to articulate the different magpie sounds, and a

was for female artists a further complication. As the art

screeched-out performance of the witches’ speech from

historian Lisa Tickner has put it: “The additional ambi-

Shakespeare’s Macbeth, using her vocal cords to their

guity for female students was that ‘attitude’—requiring

limits.

the forceful assertion of one’s work and identity as an



artist—was at odds with the commonplace assumption

Elwes has pointed out that, by borrowing and taking

that girls were essentially decorative and compliant.”46

on different voices and styles of delivery, Finn-Kelcey

As there was little chance of developing or expressing

did not shy away from the contradictory nature of live

themselves within the art school, many female artists

experience and created “a sense of femininity in the

found in feminist groups a space where they could

process of its own invention.”48 One could go further

attempt to articulate their own voices and could elect

and say that the artist searched for an alternative

and discuss alternative, and to them more relevant,

language and a voice to articulate it in the process of

reading lists than those handed out in art schools. This

its own invention. Writing in 1980 about her work, Lisa

was the case with Rose Finn-Kelcey, who worked in

Tickner adopted a prose that established a dialogue

performance and installation in the early 1970s and,

with Finn-Kelcey’s work and did not subsume the poly-

through organizations like the Women Artists Collective,

phonic nature of her and the artist’s discussion and their

was a central figure in the emerging community of

many references into a “bland authorial narrative.”49

feminist artists in London. Despite frictions, the group

Tickner saw Finn-Kelcey’s performances as the embod-

provided an important network of support, one that

iment of a way of thinking and adopting language that

female artists rarely, if ever, encountered within the art

also concerned her, in her own work as an art historian

school. In the mid to late 1970s, Finn-Kelcey staged

and writer. This was an understanding of language as

a number of performances that embodied an attempt

malleable, as able “to shift the rigidity of the forms one

to use language and articulate it in a non-clear-cut

inherits,” wanting “to give the unsayable a place not

manner, emphasizing its sensorial qualities—sonorous

officially granted by the structures of our consciousness

and haptic—and inviting the audience to experience

and our prose.”50

it not as a unilateral form of communication but as an



open-ended form of engagement, at times playful, at

ment of performance-based work as the embodiment

47

178  L O ND ON ART WOR LDS

Discussing the performance, the artist Catherine

Within the history of performance art, the develop-

of a discourse or a critical position has been scarcely

ritual, as events that made visible the power of the texts

researched. It sits between two trajectories: the one

performed within the art school and as speech acts dis-

concerned with the body and physical enactment as

rupting the flow of the dominant art discourse.53 They at

part of the tradition of theater and dance; the other

least partially relate to the generational clash between

relating to the performance of knowledge through lec-

younger artists and their older masters as well as to an

tures, public discussions, and presentations of papers

early awareness of the normative power of performance

or audiovisual material. Its development cannot be

within institutions. On the other side, it was outside

subsumed in either of the two most influential accounts

the art school—mostly through their affiliation with

of performance-art history: an analysis of performance

feminist groups—that many female art students found

in relation to the physical embodiment of space in

the physical and intellectual space to investigate and

theater and dance or an analysis of performance as

experiment with alternative forms of public delivery.

an extension of the painting and sculptural object into

Those female artists’ performances discussed above

the fourth dimension.52 Neither of these two promi-

can be productively analyzed, in relation to established

nent narratives account for what was specific in the

feminist theoretical approaches, as having a relation

performance-based work developed by artists educated

both to Lacanian psychoanalysis, with their emphasis on

in London art schools in the 1960s and 1970s: the artic-

the structural relation between desire and language, and

ulation of knowledge and criticality through playful and

to the transgressive dimension that defines the work of

often irreverent performances that borrowed props and

many other American and European artists, from Adrian

mocked postures typical of the academic environment.

Piper to VALIE EXPORT.54 While it is useful to map out



these distinctions, this essay, in addressing the relation

51

In the 1960 and 1970s, the figure of the artist as a

speaker-performer thrived in London among art stu-

between performance and knowledge, has highlighted

dents and recent graduates who had been influenced by

interesting similarities in the performance-based work

and were quickly ready to question what they learned in

of male and female artists. Paying attention to the intel-

a reformed type of art school: namely, that artists had

lectual pursuit as much as to the physical embodiment

to engage equally with the making of objects as with

of the deliveries of early works by McLean alongside

the articulation, discussion, and public presentation

another by Finn-Kelcey, among others, suggests that the

of the critical issues surrounding the making of their

overcoming of “bland, authorial narrative” was at the

work. Artists used their bodies to give form to ways

time a project that both male and female artists shared,

of moving, interacting, and speaking that parodied

and that the conception of hybrid forms of performance

and subverted accepted ways of discussing art, being

and knowledge production were fundamental to this

artists, and articulating ideas. On one side, male artists’

goal. Moreover, these works represented important

actions bridging lectures and performances can be dis-

examples of a rejection of “high modernism,” in relation

cussed, in relation to traditional notions of theater and

not only to its content or credo but also to the arrogance

179  The Artist as a Speaker-Performer

of its monolithic and prescriptive style. These were the

to inspire change that is not only a matter of counting

defining qualities of those works that spoke to an unfin-

heads but a matter of enabling, fostering, and giving due

ished cultural project aimed at readdressing gender

recognition to types of practices and forms of sociability

inequality, deflating the stature of the macho artist, and

that rely on the cultivation of a medium ground between

exposing the pedagogic model as homosocial and chau-

the individual and the unknown mass.

vinist, and doing so through the forging of polyphonic and less ruthlessly combative forms of expression. Over forty years later, these performance-speeches continue

Notes











1. See Wees, Vorticism and the English Avant-Garde, 93–94, and Kirby, Futurist Performance, 30–32. 2. See International Surrealist Bulletin 4 (1936). 3. See “‘Eduardo Paolozzi, Retrospective Statement’—the Independent Group, 1990,” in Spencer, Eduardo Paolozzi: Writings and Interviews, 71. 4. My transcription of an excerpt from Richard Cork, “Sculpture Now: Dissolution or Redefinition?” recording of the Lethaby Lectures, Audio Arts, 1975, tape 1, side A, Goldsmiths’ College Audiocassette Reserve Collection. The lecture coincided with the exhibition bearing the same title, Sculpture Now: Dissolution or Redefinition? Royal College of Art, London, November 11–22, 1974. 5. The National Advisory Council on Art Education was established to undertake this reform. Its first report, known as the “Coldstream Report,” was published in October 1960. On this history, see Thistlewood, introduction to Histories of Art and Design Education, 8. 6. On the history of the development of Basic Design courses in Britain, see de Sausmarez et al., “A Visual Grammar of Form,” pts. 1 and 2, and de Sausmarez, Basic Design. 7. On the Bauhaus training, see Josef Albers, “Creative Education” (lecture delivered at the Sixth International Congress for Drawing, Art Education, and Applied Art, Prague, 1928), published in Wingler, Bauhaus, 142. For an account of group criticism in the context of British Basic Design, see Yeomans, “Foundation Course,” 207. 8. Albers, “Creative Education,” 143. 9. Stephen Chaplin, “Slade Archive Reader” (unpublished, 1998), Slade Archive, UCL Special Collections. 10. “Antony Caro and Tim Marlow, in Conversation,” January 15, 1992, in Talking Art: Archival Sound Recordings, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, C95/809.

180  L O ND ON ART WOR LDS













11. Introduction to St. Martin’s South Bank Sculpture (London: St. Martin’s School of Art, 1977), Tate Archive, Frank Martin collection, TGA 201014, n.p. 12. Transcript of “Frank Martin Interviewed by Melanie Roberts (1997),” National Life Story Collection: Artists’ Lives, British Library, C466/58, 61. 13. Gooding, Bruce McLean, 68. 14. Bruce McLean, cited in Dimitrijević, Bruce McLean, 7. 15. For a discussion of Mikhail Bakhtin’s analysis of utterances and the formation of speech through performance and speech-act theory, see Carlson, Performance, 58–65. 16. Gooding, Bruce McLean, 47–48, and Bruce McLean, interviewed by the author, October 28, 2010. 17. The slides used in this lecture were lost, while the public presentation was not documented. As is true of most of the works and lectures discussed in this essay, there is no or very limited photographic documentation. That which is extant fails to register the complexity and time-based nature of the events discussed, and so I have decided not to include images to illustrate my essay. 18. Gooding, Bruce McLean, 47. 19. Soon after the first presentation at St. Martin’s School of Art, Gilbert & George omitted the preliminary words and titled the piece Underneath the Arches. See Rorimer, New Art in the 60s and 70s, 142. 20. Gilbert & George, “A Magazine Sculpture.” 21. Seymour, “Gilbert & George,” 92. 22. “Gilbert & George Interviewed by Andrew Wilson” (April 1990), in Bickers and Wilson, Talking Art, 321–22. 23. Stuart Morgan, “A Rhetoric of Silence,” in Nairne and Serota, British Sculpture in the Twentieth Century, 203. 24. For example, when presenting Underneath the Arches at the Slade School of Art in 1979, Gilbert & George decided with the students to stage the piece in a lecture theater of the University College. See the transcript of “Stuart Brisley Interviewed by

Melanie Roberts (1996),” National Life Story Collection: Artists’ Lives, British Library, C466/43/01, F5273A, 178. 25. See Applin, “There’s a Sculpture on My Shoulder,” 108–10. 26. On the “macho” posturing of many artists associated with Minimal art, see James Meyer, “The Case for Truitt: Minimalism and Gender,” in Minimalism, 222–28. 27. See Gilbert & George, 1968 to 1980, 47. 28. For an account of the artist on his role as student adviser, see “Stuart Brisley Interviewed by Melanie Roberts,” 178–81. 29. Gustav Metzger gave his first lecture on Auto-Destructive Art at the Farm in Soho, London, 1959. The same year, he published the first manifesto on Auto-Destructive Art, which was given as a lecture to the Architectural Association in 1964 and was then taken over by students as an artistic “happening.” See A. Wilson, “Poetics of Dissent,” 95. 30. “Stuart Brisley Interviewed by Melanie Roberts,” 179. 31. Lynda Morris interviewed by the author, July 14, 2010. 32. Typed document listing the series of lectures organized by Lynda Morris at the Slade School of Art (1975–76), Lynda Morris’s private archive. 33. RoseLee Goldberg interviewed by the author, July 21, 2010. 34. Yves Klein’s Conférence à la Sorbonne, 1959, was based on the recording of the artist’s lecture “L’évolution de l’art et de l’architecture vers l’immatériel.” See the press release of the exhibition Record as Artwork, Royal College of Art Gallery, London, October 24–November 16, 1973, Tate Archive, LON-ROY 1973 300.81. 35. “Structures & Codes Exhibition,” press release, Royal College of Art Gallery, December 18, 1974, Tate Archive, LON-ROY 1975 300.81. 36. Ibid. 37. Structures & Codes Exhibition, 13 January–31 January 1975, exhibition leaflet, Tate Archive, LON-ROY 1975 300.81. 38. Goldberg, preface to A Space: A Thousand Words, n.p. 39. See, for example, Goldberg, “Space as Praxis,” and Tschumi, “Questions of Space.”

181  The Artist as a Speaker-Performer

40. “Real Time” events list booklet, Architectural Association, spring term, January 12–16, 1976, RoseLee Goldberg’s private archive. 41. This information is derived from the “Event List, Spring Term 1976,” Architectural Association, School of Architecture, RoseLee Goldberg’s private archive. 42. “Naked Action Lecture, June 27, 1968 Institute of Contemporary Art London,” in Schneemann, More Than Meat Joy, 180–81. 43. Ibid., 181. 44. Ibid., 180. 45. Earnest, “Carolee Schneemann in Conversation with Jarrett Earnest.” 46. Tickner, Hornsey 1968, 98–99. 47. See Battista, Renegotiating the Body, 58 and 174–75 n. 32. 48. Catherine Elwes, “In Praise of Older Women: Rose Finn-Kelcey and Kate Meynell,” in Video Loupe, 167 (first published in Make 78 [1997–98]). 49. Tickner, “One for Sorrow, Two for Mirth,” 59. 50. Ibid., 70–71. 51. For an account of performance as a disciplinary formation bridging academic performance and the performing arts in the American context, see Jackson, Professing Performance. 52. See Goldberg, Performance Art, and Schimmel et al., Out of Actions. 53. For an overview of performance theories, from early anthropological and ethnographic approaches relating to rituals and the space of the theater to linguistic approaches, see Carlson, Performance, 13–74. 54. For a discussion of performance in terms of transgression, see McKenzie, Perform or Else, 43. For a reading of female artists’ performances in the 1970s beyond feminist discourse and in relation to a broader “deconstructive intent,” see Forte, “Women’s Performance Art.”

10. 10. 10. 10. 10. 10. 10. 10. 10. 10.

File Under COUM Art on Trial in Genesis P-Orridge’s Mail Action Dominic Johnson

“COUM has changed. That is good.”1 So begins a

court, charged under the Post Office Act, 1953, after

succinct statement of purpose written in 1978, in which

a case was brought for sending indecent materials

Genesis P-Orridge addresses the changes brought

through the mail. The ensuing trial, General Post Office

about in the work of COUM Transmissions over the

v. Genesis P-Orridge (G.P.O. v. G.P-O.) was appropriated

previous two years.2 In 1976, at the age of twenty-six,

by P-Orridge, transformed into a performance event,

P-Orridge had critical run-ins with the law, with institu-

and renamed the Mail Action. This enabled P-Orridge

tions, and with broadcast media, which prompted the

to combine, muddle, and compare the spaces of art

artist’s conceptual and practical withdrawal from art.

and law, art and pornography, and mail art and perfor-

Thus, the positive change announced in the statement

mance art. The performance did not affect the outcome

refers to the abandonment of art as an identifiable cate-

of the trial—nor could it change the law—but the Mail

gory of creative production—a retirement of sorts from

Action allowed P-Orridge to frame, recode, or erode

a conversation into which the artist had been intro-

the purported autonomy of art and theatricalized the

duced—and a compensatory embrace of more esoteric

reach of the law across the freedom to be an artist and,

aesthetic commitments. This involved the deliberate

particularly, to create and disseminate “indecent” or

formal dispersal of art practices that were already

objectionable art. Six months later, in October 1976,

remarkably ephemeral and uncontainable, and a retreat

Genesis P-Orridge and Cosey Fanni Tutti would become

to still more distant conceptual lands.

household names after the scandalized reception of



the COUM Transmissions exhibition Prostitution at the

Two specific controversies led to this renunciation

of the art world. In April 1976 P-Orridge appeared in

ICA. Prostitution prompted a media furor on account

of its provocative, sexualized content, particularly in

suggestion (which he goes on to critique) that artists

the light of COUM’s receipt of public funds at a time of

had been caught in the act of “perpetrating a confidence

economic austerity and heightened political and social

trick” against a gullible public.6 My attempt to recon-

conservatism.

struct the Mail Action entails a historiographical exercise



Indeed, 1976 was a pivotal year for art and contro-

in patching together archival traces and inquiring into

versy in the United Kingdom more broadly. As Richard

the ways in which historical veracity about an event is

Cork noted in December 1976, “[i]t is difficult to recall

both enabled and foreclosed by the stories divulged by

a period in recent history which produced the flurry of

the archive. It supplements or anticipates the (rela-

scandalized attacks we have witnessed over the past 12

tively) greater visibility given to Prostitution in histories

months,” adding that the effect upon the public’s recep-

of art and performance.

tion of modern art had been “undeniably disastrous.”



The controversies of 1976 included media outrage over

scopic; it remains difficult to pin down. It was an alter

the Tate Gallery’s purchase of “120 ordinary firebricks,”

ego for P-Orridge and an art collective of unstable

in the form of Carl Andre’s Equivalent viii (1966); Mary

membership; a pidgin language; a philosophy or make-

Kelly’s Post-Partum Document, containing “a tabulated

shift ethic; as well as a way of life.7 In P-Orridge’s use

row of soiled nappy-liners” at the ICA in London; and

of COUM as an alter ego or alibi of sorts, the question

the aforementioned incidents concerning COUM

of authorship arises as a problem, especially as it tends

Transmissions, which had, Cork writes, made P-Orridge

to subsume the authorship of collaborators—especially

“a national laughing stock.” For historian Alwyn Turner,

that of Cosey Fanni Tutti—under its aegis.8 The politics

references to Kelly and COUM “became a journalistic

of authorship is particularly controversial—and sensi-

shorthand for the monstrosity of modern art.”4 In the

tive—as it is often unclear whether the Magazine Actions

Evening Standard, journalist Maureen Cleave reflected

should be attributed to Cosey (who endured personal

upon the greater implications of the Prostitution scandal

risk and public ignominy) or to COUM, as made vivid

but warned that the cumulative threat of “a stream of

in longstanding disagreements between P-Orridge and

Orridges, bolstered by nappy exhibitions and people

Cosey on this very issue.9

in Nottingham sweeping litter into ‘artistic piles,’ is



another matter.” Her column makes reference to

COUM participated in a series of avant-garde strate-

Kelly’s aforementioned Post-Partum Document and to

gies aimed at critiquing the institutional practices of art

funds received by Ray Richards to make sculptures

and returning art to a more vital relation to the con-

out of sweepings in the streets of Nottingham. Cleave

cerns, sensory experiences, and creative processes of

suggests that in 1976 the best of British art risked being

everyday living. As P-Orridge writes, “We found the art

undermined or supplanted by the work of mediocre

world on every level less satisfying than real life.”10 This

but attention-grabbing artists, complementing Cork’s

dissatisfaction prompted COUM to query and unbind

3

5

184  L O ND ON ART WOR LDS

COUM was multiple by its very nature, and kaleido-

The performances and mail art of P-Orridge and

the artificial division between the aesthetic domain and

Yellow Objects (1972), for which Klassnik distributed

its purported outsides, including popular, macabre, or

eight thousand self-addressed envelopes with a call

pornographic cultures, and to privilege the vital margins

for donations of yellow artifacts, which were displayed

of life over the artificial, ineffectual promises of art.

indiscriminately in an expanding window display at

The Mail Action stages P-Orridge’s and/or COUM’s

the ICA in London. Klassnik staged the democratic,

placement both inside and outside the broader narra-

deskilled principles of mail art and harnessed the

tives of British art in the 1970s. In 1975 P-Orridge pitched

performance-oriented nature of audience participa-

a neo-avant-garde conception of COUM’s anti-aesthetic

tion, creating an installation that grew daily according

sensibility in persuasive terms: “Performance art is not

to improvised responses to a predetermined script, or

‘about’ entertainment, nor does it claim to produce an

score. P-Orridge’s appropriation of the indecency trial

art-form which is concerned with beauty, aesthetics

as a performance was a canny response to the ephem-

or a high standard of moral life. It is not [an antidote

erality of performance art and mail art, enshrining the

to] poverty, ignorance, atrocious housing, specula-

democratic values of dematerialization while, in the

tion or politics. Performance art is concerned with

same stroke, harnessing publicity and notoriety to

Experience—direct, first-hand, individual interpretation

ensure greater attention from audiences and the longer

of action. It uses as its base the imaginative interpreta-

reach of cultural and critical memory.

tion of life itself, the raw material being drawn from the everyday.”11 Indeed, such claims for performance art’s immediacy are now common; and similar affirmations

COUMmentary

have been made for the democratic potential of mail art more broadly—as a form or field centrally relevant

Neil Andrew Megson was born in Manchester on

to P-Orridge in the period and to the “indecent” works

February 22, 1950. After attending the University of

that prompted the Mail Action. For John Held, mail art

Hull for one year from 1968, to study economics and

has been consistently unpopular for institutions of

social administration, Megson took up the eccentric

commodity-based art, yet popular among audiences:

gender-neutral name Genesis in 1969 and acquired the

as an artistic form it “democratizes art” (anyone can

full name Genesis P-Orridge by deed poll in January

participate), “decentralizes art” (the “eternal net-

1971. P-Orridge founded COUM Transmissions in

work” renders geographical distance insignificant),

December 1969, and after a series of performances

and “dematerializes art” (skill, technique, and special-

in and around Hull, COUM grew in membership and

ized materials are absented); last, mail art “fulfil[s] a

visibility from 1971. After a local petition to prevent

prophecy of the historic avant-garde in bridging art and

COUM from performing, and a documented campaign

life.” Contemporary examples in COUM’s milieu were

of police harassment, P-Orridge moved to London on a

indicative and influential—for example, Robin Klassnik’s

permanent basis in June 1973 (and remained until forced

12

185  File Under COUM

Fig. 10.1 COUM Transmissions, Omissions (Kleiinie Spielinie), Kiel, West Germany, June 1975. © BREYER P-ORRIDGE. Courtesy the artist and Invisible Exports, New York.

to flee the country in a further clash with police in 1992).

audiences alike—with a deliberately silly, tasteless, or

Relocating COUM to London, P-Orridge secured a lease

prankish sensibility.

on the “Death Factory,” a studio at 10 Martello Street in



East London.

scandal and intrigue. This was not merely promiscuous



or gratuitous. P-Orridge theorized the public nature of

The performances of COUM Transmissions

Throughout, COUM was strategically attracted to

between 1971 and 1976 consisted primarily of provoca-

COUM’s interventions and the active pursuit of media

tive live actions in public, in alternative spaces, and in

coverage as a political necessity. “No social ticket is

art venues, as well as experiments in sound, mail art,

required, no venue,” P-Orridge writes, for the work

and installation. Merging art and life, COUM’s per-

reaches audiences beyond the self-selecting constit-

formances and objects explored the aesthetics of the

uencies comprising the art world. Specifically, COUM

urban industrial wastelands in which P-Orridge, Cosey,

attempted to “use the press to record our activities like

and their collaborators were raised, with allusions to

a diary,” because “it was far more effective propaganda/

and enactments of sex, scandal, crime, wounding, and

information dispersal to be written up [in] the NEWS

esoteric ritual (fig. 10.1 shows an example). Omissions

section of daily papers than in a back page column of a

(1975) was a typical performance in this regard,

specialist Art journal.” The ramifications of this adap-

enacted on a public thoroughfare in Groß-Gerau, West

tation was significant for P-Orridge, as it both exploited

Germany, about which P-Orridge writes, in diary form:

and undermined the purported imperatives of the press

“[COUM] pour petrol into gutters and light it whilst

and exempted COUM from the institutional apparatus

Cosey [. . .] masturbates on lit candles in street, Fizzy

of art. “The threat is biggest for the art world, the art

[Paet] covered in used tampax, milk bottles tied to his

market,” P-Orridge declares. “Solving art problems is

fingers filled with blood and maggots, Cosey fingering

coincidental.”14

her cunt, hits them with hammer and smashes them. They eat raw eggs and puke, then they try to wash in vomit, then piss themselves and fuck, milk syringed up

The Mail Action

their arse.” If COUM’s aesthetic could be unnerving, 13

repellent, indecent, or obscene, it was never exclusively

On January 17, 1976, Genesis P-Orridge was charged

so—it was also eccentric, farcical, and strategically

with two counts of indecency under section 11(1)(c) of

infantile, typified by their first poster artwork: a por-

the Post Office Act, 1953, a piece of legislation governing

trait of P-Orridge as a schoolboy propping up a tuba,

proper use of the postal service. By sending two col-

framed by the slogan “Yes COUM are Fab and Kinky”

laged postcards through the Royal Mail, P-Orridge had

(1971). In performances, writings, and ephemera, COUM

contravened a law that states: “A person shall not send

characteristically mingled acts and images of physical

or attempt to send or procure to be sent a postal packet

extremity—sure to outrage or repel casual and informed

which [. . .] has on the packet, or on the cover thereof,

187  File Under COUM

any words, marks or designs which are grossly offen-

other imagery to the fronts of high-street postcards

sive or of an indecent or obscene character.” Until its

and carry messages, stamps, and clippings on the

repeal in 2001, the act complemented the key obscenity

backs. They were stamped prominently with COUM’s

legislation—namely, the Obscene Publications Act of

studio address, at Martello Road, suggesting P-Orridge

1959—by providing legal means for the state to prose-

had little knowledge (or concern) for the probable

cute formally “indecent” materials.

illegality of the activities in question—or, perhaps,



ensured conscientiously that any ensuing controversy

15

Writing in 1979, P-Orridge’s barrister Geoffrey

Robertson explained the difference between the two

would attach itself to COUM Transmissions, named on

models of legal censorship, namely, “obscene” and

the cards.

“indecent” materials. The proof of obscenity depends on



the offending object’s potential, “taken as a whole,” “to

Goodrich) on October 12, 1975. The front carries a

deprave or corrupt” its consumers and cause objective

relatively inoffensive found image of a woman grasping

social harm.16 However, the criminally indecent artifact

a male lover, collaged against a patterned background

is that which might embarrass or outrage the citizenry’s

of chains, with a patterned sheet pasted across part

perceived sexual modesty. While obscenity is under-

of both images. The back includes a section of text cut

stood to actively harm the individual or social body,

from the porn magazine Club International. “I could hear

indecent materials are illegal because they are “a public

Angelo breathing heavily,” the text begins, “and after

nuisance, an unnecessary affront to people’s sense

a couple of minutes his penis began to harden again,

of aesthetic propriety.” In what seems like a legal

filling my mouth with its rigid flesh.”

anomaly, P-Orridge was committing a crime neither by



producing or owning the postcards nor by purchasing or

lecturer in mathematics at Warwick University and

repurposing pornographic images and writing. Instead,

an erstwhile COUM collaborator—at an address in

it was when the cards entered the postal system that

Geneva on October 11, 1975, and shows appropriated

the artifacts became formally “indecent” and a crime

elements collaged onto a souvenir postcard (fig. 10.2).

had been committed.

The resulting work shows a drawing of a farmer sowing



seeds onto the lawn of Buckingham Palace. Directly

17

18

P-Orridge was initially charged with sending

The first postcard was sent to Biggles (Ian

The second card was sent to Tim Poston—a

two postcards, and new charges were added to the

next to an inset portrait of the Queen, a pornographic

prosecution’s case on February 3, 1976, after investiga-

image shows a hand reaching up between garter-clad

tions uncovered three further, older cards.19 (P-Orridge

legs. The fingers part and probe the cleavage between

estimates that at least a hundred similar cards were

the buttocks. On the back, a handwritten message from

in circulation at the time.) Of the five postcards, two

P-Orridge reads, “The lady on the front has her mouth

were seized and never returned. The postcards typi-

shut because her teeth are filed to points,” in scathing

cally attach commercially available pornography and

reference to the unsmiling Queen (fig. 10.3).

20

188  L O ND ON ART WOR LDS

Fig. 10.2 Genesis P-Orridge, untitled postcard (front), 1975. Mimeograph of collage on postcard as reproduced in the publication G.P.O. v. G.P-O.: A Chronicle of Mail Art on Trial. © BREYER P-ORRIDGE. Courtesy the artist and Invisible Exports, New York.

Fig. 10.3 Genesis P-Orridge, untitled postcard (back), 1975. Mimeograph of collage on postcard as reproduced in the publication G.P.O. v. G.P-O.: A Chronicle of Mail Art on Trial. © BREYER P-ORRIDGE. Courtesy the artist and Invisible Exports, New York.



The three cards under subsequent legal scrutiny

is loaded with irony, as it was written by a “sham” artist

had been sent between August 1974 and December

(Glass, a.k.a. P-Orridge). The statement was reprinted

1975. The sole surviving work uses a reproduction post-

in edited form in “Scenes of Victory,” the text discussed

card of René Magritte’s Time Transfixed (1938), in which

in the opening part of this chapter, suggesting a playful

a locomotive steams from a fireplace, jutting at full pelt

and serial slippage between P-Orridge’s performance

into an empty painted room. In P-Orridge’s collage, a

of identity and the construction of alter egos—staged

reclining woman is anally penetrated, in front of the

throughout COUM and here, obliquely, in the cracked,

fireplace, as two hands (seemingly the man’s) hold

distorting mirror illustrating Glass’s biography.

open the folds of her vulva. Magritte’s apparent gesture



toward the train as phallic substitute is de-sublimated in

planned to send the most graphic card without incrim-

P-Orridge’s appropriation. The train rams the pene-

inating a correspondent, or hoped to extend the

trated woman in the jugular, nearly perpendicular to the

circulation of the artwork. (Specifically, the address

penis that enters her from below (in its original French,

chosen for the postcard was the last home address of

Magritte’s title La durée poignardé translates literally as

Marcel Duchamp in New York.) Indeed, other cards

Impaled Duration, returning the painting to a suggestion

received by P-Orridge around the same time were

of physical impalement, rather than the cognitive activity

reworked and deliberately reposted “return to sender,”

of transfixion). Like the first card, its reverse carries two

taking advantage of the postal procedures for unde-

paragraphs pasted from a pornographic magazine. It

livered mail to continue the evolution and travel of a

describes an “adulterous fuck” in close detail, adorned

collaborative work. The Magritte card demonstrates

by a signature, and various rubber stamps, including

that P-Orridge privileged the process of transit, or

“FILE UNDER COUM,” suggesting COUM as a category

passage—the administration, carriage, and delivery

of indecent, illicit, and willfully illegitimate activities.

of the postcard, and its accrual of stamps, graffiti, and



other signs of activation as a significant object. Indeed,

The Magritte postcard was sent to “Ted Glass,”

The use of a fictional recipient suggests P-Orridge

a fictional artist P-Orridge surreptitiously included in

other cards bore a rubber-stamp mark—designed

Contemporary Artists (1977), a mammoth encyclopedia

by P-Orridge—with the literal command, “KEEP ME

of thirteen hundred artists’ biographies, co-edited by

POSTED.” Each work is thus transformed into a prop,

P-Orridge and Colin Naylor. The entry is accompanied

a tool in a task, and a trace or document of a series of

by a half-page reproduction of one of Glass’s photo-

performed actions.

graphs (depicting a broken mirror) as well as an artist



statement. The latter reads in part: “My art is some-

February 1976, then postponed for two months to allow

times distrusted and disliked. [. . .] People like sham

P-Orridge to perform at English Art Today (Arte inglese

artists that soothe them with aesthetic platitudes. They

oggi), 1960–76, at Palazzo Reale, Milan. In the inter-

dread having to face reality in any form.” The statement

vening months P-Orridge set about appropriating and

21

190  L O ND ON ART WOR LDS

The trial—the Mail Action—was originally set for

recasting the imminent trial as a performance. Sending

Smith; gallerists Angela Flowers, Nigel Greenwood, John

invitations was a crucial step in framing the trial as an

Kasmin, and Nicholas Logsdail; critics Richard Cork,

action, as was the commitment to documenting the

Barbara Reise, and Caroline Tisdall; radio broadcaster

proceedings, from the serving of the original summons

John Peel; solicitor and former chairman of the Arts

(photographed by Cosey) to the sentencing and proba-

Council Lord Goodman; and a broad range of interna-

tion. The transmutation also involved retitling the event

tional VIPs, including curators Jean-Christophe Amman,

Mail Action in the accompanying literature and orches-

Leo Castelli, and Harald Szeemann—and imprisoned

trating a sophisticated publicity campaign, which began

mass murderer Charles Manson. The mailings provoked

with the notification of diverse international press

postal responses from invitees (including a friendly

contacts at Artforum, Studio International, Melody Maker,

endorsement from Manson, at Folsom State Prison,

NME, Time Out, Mayfair, Playboy, Penthouse, and the

who wrote: “Gen—you must be a retarded person—or

Press Association. P-Orridge recalls that the impulse

maybe you’re in another universe”).24 Bruce Lacey and

to appropriate the trial as an action was conditioned by

Jill Bruce replied with a repurposed wedding-invitation

shock at the extremity of the state’s intervention into

acceptance card, with “wedding” crossed out to read

a genuine artistic practice: “To us it was a significant

“trial,” and a handwritten note: “Is Dress Optional?”

event, not because it was us [involved], but because it



was art under siege. It was the establishment trying to

for the Mail Action wearing an appropriately theatrical

22

censor and intimidate the artist into self-censorship.”

costume, described by journalist Duncan Campbell

Refusing to be fully subjected to the law, P-Orridge laid

as “resplendent” and consisting of a “lurex suit, red

claim to some agency in the framing, populating, and

socks, silver finger nails, and with his hair just growing

recording of the trial.

back on the crown of his head [actually, the forehead]



from where he had recently shaved it.”25 The Mail

The wedding-style invitations were made from

On the afternoon of April 5, 1976, P-Orridge arrived

embossed white card printed in silver cursive script.23

Action lasted an hour and a half and involved readings

Each reads: “Coum Transmissions request the presence

from defense and prosecution and testimonies from

of ______ at thee trial of Genesis P-Orridge. G.P.O. v

an impressive celebrity roll call, amassed and cast by

G.P-O. ‘Mail Action’ at Highbury Corner Magistrates

P-Orridge and the artist’s legal team. The audience

Court, 51 Holloway Road N.7, April 5th 1976 at 2 pm.”

consisted, furthermore, of “a battalion of London’s

P-Orridge sent invitations to a broad range of contacts

avant-gardesmen,” in the words of the reporter for

on April 1, 1976—a “who’s who” of the London art

Time Out.26 Specifically, the audience included Cosey,

worlds (as well as broader worlds)—including artists

Reise, Naylor, Smith, Lacey, Bruce, and performance

Shirley Cameron, Marc Chaimowitz, Brian Eno, Brion

artist Ian Breakwell, all of whom are recorded in extant

Gysin, Bruce Lacey, John Latham, Jeff Nuttall, and

photographs of the event. Their presence suggested

Roland Miller; mail artists Robin Klassnik and Pauline

the importance of the occasion to the London art-world

191  File Under COUM

calendar, as well as a resistant show of force by friends

element in an art which is designed to stimulate and

and peers (fig. 10.4).

to call into question many of our accepted attitudes.”29



A friend and mentor of sorts, Burroughs wrote that

At the trial, P-Orridge admitted sending the five

cards but pleaded “not guilty” on account of believing

he considered P-Orridge “a devoted and serious artist

that the cards were not indecent. The defense consisted

in the Dada tradition. The postcards in question were

of a notable legal team, namely, barrister Geoffrey

certainly not intended to titillate nor to offend, but

Robertson and solicitor David Offenbach; Robertson

to instruct by pointing up banality through startling

was renowned for defending the editors of the British

juxtapositions.”30 Burroughs was well placed to under-

countercultural magazine Oz, convicted under the

stand P-Orridge’s investment in déclassé subject matter

Obscene Publications Act in 1971, and for successfully

and likely sympathized with the artist’s victimization

defending Johannes Hanau, the distributor of Inside

as a subject of censorship, because of trials against the

Linda Lovelace (1974) in early 1976. Robertson had

publishers of excerpts of his novel Naked Lunch (1959)

warned P-Orridge of the realistic risk of a fine of £500

in 1965. Despite their presumably differing cultural

and the lesser risk of up to twelve months in prison.

values and perspectives, Forty and Burroughs signal

27

P-Orridge was tried by three magistrates rather than by

the seriousness or earnestness of P-Orridge’s creative

jury. The prosecutor showed the offending cards and

endeavors. The testimonies mobilized the historically

read salacious quotations from the collaged messages,

legitimate foundations of P-Orridge’s anti-aesthetic

like “to my delight I felt his tongue running up and

and the value of (pornographic) appropriation as a

down my slit,” to prove P-Orridge’s transgression of the

technique, to frame the postcards and their mode of

“objective” criterion of indecency.

dissemination as a carefully conceived aesthetic strat-



28

P-Orridge’s legal team attempted to counter the

egy—namely, to épater la bourgeoisie.

prosecution’s case with a demonstration of the legit-



imacy of the artist, the works, and mail art as a form

quate against charges of indecency, for “in determining

by reading affidavits by Sir Norman Reid (director, Tate

whether an article sent by post is ‘indecent,’ the courts

Gallery); countercultural icon William S. Burroughs;

have imposed an objective criterion, so that the charac-

artists Mark Boyle, Allen Jones, and Bridget Riley; critics

ter of the [sender] and the purpose of the mailing are

Reise and Naylor; and Gerald Forty (director of fine arts,

irrelevant.”31 Richard Cork and the ICA’s Ted Little were

British Council). Each attested to P-Orridge’s merits

both called to speak at the trial, as experts in contempo-

as an artist and argued the status of the postcards as

rary art, though their testimonies were dismissed when

works of art. For example, Forty testified that “P-Orridge

the magistrates claimed the defense of artistic merit to

is a professional and wholly committed artist with a

be beside the point.32 P-Orridge’s defense was under

serious approach to his work, and if at times it has a

collapse. At the close of proceedings, after a ten-minute

mischievous and provoking quality, this is an essential

recess for deliberation, the three presiding magistrates

192  L O ND ON ART WOR LDS

Yet as Robertson notes, such rebuttals were inade-

Fig. 10.4 Photo taken in foyer of the Highbury Corner Magistrates’ Court, London, April 5, 1976. Left to right: Richard Cork, Colin Naylor, Genesis P-Orridge, David Offenbach, Pauline Smith, Peter (Sleazy) Christopherson. Mimeograph of photograph

as reproduced in the publication G.P.O. v. G.P-O.: A Chronicle of Mail Art on Trial. © BREYER P-ORRIDGE. Courtesy the artist and Invisible Exports, New York.

returned their verdict. P-Orridge was found guilty on all

proceedings is thrown into question in Robertson’s

five counts and ordered to pay a fine of £100 plus £20 in

suggestive placement of the word “trial” in scare

legal costs. (The legal team cost a further £150.)

quotes (this appears consistently in our longer corre-



spondence). Writing elsewhere, Robertson notes the

33

Geoffrey Robertson QC recalled the event to me:

“Of course I remember this ‘trial’ [. . .]—the utterly

inadequacy of legal definitions of “indecency” and their

humourless bench of elderly lay justices, the bumptious

usage in court, arguing that by lacking the detailed crite-

and outraged fat clerk, the baby-faced provocateur of

ria that qualify prosecutions for obscenity, charges of

a defendant and his sweet and supportive-in-mischief

indecency rely on the working definition of “something

girlfriend. Oh for a jury trial! Conviction was a foregone

that offends the ordinary modesty of the average man,”

conclusion.” Robertson is affectionate in his portrayal

which is too “vague and arbitrary” for objective usage in

of “baby-faced” P-Orridge and sweetly mischievous

criminal proceedings.35 Robertson suggests that inde-

Cosey and his recollection of the dreary magistrates

cency and obscenity charges, alike, depend substantially

and their “bumptious” routines. The status of the

on the vagaries of social acceptability: “Criminal trials

34

193  File Under COUM

are mechanisms for deciding who is telling the truth,

performance event, however, the Mail Action was inno-

but in obscenity trials there is no truth to tell—only a

vative, appropriating the existing space of the court and the existing structure of the judiciary process to frame

clash of opinions, as a captive audience is invited to score a polite debate between bewigged protagonists.”

and recast a series of contested themes in contem-

In indecency cases, without juries, the situation can be

porary aesthetics: morality, sexuality, the body, and

more specious, as the judges are not required to evaluate

obscenity. It commented upon the status of art versus

the work as a whole (in contrast to the test of obscen-

that of pornography and the contemporary redefinition

ity), and there can be no defense of the work as having

and revision of the historical avant-garde attempt to

particular merits, or appeals to community standards;

activate the blurring of art and life.

moreover, Robertson notes that the defense against



indecency involves a losing battle, namely, “to convince

of textual proceedings, G.P.O. v. G.P-O.: A Chronicle of

a bench of lay justices that anything pertaining to sex

Mail Art on Trial, first published as a limited edition by

is not ‘indecent,’” when “[w]hat ‘offends the ordinary

John Armleder’s imprint, Galerie Ecart, Geneva, in 1976.

modesty of the average man’ is decided in most cases

Serving to document the legal proceedings, it was put

by what offends the extraordinarily prudish modesty of

together partly to raise funds to pay for P-Orridge’s

the average magistrate.”

fine. As a historical document—and as an exhibition

36



37

A key document from the Mail Action is a book

Barbara Reise recorded her impressions of the

catalogue for the Mail Action—it provides factual and

court proceedings from the audience. A staff writer

contextual information about the event and the social

for Studio International and a close friend of P-Orridge

and cultural milieu in which P-Orridge was active.

from 1975 until her untimely death in 1978, Reise states

Letters of support, notes, affidavits, legal documents,

that the legal team’s defense was “[t]oo wordy, too

invoices, receipts, and other artifacts are collected

abstract, too redundant,” and overstressed P-Orridge’s

in facsimile alongside mimeographs of the extant

“international reputation.” The contention of the work’s

cards. The book reproduces a number of documen-

purported indecency, Reise observed, remained intact.

38

tary photographs taken by Reise and Cosey, which

Ian Breakwell concurred with Reise, writing to P-Orridge

show the audience gathered in groups outside the

that he “feared the worst as soon as your lawyer opened

courthouse, posing, and larking about with P-Orridge

his mouth.”

after the astonishing conclusion to the trial. In a letter,



39

As a legal event, G.P.O. v. G.P-O. was “precedent

P-Orridge describes the book project as “a complete

setting,” writes Duncan Campbell, in that “it established

moment in time, prese[r]ved as information . . . [i]n a

that a person can now be prosecuted for sending ‘dirty’

sense a work by a collection of people in a non-chosen

postcards even though they have offended no-one, and

context,” additionally stressing the logic of appropria-

traditional in that the arguments really came down to

tion that conditioned both the postcards and the trial/

one person’s art being another person’s porn.” As a

performance.41

40

194  L O ND ON ART WOR LDS

In Wreckers of Civilisation, an encyclopedic survey of

prompted tampering by postal workers and several raids

COUM and Throbbing Gristle (a wildly influential band

on her Ealing flat by Special Branch officers, including

consisting of the core members of COUM, 1975–81),

a raid on April 5, 1976, the morning of the Mail Action.

Simon Ford gives an overview of the trial and notes the

Smith’s papers in the Tate Archive hold a substantial

adaptation of the proceedings into a performance. Yet

collection of correspondence from P-Orridge. The fullest

Ford stops short of theorizing the Mail Action, except for

statement of P-Orridge’s theory of mail art was com-

a useful observation that it ended P-Orridge’s primary

posed to Smith in January 1974, after she took offense

investment in mail art and drew to a close the intense

at P-Orridge’s creative recycling of her cards as new

central period of COUM’s productivity. However,

works and complained about their apparently disre-

the many documents show that the trial prompted

spectful treatment. “Thee reason E have bin sending em

P-Orridge to theorize COUM’s work, particularly in writ-

all back to yoo is cos E find hoarding boring,” P-Orridge

ings to friends and testimonies to the court. In a formal

explained. “Yoo sed to moi that [your postcards were]

instruction to solicitor David Offenbach, P-Orridge

meant as circulars & yoo’d er hoped that people would

writes, “I want to be part of popular culture, involved

either sling em, or send em back altered, or triggered.

with everyday life and responses, not an intellectual

Well E went hom sweat hom and E did it”—that is,

artist, in an ivory tower, thinking I am special, revered

dutifully cannibalized, digested, and repurposed

and monumental. [. . .] I don’t want to be separate

Smith’s original works, as recalibrations or unbidden

from anything.” To the question “Why use postcards?”

collaborations. The letters to Smith—instances of mail

P-Orridge replies: “I want my art to circulate and be

art—demonstrate P-Orridge’s conviction that art should

acces[s]ible in structure, to be popular and amusing as

be anticommercial, intimate, and disposable. P-Orridge

well as significant and aesthetic. [. . .] Thee person in

valorizes “[p]ersonal coumunication” over artistic

thee street has some marvellous, ready-made, medi-

production. “Everything else is a luxury. [. . .] and E dont

ums at his [or her] disposal and I want to remind them

care if they get slung in bins, E really dont.”44 P-Orridge

they are there for everyone to use and explore.”43 These

suggests a key avant-gardist principle for COUM,

insights were crucially taken up and cemented after

namely, to bridge art and life: or, more precisely, the

1976, toward elaborating further the DIY, samizdat qual-

relation between art and life might be transformed such

ity of P-Orridge’s performances, mail art, music, and,

that life might absorb—or wishfully destroy—art.

subsequently, other forms.





ing mailed screeds, P-Orridge articulated a coherent

42

In unpublished correspondence with other art-

In contemporary writings and statements, includ-

ists, especially with fellow mail artist Pauline Smith,

strategy toward becoming—and remaining—categor-

P-Orridge had earlier been prompted to theorize the

ically marginal to the institutions of contemporary art,

politics of mail art. Smith found notoriety on account

including the gallery circuit and its attendant market.

of her “Adolf Hitler Fan Club,” a mail-art project that

However, through the Mail Action P-Orridge also leaned

195  File Under COUM

quite confidently upon support from the upper ech-

broader implications of the trial, P-Orridge in the same

elons of power in the art world, suggesting a nuance,

letter writes, “Lets hope E am free and art is rescued on

ambivalence, or contradiction in the artist’s stated or

Monday night.” P-Orridge tends both to support and to

staged relationship to the politics of artistic legitimacy.

interrupt the archival impulse in art and performance,

In a short preface to the documentation of the Mail

by enabling and organizing extensive traces of COUM’s

Action, P-Orridge writes, “often E work in a way coum-

work while also trafficking strangeness, informality,

what disparaging of the Art World. Yet, when E went to

sincerity, and beaurocratic irregularity into formal and

all my friends in that world [. . .] not one person refused

institutional archives. There is a pervading sense that to

to help me.” For example, P-Orridge called upon Sir

“File under COUM”—to categorize an action, object, or

Norman Reid in a series of amusingly candid letters,

effect as relevant to or subservient to COUM’s desires—

and their affectionate correspondence is held in Reid’s

both subscribes to an archival logic and disrupts it.

papers. P-Orridge’s first letter was written in COUM’s

P-Orridge’s interest consists, at least in part, in anticipat-

signature style, on letterhead paper topped with a phal-

ing these tensions and keeping them in play.

45

lic, spunk-dripping logo. Primarily requesting support in the form of a written affidavit, P-Orridge includes anecdotes and commentaries, noting, for example,

COUMclusion

Tate’s own recent embroilment in scandal. “E realise this is a bit boring,” P-Orridge writes of the imminent

The appropriation of new or unfamiliar spaces and

trial, adding that support from Reid is “possibly after

practices is a constant thread through the works

the Andre thing a bit difficult tactically for you” (with

and approaches taken up by COUM Transmissions,

reference to Tate’s purchase of Andre’s Equivalent viii);

from P-Orridge’s earliest performances, in 1968, to

in closing, P-Orridge mentions a limited-edition print of

the signature interventions of the mid-1970s and the

the Magritte postcard and encloses six copies, adding:

appropriation of a court of law in 1976. The Mail Action

“Maybe if E win thee case you can sell them in your

exposes the reductive impositions of clear bound-

shop (I doubt it).”

aries and categories—art, pornography, indecency,



46

Unguarded in tone, P-Orridge’s lobbying techniques

and obscenity—categories P-Orridge had already

were persistent, ambitious, and conscientious: the letter

been eager to upset or displace, not least through the

to Reid included a pack of sample affidavits (includ-

choice of content in the postcards that precipitated the

ing Burroughs’s), copies of the three extant cards,

artist’s criminal status. The court’s gallery of visitors

legal documents (including summonses), the relevant

becomes an audience, and the three magistrates,

passage from the Post Office Act, and information on

unwitting performers in P-Orridge’s luridly costumed

fundraising—namely, the attempted sale of one of the

spectacle. While persisting as a legal procedure, the

original postcards. Signing off by calling into play the

trial also becomes a conceptual space, continuous or

196  L O ND ON ART WOR LDS

coterminous with the enabling appropriation of the

year COUM had appropriated the abstract space of the

postal service and its avenues of transit and travel,

trial and the concrete space of the courtroom as venues

which had been so artfully remade by the formally inde-

for performance, the critical purchase of the Prostitution

cent procedures of P-Orridge’s mail art.

exhibition depended on an analogous act of appropria-



If the action was critically effective and politically

tion, namely, Cosey’s recasting of her own experiences

nuanced, it was also personally debilitating. In a letter

of modeling as surreptitious interventions into the porn

to Reid of August 1976, P-Orridge explains the emo-

industry, and her concrete appropriation of pages from

tional toll of the trial: “E am beginning to feel more

magazines—snipped out and framed—as individual

like my old self.” The letter continues, “Since thee trial

works of art. The photographs were placed under lock

E was very depressed, paralysed as far as keeping

and key and made available for private viewing upon

up coumunication with people went & even now E

request, theatricalizing the “pornographic” function

get severe depressions, feelings of hopelessness, like

of the source materials as the essential aspect of the

anti-matter negating all my energy. Butter E have not

finished works.49

stopped COUM activity, its just slow.” P-Orridge notes



COUM was “bankrupted” by the trial, explaining that

in the pages of newspapers. Indeed, the Mail Action

this had slowed and curtailed their ongoing projects.

provided what P-Orridge calls “the map for Prostitution.”

Two months later, the Prostitution controversy would

In preparation for COUM’s retrospective at the ICA,

embroil P-Orridge in much deeper trouble than the

P-Orridge remembers, “We [. . .] were planning to delib-

“anti-matter” of the Mail Action.

erately trigger another furor. With G.P.O. v. G.P-O. we



didn’t do it on purpose. It was a surprise. [. . .] We were

47

Prostitution was on show at the ICA from October

The bulk of the ensuing controversy took place

19 to October 26, 1976, and included the Magazine

happy to have escaped [a prison term] by the skin of

Actions—a series of assisted self-portraits by Cosey

our teeth. But we were also disgusted and outraged that

Fanni Tutti appropriated from pornographic maga-

it even happened.”50 P-Orridge was particularly mobi-

zines—alongside sadomasochistic paraphernalia,

lized by the charge that an artist’s usage or signature

sculptures made from used tampons and other mate-

might convert commercially and legally available mate-

rials, and a growing self-reflexive “media wall” of press

rials (pornography and postcards) into proof of criminal

cuttings, as well as live performances at the opening

acts: “My touching it and reassembling it makes it

and several planned interventions that were preemp-

criminal.” In the months after the trial, during the prepa-

tively canceled by the institution. Two officers from

ration of Prostitution, P-Orridge recalls thinking, “[I]f I’m

Scotland Yard’s Obscene Publications Squad visited

a criminal, fuck it—let’s enjoy it. Let’s expose the media

the opening and sent a report to the Director of Public

and how they misinterpret and lie and cheat. That’s why

Prosecutions. No action was decided, but the ICA called

we have always said the wall of press cuttings was the

off COUM’s planned live performances. If earlier in the

most important part.”51

48

197  File Under COUM



This occupation of newspaper print space would

there alone. Your card was very welcome and helped me

imperil the ICA when the (now-disgraced) Tory MP

survive.”55

Nicholas Fairbairn vilified COUM as “the wreckers of

The Mail Action—and in its wake, Prostitution—can

civilisation” and demanded that Education Minister

be read as a pivotal project for London art worlds in the

Shirley Williams investigate the ICA’s receipt of public

1970s, not least through the imaginative attempts at

funds—including £200 from a public disbursement from

world building—at community organization and public

the Arts Council. The Sun began a daily campaign

intervention—that the activities warranted or licensed.

against Prostitution, writing that “even a stripper” was

The stories of COUM Transmissions, performance art,

shocked by the “sick” and “disgusting” exhibition. It

mail art, and the Mail Action are stories of ambiva-

indignantly reported “beastly” COUM’s use of public

lence, instability, and intrigue. The Mail Action serves

funds: “Even a penny of public money is too much to

as a snapshot of the margins of a culture and recalls

spend on this squalid rubbish. [. . .] Mr. Orridge is prosti-

unwritten narratives of art in the 1970s that remain to

tuting Britain—and sending us the bill.”54 Articles about

be factored into broader cultural histories. After COUM

Prostitution were often accompanied by graphic images

began to wind down, in the aftermath of the Mail Action

of key performances by COUM, which recalibrated the

and more emphatically after Prostitution, Genesis

exhibition in terms of the democratic goals set out in

P-Orridge and co-conspirators would continue to appro-

P-Orridge’s polemical writings on the democratization

priate existing forms, to destructure institutions, to

of art. The experience was, once again, distressing and

consolidate a new and eccentric aesthetic language, and

isolating for P-Orridge, who wrote to Reise, “It’s all

to destroy art’s already-beleaguered autonomy. To reit-

pretty sick really, everyone running for cover, leaving

erate P-Orridge’s own decisive mock-prophetic words,

us as a target/sacrifice and then blaming us for being

“There is no such thing as art there is only coum.”56

52

53

Notes



1. P-Orridge and Christopherson, “COUM Transmissions: Annihilating Reality,” 65. This includes a one-page artist statement by P-Orridge titled “Scenes of Victory” (1978), followed by found images and quotes compiled with Christopherson in 1976. 2. The artist now identifies as Genesis BREYER P-ORRIDGE, having undergone Breaking Sex (1999–2007), a project of surgical and behavioral modifications to merge identities with the late Lady Jaye BREYER P-ORRIDGE and create a post-transsexual “pandrogyne” identity. I retain the obsolete name Genesis P-Orridge to discuss works undertaken before the advent of “pandrogeny.” Although the artist uses a complex series of invented pronouns, I, for the sake of clarity and historical veracity, avoid the use of gendered pronouns except in quotation.

198  L O ND ON ART WOR LDS





3. Cork, “Message in a Brick.” 4. Turner, Crisis? What Crisis? Britain in the 1970s, 161. 5. Cleave, “Londoner’s Diary: Art and Mr Orridge.” 6. Cork, “Message in a Brick.” 7. P-Orridge devised new spellings for common words as a means of reconditioning language. These include “thee” for “the,” “E” for “I,” “butter” for “but,” “yoo” for “you,” and prolific introductions of “coum” into various words. In my quotations throughout, I preserve P-Orridge’s strategic spellings. 8. On authorship and attribution in COUM, see S. Wilson, Art Labor, Sex Politics, 118–19.











9. After the inclusion of the Magazine Actions in the Tate Triennial in 2006, P-Orridge queried Tate Britain’s attributions to Cosey without reference to COUM. See P-Orridge, “Letters: COUM On.” 10. P-Orridge, “Scenes of Victory.” 11. Cited in Ford, Wreckers of Civilisation, 5.8. Emphasis in original. 12. Held, Mail Art, xii. 13. P-Orridge, cited in Ford, Wreckers of Civilisation, 5.6. 14. P-Orridge, “Scenes of Victory.” 15. Post Office Act, 1953, s. 11(1): “Prohibition on sending by post of certain articles.” National Archives, http://www.legislation.gov​ .uk/ukpga/Eliz2/1-2/36/section/11/enacted?view=plain, accessed October 23, 2013. Repealed 2001. 16. Robertson, Obscenity, 348. 17. Ibid., 1. 18. Ibid., 174. 19. Unless otherwise stated, details concerning the trial are from P-Orridge, G.P.O. v. G.P-O. 20. Genesis BREYER P-ORRIDGE, interview with the author, New York, March 19, 2016. 21. See Naylor and P-Orridge, Contemporary Artists, 342. 22. BREYER P-ORRIDGE, interview with the author. 23. A card is preserved in the Barbara Reise Papers, Tate Archive, TGA 786/5/2/43: “COUM 1973–1976.” 24. Charles Manson, untitled note, in P-Orridge, Painful but Fabulous, 7. 25. D. Campbell, “‘Dirty’ Porridge,” 9. 26. Ibid., 8. 27. Genesis P-Orridge to Sir Norman Reid, March 30, 1976, Sir Norman Reid Papers, Tate Archive, TGA 15/6/14: London: “Miscellaneous Correspondence 1976–79.” 28. Cited in D. Campbell, “‘Dirty’ Porridge,” 9. 29. Excerpted in P-Orridge, Painful but Fabulous, 6. 30. William S. Burroughs, “Statement by William S. Burroughs in Re: The Art of Genesis P-Orridge (March 22, 1976),” in G.P.O. v. G.P-O., n.p. 31. Robertson, Obscenity, 183.

199  File Under COUM

32. Ian Mather, “The Mischievous Art of Genesis P-Orridge,” Observer, April 11, 1976, reprinted in P-Orridge, G.P.O. v. G.P-O., n.p. 33. D. Campbell, “‘Dirty’ Porridge,” 9. 34. Geoffrey Robertson QC, e-mail to the author, December 3, 2014. 35. Robertson, Obscenity, 176. 36. Ibid., 6. 37. Ibid., 175–77. 38. Barbara Reise, unpublished notes, Barbara Reise Papers. 39. Ian Breakwell to Genesis P-Orridge, April 6, 1976, in G.P.O. v. G.P-O., n.p. 40. D. Campbell, “‘Dirty’ Porridge,” 8. 41. Genesis P-Orridge to Sir Norman Reid, August 9, 1976, Sir Norman Reid Papers. 42. Ford, Wreckers of Civilisation, 6.10–13. 43. Genesis P-Orridge to David Offenbach, in G.P.O. v. G.P-O., n.p. 44. Genesis P-Orridge to Pauline Smith, January 13, 1974, Pauline Smith Papers, Tate Archive, TGA 801/1/12: “Correspondence Filed Under ‘P.’” 45. P-Orridge, acknowledgments in G.P.O. v. G.P-O., n.p. 46. P-Orridge to Reid, March 30, 1976. 47. P-Orridge to Reid, August 9, 1976. 48. Dovkants, “Sex Show Report for DPP.” 49. Blincow, “Cosey’s Sex Romp Pictures are Banned.” 50. BREYER P-ORRIDGE, interview with the author. The artist does not refer to COUM here but rather uses plural as opposed to singular personal pronouns. 51. Ibid. 52. Cited in Ford, Wreckers of Civilisation, 6.22. 53. Wesley, “Show Shocks Even a Stripper.” 54. “The Sun Says: Prostituting Britain.” 55. Genesis P-Orridge to Barbara Reise, October 28, 1976, Barbara Reise Papers. 56. P-Orridge to Pauline Smith, January 13, 1974. Emphasis added.

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Jo Applin teaches modern and contemporary art at the Courtauld Institute of Art, London. She is the author of Eccentric Objects: Rethinking Sculpture in 1960s America (Yale University Press, 2012) and Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirror Room—Phalli’s Field (Afterall and MIT Press, 2012) and is currently completing Not Working: Lee Lozano Versus the Art World, 1961–1971 (Yale University Press), which was awarded the Suzanne and James Mellor Book Prize from the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C., in 2015. She is an editor of Oxford Art Journal. Elena Crippa joined Tate in 2014 as curator of modern and contemporary British art. Her role focuses on the research, display, exhibition, and acquisition of artworks from the period 1940–80. Her recent research has centered on interdisciplinarity and participation in the postwar period, the relationship between sculpture and performance art, and postwar figurative painting. For her doctorate research she participated in the Tate Research project Art School Educated (2009–13), investigating the relationship between new approaches to art teaching and art making as they emerged in the British art school in the 1950s–60s. Recent publications include Exhibition, Design, Participation: “An Exhibit” 1957 and Related Projects (Afterall, 2016); Elena Crippa and Catherine Lampert, London Calling: Bacon, Freud, Kossoff,

Andrews, Auerbach, and Kitaj (J. Paul Getty Museum, 2016); Anne Goodchild, Alastair Grieve, and Elena Crippa, Victor Pasmore: Towards a New Reality (Lund Humphries, 2016); and “1970s: Out of Sculpture,” in British Art Studies, no. 3 (2016). Antony Hudek is a curator and art historian. He is the director of the Curatorial Studies program at KASK School of Arts, Ghent, and a curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp (M HKA). His research focuses on histories of art from the late 1950s to the present, particularly histories of exhibitions and exhibition sites in the United Kingdom. Hudek is also a cofounding director of Occasional Papers, a nonprofit press on art and design based in London. Dominic Johnson is a reader in performance and visual culture in the School of English and Drama at Queen Mary University of London. His research focuses on histories and theories of performance art after 1960. He is the author of Glorious Catastrophe: Jack Smith, Performance and Visual Culture (Manchester University Press, 2012), Theatre & the Visual (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), and The Art of Living: An Oral History of Performance Art (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015). He is the editor of five books, including Pleading in the Blood: The Art and Performances of Ron Athey (Live Art Development

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Agency and Intellect Books, 2013) and (with Deirdre Heddon) It’s All Allowed: The Performances of Adrian Howells (Live Art Development Agency and Intellect Books, 2016). He is also an editor of the journal Contemporary Theatre Review. Carmen Juliá is a curator at Spike Island, Bristol. She was previously an assistant curator at Tate, London, where she worked on the acquisition of contemporary British art from 1950 to the present. In 2014 she curated the Tate Britain Commission Phyllida Barlow: Dock. At Tate she curated numerous collection displays, including Anwar Shemza (2015) and Gallery One, New Vision Centre, Signals, Indica (2011). In 2013 she co-curated the exhibition Friends of London: Artists from Latin America in London 196X—197X at the David Roberts Foundation, London. She is the author of “Una vanguardia itinerante: Julio Plaza y el arte postal,” in Modernidad y vanguardia: Rutas de intercambio entre España y Latinoamérica (1920–1970) (Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, 2015). Her research interests include the study of migrations and the challenges they bring to discourses of modernity. Courtney J. Martin is Deputy Director and Chief Curator of the Dia Art Foundation. Prior to Dia, she was an assistant professor in the Department of History of Art and Architecture at Brown University. An art historian of the modern and contemporary fields, her scholarship is concentrated in three areas: twentieth-century British art, sculpture studies, and the history of art criticism. She is co-editor of Lawrence Alloway: Critic and Curator (Getty Publications, 2015) and editor of Four Generations: The Joyner/ Giuffrida Collection of Abstract Art (Gregory R. Miller, 2016). The contemporary artists on whom she has written include Rasheed Araeen, Kader Attia, Asger Jorn, Lara Favaretto, Wangechi Mutu, Ed Ruscha, and Yinka Shonibare. In addition to her scholarship, she is also a curator. In 2012 she curated Drop, Roll, Slide, Drip . . . Frank Bowling’s Poured Paintings 1973–1978 at Tate Britain. In 2014, she co-curated the group exhibition Minimal Baroque: Post-Minimalism and Contemporary Art, at Rønnebæksholm in Denmark. In 2015 she curated Robert Ryman for the Dia Art Foundation. Lucy Reynolds has lectured and published extensively, most particularly focused on questions of the moving image, feminism, political space, and collective practice. She is a senior lecturer in the School of Media, Arts, and Design at Westminster University. Her articles have appeared in a range of journals, such as Afterall, Moving Image Review and Art Journal, Screen, and Screendance.

214  Contributors

Publications include “Controlling Agent: Artist and Spectator in the Film Actions of Gill Eatherley and Annabel Nicolson,” in Exhibiting the Moving Image: History Revisited, ed. François Bovier and Adeena Mey (JRP Ringier, 2015); “A Collective Response: Feminism, Film, Performance, and Greenham Common,” Moving Image Review and Art Journal 4 (March 2016); and “Ballet Black and Borderline: Stephen Dwoskin and the Advocacy of Difference,” in “The Stephen Dwoskin Dossier,” special issue, Screen 57 (April 2016). She writes for Art Agenda and Millennium Film Journal and has curated exhibitions and film programs for a range of institutions from Tate and M HKA, Antwerp, to the ICA and the South London Gallery. Joy Sleeman is a reader in art history and theory at UCL Slade School of Fine Art. Her research is focused on the histories of sculpture and landscape, especially land art in the 1960s and 1970s, and she has published widely on this subject. Together with Nicholas Alfrey and Ben Tufnell, she co-curated the most comprehensive exhibition of British land art to date, Uncommon Ground: Land Art in Britain 1966–1979, for the Arts Council Collection and Hayward Touring. It toured to four U.K. venues in 2013–14. She is the author of a book on the sculpture of Roelof Louw (Ridinghouse) and advisor and contributor to the catalogue of an exhibition on David Lamelas at the University Art Museum at California State University, Long Beach. Catherine Spencer is a lecturer in the School of Art History at the University of St. Andrews. Her research and teaching focus primarily on performance art since 1960, particularly in Europe, North America, and Latin America, but also encompass abstraction. Her writing has appeared in Art History, Tate Papers, and British Art Studies; publications include “A Calendar of Happenings: Allan Kaprow, Counter-Chronologies and Cataloguing Performance, c. 1970,” Art History 41 (June 2016); a chapter on the artist Marta Minujín in Sabotage Art: Politics and Iconoclasm in Contemporary Latin America, ed. Sophie Halart and Mara Polgovsky Ezcurra (I. B. Tauris, 2016); and an essay on the British painter Prunella Clough in British Art in the Nuclear Age, ed. Catherine Jolivette (Ashgate, 2014), which was the winner of the 2016 Historians of British Art Book Award for an Exemplary Multi-authored Book. Amy Tobin is an associate lecturer in the Department of Art at Goldsmiths College, London. Her research is concerned with the intersections between art, feminism, and theory, with a particular

focus on artists working in Britain and America in the 1970s. Publications include 14 Radnor Terrace: A Woman’s Place (Raven Row, 2017); an essay in Jo Spence: The Final Project (Ridinghouse, 2012); a co-authored chapter on feminist artists’ organizing in Collaboration and Its (Dis)Contents: Collaborative Practices in Art, Architecture, and Film Since 1910, ed. Meredith A. Brown and Michelle Millar Fisher (Courtauld Books Online, 2017); and a chapter in Other Cinemas: Politics, Culture, and Experimental Film in the 1970s, ed. Sue Clayton and Laura Mulvey (I. B. Tauris, 2017). Her writing has also appeared in Feminist Review, MIRAJ, British Art Studies, and Tate Papers. She was a co-organizer of the Now You Can Go program on Italian feminisms (2015) and has also advised on the exhibitions Of Other Spaces: When Gesture Becomes Event at Cooper Gallery, Dundee (2016–17) and 56 Artillery Lane at Raven Row, London (2017). Isobel Whitelegg is a lecturer in Art Museum and Gallery Studies at the University of Leicester. Before this she was LJMU Research Curator within the Tate Research Centre: Curatorial Practice and Museology (2014–15) and head of Nottingham Contemporary’s Public Programme (2011–14), a leading platform for the public debate of ideas and practices relevant to contemporary art and its institutions. She specialized in Latin American art at the University of Essex, where she completed a Ph.D. on Mira Schendel and her critical milieu, and has subsequently published widely on the international reception of art from Latin America.

215    Contributors

Andrew Wilson is a senior curator of modern and contemporary British art and archives at Tate. Over the past twenty-five years his research has focused on postwar art and culture, often with a specific emphasis on wider countercultures through the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s and the development of conceptual art in the 1960s and early 1970s. He is the author of Richard Hamilton: Swingeing London 67 (f) (Afterall, 2011), and his essays have been published widely in books and exhibition catalogues, including “Engaging Thought and Action: Notes on the Work of Ivor Davies,” in Silent Explosion: Ivor Davies and Destruction in Art (Occasional Papers, 2016); “Stephen Willats: Work, 1962–1969,” in Stephen Willats (Raven Row, 2014); and “Art:Politics / Theory:Practice: Radical Art Practices in London in the Seventies,” in Goodbye to London: Radical Art and Politics in the 70’s, ed. Astrid Proll (Hatje Cantz, 2010). In 2016 he curated the major exhibition Conceptual Art in Britain, 1964–1979 at Tate Britain and edited the accompanying catalogue, and has more recently co-curated the retrospective exhibition David Hockney for Tate Britain, touring to the Centre Pompidou, Paris, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2017–18).

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Page numbers in italics refer to illustrations. Abstract Expressionism, 29, 31, 171 abstraction as art style, 119, 120–22, 125, 129–30 feminism as influence on, 129–30 film-performances emphasizing, 141 gallery specialty, 6 modernism and counterculture symbolism of, 8 Acme, 7 Air Art (exhibition), 113n26 Alcaraz, Rodolfo “Laus” social protest workshops founded by, 66 Tube-O-Nauts’ Travels, a Voyage Under London, photograps for Ehrenberg, 61, 62, 63 Alexander, Sally, 134 Allende, Hortensia Bussi, 110 Allende, Salvador, 10, 74n17, 110, 114n29 Alley, Ronald, 65, 107 Alloway, Lawrence, 2, 9, 18n6, 97 Alston, Richard, 140 The Amazing Equal Pay Show (film), 149n2 Amman, Jean-Christophe, 103, 191 analytical art, 47–48, 122, 125 Analytical Art (journal), 47 Andre, Carl Equivalent VIII museum acquisition, 184, 196 exhibition protests, 103 festivals organized by, 114n37 Anju (Nicolson), 141 Annesley, David, 81

Antepartum (Kelly), 134 Anthology Film Archives, 144 “Anthony Caro’s Work: A Symposium by Four Sculptors,” 81 anti-art movement coalitions for, 9, 13, 63, 65, 163 festivals for, 63, 65 gallery demonstrations supporting, 9, 13, 64, 65, 66 mail art and, 185, 195 purpose, 8 symposiums for, 63, 89 anti-London activism, 70 Antiuniversity, 162, 167n42 antiwar activism, 10, 34, 98, 107, 109, 122 APG (Artist Placement Group), 42 Araeen, Rasheed, 5, 109, 110 Archer, Michael, 88 Architectural Association, 113n23, 176 Argentine art, 58 Art and Artists (journal), 147, 148 Artaud, Antonin, 155, 156 art education, 42, 122, 170–76, 171 Arte Povera, 101 Art for Society (exhibition), 127 Artforum (journal), 92, 97, 103, 191 art history education reform, 170 The Artist as an Instigator of Changes in Social Cognition and Behaviour (exhibition), 45, 46 The Artist as an Instigator of Changes in Social Cognition and Behaviour (publication), 41, 52n4

Artist Placement Group (APG), 42 Artists for Democracy (AFD) demonstrations, 15, 16, 110 founding and mission, 13, 35, 57, 109 fundraising part-art exhibitions and events, 109–10 influence of, 114n42 “Artists in Revolt” (Brett), 1, 8 artists’ rights activism, 13, 15, 56, 65–66, 103, 139–40 Artists’ Union, 5–6, 42, 133–34, 148, 149n2 Art & Language conferences organized by, 175 descriptions, 39, 47, 48, 52n6 exhibitions, 43, 47 founding, 47 Index 02, 92 publications of, 47 Art Meeting Place, 7, 57 Arts Council, 5, 191 Arts Council Gallery, 132n62 Arts Festival for Democracy in Chile, 97, 109–11, 110, 114n40 Arts Lab. See also New Arts Lab as alternative exhibition space, 57 designers of, 80 founding, 7 influence of, 7, 80–81, 137, 144 locations, 80, 81 music rehearsals at, 81 sculptural installations at, 77–78, 79, 88, 89–91 Art Spectrum London (exhibition), 5–6, 6, 8, 15 Art Strike, 9, 65 Art Systems in Latin America (exhibition), 58 Art Workers’ Coalition, 6, 65 Arzner, Dorothy, 134 Ascott, Roy, 42, 50 Ashmolean Museum, 22 Ashton, Dore, 31, 114n37 As Is When series (Paolozzi), 2 Atkinson, Conrad artist-political group memberships, 114n34 artists’ rights and inclusion, 19n20 censorship of artworks of, 127 Northern Ireland 1968–May Day 1975, 131n5 Silver Liberties, 127, 128 student advising at Slade, 175 Atkinson, Terry, 47 “Authentic Paranoiac Phantom” (Dalí lecture), 169 Auto-Destructive Art (Metzger), 9, 63, 65, 174

217    Index

Bainbridge, David, 47 Baldwin, Michael, 47, 53n44 banners, 15, 16, 17, 56, 57, 104, 107, 109–11 Barboza, Diego Centipede, 74n16 diaspora community, 57 influences on, 58 Baro, Gene, 18n1, 82 Basic Design (art education curriculum), 122, 171 Bates, Roger, 90 The Battle of Bogside (Limpkin), 126, 127, 128 Bauhaus, 170–71 Baxter, Iain and Ingrid, 43 Bean, Anne, 129 Beau Geste Press, 4, 12, 13, 71–72 Beckett, Andy, 117 behaviorism, 39, 47, 48, 50. See also Centre for Behavioural Art Behavioural Treasure Hunt (D. Martin and Shotbolt), 53n42 Béjar, Feliciano, 56 Berke, Joseph, 156, 157, 162, 167n42 Berman, Wallace, 153 Better Books, 7, 161, 167n50 Beuys, Joseph Boxing Match for Direct Democracy, 102 Bureau for Direct Democracy, 102 exhibitions featuring, 4, 102 Big Breather (APG/Latham, et al.), 42 Bill, Max, 26 biomasses, 97, 99–100, 104, 110–11 Biomass Installation (Dugger), 99–101, 100 Bishop, Claire, 91, 107 Black Manifesto (Araeen), 19n18 Black Mountain College, 156 Bloodstains (Donagh), 123, 123–24 Blood Work Diary (Schneemann), 146 Bloody Sunday, 1–2, 127–28 Bode, Arnold, 103 body art, 58–61, 85, 99–100, 139, 145–46, 179. See also performance art Bomb Culture (Nuttall), 161 Boty, Pauline, 2 Bourdieu, Pierre, 3 Bowie, David, 81 Boxing Match for Direct Democracy (Beuys), 102 Boyle, Mark, 175, 192 Bracewell, Michael, 125 Braden, Su, 15, 107, 110, 114n34

Brasilia: Photographs and a Model of the New Capital of Brazil (exhibition), 27, 37n17 Brazilian art and artists, 25, 26–29, 35 Breakwell, Ian, 191, 194 Brener, Roland, 81, 83, 85 Breton, André, 154 Brett, Guy artist collective memberships, 98 artist-political group memberships, 13, 35, 109 associates, 109 Brazil visits, 35 on British aversion to North American art, 29 Caracas University City model, 35 exhibition reviews, 1, 8 exhibitions organized by, 73–74n15 gallery-forum memberships, 22, 25 on gender and artist identities, 142 on London art scene, 17, 57 Briers, David, 48 Brisley, Stuart art museum demonstrations at Tate Gallery, 9, 64, 65 associates, 63 exhibitions, 7, 41, 42, 73n15 galleries representing, 7 student advising and speaker-performer invitations, 174 union memberships, 42 British Sculpture out of the Sixties (exhibition), 1, 8, 82, 83, 92 Brooks, Rosetta biographical information, 41 book production and publications, 52n4 exhibitions organized by, 44, 47–48, 147 gallery employment, 41 as Willats’s Super Girl project assistant, 44, 45 Bruce, Jill, 191 Buchloh, Benjamin H.D, 48 The Building (Potter), 137–39, 138 “BUNK” (Paolozzi lecture), 169 Bureau for Direct Democracy (Beuys), 102 Buren, Daniel, 175, 177 Burgin, Victor, 47, 48, 53n52, 54n74 Burnham, Jack, 9 Burroughs, William, 153–54, 156, 162 Burrows, Mick: Mass Media People, 53n42 Butler, Bill, 167n50 CACS (Centre for Advanced Creative Study), 22, 27, 31. See also Signals London

218  Index

Cadere, André, 175 Cain’s Book (Trocchi), 153, 155 Calder, John, 153 Callaghan, James, 9 Camargo, Sergio de, 7, 25–26 Camden Arts Centre, 47, 57, 58, 90, 101 Camden Arts Festival, 57, 74n16, 101, 113n23 Campbell, Duncan, 191, 194 Canalization of Psychic Energy (Biomass Installation) (Dugger), 99–101, 100 Caracas University City, 27, 35 Car Bomb (Donagh), 125, 126–27 Carey, Peter, 47 Caribbean Artists Movement, 5 Caro, Anthony, 18n1, 81, 83, 171 cartography, 120–22, 125, 128–29, 130 Cartwright, Lisa, 139 CASSA (Centre for Advanced Study of Science in Art), 33–34 Castells, Manuel, 8–9 Cat’s Cradle (Tucker), 84–85 CAVS (Center for Advanced Visual Studies, MIT), 31, 33, 34 CBA. See Centre for Behavioural Art Celant, Germano, 175 Celebration? Realife (Chaimowicz), 41 censorship, 41, 117–18, 126–27, 183, 187–97 Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS, MIT), 31, 33, 34 Centipede (Barboza), 74n16 Centre 42, 161, 167n47 Centre for Advanced Creative Study (CACS), 22, 27, 31. See also Signals London Centre for Advanced Study of Science in Art (CASSA), 33–34 Centre for Behavioural Art (CBA/Willats) closure, 50–51 description and function, 12, 15–16, 39–44, 47, 50, 51 founding, 12, 39 lecture series and presentations at, 40, 44–45, 50, 51 location, 39, 40, 42, 51 Lole’s documentation displays at, 47 name selection, 51 philosophies and policies, 42–43 project assistants at, 44, 45 publications associated with, 41 social projects of: Cognition Control, 41, 45–47, 50, 52n39, 53n42; Man from the Twenty-first Century, 50; Oxford Insight Development Project, 44, 52n39; Social Resource Project for Munich Olympics (unrealized), 52–53n40; Social Resource Project for Tennis Clubs, 53n42; Survey of

Distance Models of Art, 48–49, 49; Visual Meta Language Simulation, 52n39; West London Manual, 44; West London Re-Modelling Book, 44; West London Social Resource Project, 44–45, 45 Centro de Arte y Comunicación, Buenos Aires, 58 “Ceremonial Address to the American Academy of Arts & Letters” (Mumford), 34 Chaimowicz, Marc Camille Celebration? Realife, 41 exhibitions, 7, 41, 42, 52n13, 73n15 Mail Action invitation recipient, 191 speaker-performances and seminars of, 175 union membership, 42 Chang, Jiat-Hwee, 111 Chaplin, Stephen, 171 Chile artist exiles from, 10, 57, 109 artist organizations supporting, 35, 97, 109–10, 114n34, 114n36 exhibitions on political unrest in, 15, 109, 114n37 festival fundraising for, 109–10 politics, 10, 57 publishing collaborations with artists from, 71 Chile Solidarity Campaign, 15, 109, 114n36 Chile Vencera Banner (Dugger), 15, 16, 110 Chile Working Committee, 114n34 China, 104, 109 Christopherson, Peter, 193, 198n1 Chromoproject (Ehrenberg), 74n16 Chronophobia: On Time in the Art of the 1960s (Lee), 23–24, 26, 29 CinemaAction, 136 Cinema Rising (journal), 134–36, 135 Circle: International Survey of Contemporary Art (publication), 23 Circles (film-and-video-distribution collective), 148 circulation and distribution. See also mail art; specific titles of periodicals art activism and themes of, 14 periodicals for networking, 12, 13, 14, 25, 39–41, 46, 47, 58, 71 The Citizen (Hamilton), 132n44 Citizens for Artists Association, 65 The City and the Grassroots (Castells), 8 civil disobedience, 123–25. See also Northern Ireland Civil Disobedience (Thoreau), 125 Clark, Lygia art philosophies, 98 associates, 25, 98 Dialogue of Hands, 24 exhibitions, 25, 26

219    Index

Clarke, John, 167n50 Cleave, Maureen, 184 Cluett, Shelagh (Super Girl), 44, 45 Cobbing, Bob, 7, 161, 167n50, 168n61 Cognition Control (CBA/Willats), 41, 45–47, 50, 52n39, 53n42 Combines (Potter), 137, 140 commercialization, 8, 63, 65 Compton, Michael, 65 Computer Arts Society, 50, 53n66 “Conceptual Art, 1962–1969” (Buchloh), 48 “The Concerns of Emerging Sculptors” (Brener), 83 Concrete Art—50 Years of Development (exhibition), 26 Conference à la Sorbonne (Klein lecture), 175 conferenza, 169 conflictedness, 24, 34, 36 Confrontación (exhibition), 56 Conn, Peter, 66–67 Consejo Nacional de Huelga (National Strike Council), 73n3 Conservative Party, 9, 66 Contemporary Artists (P-Orridge and Naylor), 190 The Context of Art: The Art of Context (project), 92, 93n41 Control (magazine), 13, 39–41, 43, 50 controversies exhibition content, 127, 183–84, 184, 197–98 mail art, 15, 183, 187–88, 190–97 museum acquisitions, 184, 196 performance art, 187 Cooper, David, 157, 167n42 Cooper, Lindsay, 148 Cork, Richard, 169–70, 184, 191, 193 Cornish, Sam, 90 Cornock, Stroud: Mind Rover, with Edmonds, 53n42 El Corno Emplumado (magazine), 71 Cosey Fanni Tutti, 183–84, 187, 191, 193, 194, 197 “cosmonaut of inner space,” 154 COUM Transmissions. See also P-Orridge, Genesis, Cosey Fanni Tutti authorship controversies, 184 exhibitions of, controversial, 183–84, 197–98 founding and purpose, 183, 184–85 language style of, 198n7 Magazine Actions, 184 mail art projects of, 188–90, 189 Omissions (Kleiinie Spielinie), 186, 187 performance art of, descriptions and themes, 187 performance art statements, 185 Prostitution, 183–84, 197–98

COUM Transmissions (continued) publicity strategies, 187 relocation and studio space, 184–85 speaker-performer events featuring, 177 Craddock, Sacha, 129 Crane Ballet (Maler), 74n16 criticism, group (“crits”), 170–72, 173 Crosby, Caresse, 31 Cruz-Diez, Carlos, 25–26 Cummings, Constance, 111 Currell-Brown, Peter, 157, 161 Curtis, Liz, 117 cybernetics, 39, 40, 47, 48, 50 Cybernetic Serendipity (exhibition), 50 Dalí, Salvador, 169 dance, 139, 140 A Date with Fate at the Tate, or Tate Bait (artist demonstration), 9, 13, 64, 65, 66 David Bowie Is (exhibition), 81 Davies, Siobhan, 140 Debord, Guy, 151, 153, 154, 156, 165–66n19, 165n16 decentralization, 70 decolonization, 4–5, 119, 128–29. See also Northern Ireland dégagement, 152 dematerialization, 23, 40, 82, 154, 155, 185 dérives theory, 61, 156 Destruction in Art Symposium, 7, 63, 65, 89 Dialectics of Liberation conference, 146, 167n42 Dialogue of Hands (Clark), 24 diaspora antiwar and draft dodging, 10, 98 displacement experiences as artistic influence, 4–5, 10, 55–58, 145 isolation and, 146 space and location themes, 83–87, 88 walking as art form and location immersion, 61 Díaz Ordaz, Gustavo, 55, 75n56 Dipper, Andrew, 42 Directions in Kinetic Sculpture (exhibition), 34 “Directory of U.K. Independent Film-makers” (Cinema Rising), 134–36, 135 “Discussion on Art and Its Social Function” (CBA event), 51 Dixon, Paul, 128 documenta 5 (exhibition) artists’ rights protests against, 103 collective vs. single artist authorship, 107–8

220  Index

curators and curatorial style of, 13, 95, 102, 103 event description and function, 104 garden installation plans, 102 inflatable installations at, 97, 106, 107 inside/outside architectural installations, 102 legacy of, 95 participation architectural installations, 95–96, 96, 103–8, 105, 106 performative sculpture installations, 103 political activist installations, 102 reviews of, 97 Documento Trimestral (DT: Delirium Tremens), 58 Dombois, Lorenz: Pavilion Dugger (a.k.a. People’s Participation Pavilion) architectural plans, with Dugger, 104, 105 Donagh, Rita biographical information, 131n10 Bloodstains, 123, 123–24 Car Bomb, 125, 126–27 Evening Papers (Ulster 1972–1974), 115, 116, 117, 119, 125, 127–29 exhibitions, 125–26, 131n17, 131n30, 132n54 First Perspective, 123 influences and themes, 13, 115, 117–18, 119, 120, 122, 129–30 “...morning workers pass...,” 131n19 Reflection on Three Weeks in May 1970, 118, 119–23, 124 Shadow of Six Counties, 130 “taking the trouble to sound it,” 120–21, 121 teaching positions, 119, 131n36 White Room, 123 White Studio, 123 Doré Gallery, 169 Dorfman, Ariel, 111 Dream Table (Poems) (McClure), 156, 166n37 “Drugs of the Mind” (Trocchi), 165n13 Duchamp, Marcel, 22, 23, 190 Dugger, John artist collective memberships, 98, 107 artist-political group memberships, 13, 35, 57, 108–9, 109 Arts Festival for Democracy in Chile installation, 97, 110, 110–11 associates, 98, 109 biographical information, 98 Biomass Installation (or Canalization of Psychic Energy), 99–101, 100 Chile Vencera Banner, 15, 16, 110 China trip, 108 gallery venues, 52n13 The Great Martial Arts Banner (Wu Shu Kwan), 15, 17 An Inch of Earth is an Inch of Gold—U.S. Aggressors Get out of Indo-China, 113n22



influences on, 98 Landscape Hats, 113n22 Let a Hundred Flowers Blossom, 113n22 The Masses Have Boundless Creative Power–Mao Tsetung, 113n22 Microcosm, 97, 101–2 People’s Participation Pavilion (Pavilion Dugger), 95–96, 96, 103–8, 105, 106 Prismatic Conversation in Silver Space, 113n22 Rains Retreat, 102, 104 Singing in the Body Electric, 113n22 Snake Pit, 113n22 The Snake Pit for Art Critics, 102 Socialist Art Through Socialist Revolution, 113n22 Victory to the Just Struggle of the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola–M.P.L.A.!, 113n22 Dunford, Mike, 137 Dunn, Nell, 137 Dwoskin, Steven, 147 Dye, David, 175 Ealing College of Art, 42 Earth Day, 63 Echevarría, Luis, 70–71 Edelstam, Gustav Harald, 110 Eden (Oiticica), 73–74n15 Edinburgh Festival, 4, 153, 166n22 Edinburgh Film Festival, 134 Edinburgh International Writer’s Conference, 151, 153–54 Edinburgh Social Model Construction Project (Willats), 50, 51 Edmonds, Ernest, Mind Rover, with Cornock, 53n42 Ehrenberg, Felipe art demonstrations at Tate Gallery, 9, 13, 64, 65, 66 art education, 56, 63 art philosophies, 61, 63, 67, 72 art themes, 57, 66, 70 associates, 63 Chromoproject, 74n16 diaspora and exile experiences, 55–57, 58, 71, 72 exhibition catalogues designed by, 74n52 exhibitions, 12, 56, 73–74n15 influences on, 61 lecture-performances of, 56 Obra secretamente titulada Arriba y Adelante...y si no, pos también, 70–71 political campaigns of, 74n29 political movement associations, 56, 72 Polygonal Workshop, 66–70, 68, 69

221    Index



publications of, 58 publishing presses founded by, 4, 12, 71 A Stroll in July, or One Thursday Afternoon, or Half Day in London, or (The) Afternoon, or ...Topology of Sculpture, 58–60, 59, 60 Tube-O-Nauts’ Travels, a Voyage Under London, 61, 62, 63 Electric Theatre (exhibition), 53n61 elitism, 65–66, 172, 173 Elizabeth, Queen of England, 188, 189 Elwes, Catherine, 148, 178 English, Rose, 148 Environments Reversal (exhibition), 73n15 Equivalent VIII (Andre), 184, 196 Ergonic sculptures, 99 Escuela Mexicana de Pintura, 56 Escuela Nacional de Pintura, 73n3 Escultura y Grabado, 73n3 Essay: Revolt (McClure), 156, 166–67n37 Esterson, Aaron, 157, 167n42 Evening Papers (Ulster 1972–1974) (Donagh), 115, 116, 117, 119, 125, 127–29 Eventstructure Research Group, 42 Everything’s Gonna Be Alright (Schwartz/Ess), 144 Evison, David, 81, 83, 85 (r)evolt, 155, 163, 164n2 exclusion, 13, 15, 56, 65–66, 139–40 Exercises 3 (Louw), 86 existentialism, 151 exoticism, 108, 111, 112 Experiments in Art and Technology, 33 Exploding Galaxy, 7, 98 Exposición Solar (exhibition), 73n6 Fairbairn, Nicholas, 198 feminism. See also filmmaking, women’s experimental abstraction as concept of, 129 anti-sexism art themes, 112 as artistic influence, 119, 129–30 association avoidance, 139–40, 148, 149, 150 collective practices and purpose, 133–34 early dialogue on art and, 142 equal representation activism, 65 exhibitions influencing women’s art, 5–6 exhibitions with women artist majority and media response, 132n73 speaker-performances and gender roles, 176 speaker-performances of women artists, 177–78, 179 women artist identities, 140, 142, 144, 148, 149, 150

Feminist Art News (journal), 148 Feministo (event), 7 Fer, Briony, 121 Ferus Gallery, 153 Festival of Auto-Destructive Art, 63, 65 Festival of Life (Alexandra Park), 57, 74n16 festivals anti-art, 63, 65 for artistic experimentation and collaboration, 57, 74n16, 101, 113n23 Chilean democracy activism, 97, 109–11, 110, 114n40 Field, Simon, 136 “Film, Feminism, and the Avant-Garde” (Mulvey), 150n26 filmmaking. See also filmmaking, women’s experimental collectives for, 137, 140, 141, 142, 144 directories for independent, 134–36, 135 independent, definition, 135 structural/formal, 141 filmmaking, women’s experimental American influences on, 145, 147 collective and collaborative practices, 134, 137, 140, 141, 142, 144, 146 with dance/performance art, 140 early feminist discourses in, 14, 134 feminism and identity conflicts, 140, 142, 144, 148, 149, 150 in independent filmmaking directories, 134–36, 135 with performance art, 137–38 sexism and critical response, 139–40, 146 women-centered festival events, 134 Finn-Kelcey, Rose collective memberships, 178 Here Is a Gale Warning, 5, 6, 15 speaker-performances of, 178 I Salón Independiente (exhibition), 56 First Perspective (Donagh), 123 Fischer, Konrad, 103 Fishbone, Doug: 30,000 Bananas, 93n28 Five Car Stud (Kienholz), 103 flags, 5, 6, 15 Flanagan, Barry, 47, 81, 93n32 Flat Time House, 19n30 Floe, Hilary, 100–101 Fluxshoe (exhibition), 12, 65 Fluxus Happenings, 56, 69–70 Fonoroff, Nina, 139 Forbes, Bryan, 167n50 Ford, Simon, 195

222  Index

Forge, Andrew, 84 formalism, 48, 139, 141 forums, 171–72 Foulkes, Glyn, 90 Frameworks (journal), 46, 47 Framing Feminism (Parker and Pollock), 133 Free University, 162, 167n42, 168n56 Frente Mexicano de Grupos Trabajadores de la Cultura Mexicana, 72 Freud, Sigmund, 134 Friedman, Ken, 74n52 From Figuration Art to Systems Art in Argentina (exhibition), 58 Fruitmarket, 4 Fun Palace (Littlewood and Price), 156 Fuses (Schneemann), 145, 146, 177 “Futurist Speech to the English” (Marinetti), 169 Gablik, Suzi, 124 Gabo, Naum, 22, 37n5 Galerie Denise René, 22, 25 Galerie Iris Clert, 25 Gallard, Madeleine, 71 The Gallery, 125–26 Gallery House behavioural art centers located at, 39, 40, 41, 42, 51 closure of, 50 description, 41 exhibitions at, 41–42, 44, 45, 47–48, 147–48 exhibition specialties, 7, 48 founding, 7, 41, 113n19 lecturers at, 46, 47 philosophies and policies, 41, 42 publication presses of, 41, 52n4 publications of, 42 Gallery House Press, 41, 52n4 Gallery One, 7, 33 Garbage Walk (Polygonal Workshop), 66–70, 68, 69 gender, 44, 113n21, 176, 179. See also feminism; sexism General Post Office v. Genesis P-Orridge (G.P.O v. G.P-O.), 183, 187–88, 190–97, 193 genius loci, 86–87 “Genuine” Conceptualism, 40 Gidal, Peter, 136, 150n25 The Gift (Mauss), 90 Gilbert & George exhibitions, 47 gallery representation, 131n17



Interview Sculpture (or Sculpture in the 60s, Impresarios of the Art World), 173 “Laws of Sculpture,” 172–73 Singing Sculpture (or Our New Sculpture), 172 Underneath the Arches, 172, 174, 180n24 Gina (Schwartz/Ess), 144 Ginsberg, Allen, 146, 162, 163, 168n62 Glassner, Verina, 144 Glusberg, Jorge, 58 Godfrey, Mark, 124–25 Godwin, Tony, 167n50 Goeritz, Matthias, 25, 56 Goldberg, RoseLee, 114n34, 175–76 Gold Diggers (Potter), 148 González-Torres, Félix: Untitled (Portrait of Ross in L.A.), 91 Gooding, Mel, 172 Goodrich, Ian, 188 Gosford, Charles, 19n20 G.P.O. v. G.P.-O.: A Chronicle of Mail Art on Trial (P-Orridge publication), 189, 193, 194 G.P.O. v. G.P-O. (General Post Office v. Genesis P-Orridge), 183, 187–88, 190–97, 193 Graham, Dan, 113n27 GRAV (Groupe de Recherce d’Art Visuel), 29 The Great Martial Arts Banner (Wu Shu Kwan) (Dugger), 15, 17 Green, Alison, 145 Greenberg, Clement, 48, 85, 171 Greenwood, Nigel, 43, 131n17, 131n30, 175, 191 Grice, Malcolm le, 144, 150n25 Groundcourse (art education curriculum), 42 group criticism, 170–72, 173 Groupe de Recherce d’Art Visuel (GRAV), 29 Group Events, 137, 140 group g, 32 Growth and Form (exhibition), 32 Grupo movement, 56, 72 Grupo Proceso Pentágono, 72 Grupo Ruptura, 56 Gruppo T, 25 Grylls, Vaughan, 125 Guzman, Alberto, 25, 29 Haacke, Hans, Visitors’ Profiles, 48–49 Hackney Flashers, 7 Halsdorf, Serge, 66 Hamilton, Richard artist group membership, 2

223    Index

The Citizen, 132n44 exhibitions, 32, 132n54 Kent State, 124–25 The State, 132n44 students of, 122 The Subject, 132n44 “Hands Off Alexander Trocchi” (declaration), 153, 154 Harrison, Charles, 8, 47, 81, 93n34 Harrison, Margaret Art Spectrum influence, 5 censorship of artworks of, 127 feminist discourse in works of, 142 Women and Work, with Hunt and Kelly, 134 Hartog, Simon, 136, 147 Haus-Rucker-Co: Oasis 7, 102 Hayward Annual (exhibition), 132n73 Hayward Gallery, 47–48 Head, Tim, 175 Held, John, 185 Hellion, Martha, 55–56, 71, 74n52 Helmhaus Zürich, 26 Hemsworth, Gerard, 81, 83, 175 Henri, Adrian, 4 Here Is a Gale Warning (Finn-Kelcey), 5, 6, 15 Her Mistress’s Voice (Finn-Kelcey), 178 heroin, 151, 152, 153–54, 165n7 Herring, Ed, 47, 48, 53n49, 73n15 Hewison, Robert, 127 Hide, Peter magazine articles on sculpture featuring, 81 Sculpture Number 2, 85 Stockwell Depot association, 83 Híjar, Alberto, 71 Hiller, Susan on feminism in art, 148, 149 speaker-performances of, 175 Transformer, 148 women’s art exhibitions organized by, 147 Hilton, Tim, 120, 122, 123 History Group, 134 Hitler Fan Club (Smith, Pauline), 195 Hockney, David, 6, 110, 174–75 Holland Park (Louw), 82, 82, 87 Home Movies (Schwartz/Ess), 144, 148 Hornsey College of Art, 7, 19n30, 45, 122 Hunt, Kay: Women and Work, with Harrison, M. and Kelly, M., 134

Hunter, Alexis, 127 Hurrell, Harold, 47 ICA. See Institute of Contemporary Arts Ikon, 4 Illinois Central (Schneemann), 145 Immendorf, Jörg, 110, 111 imperialism, 5, 13. See also Northern Ireland In and Out of Amsterdam (exhibition), 18n12 In Between Show (exhibition), 42 An Inch of Earth is an Inch of Gold—U.S. Aggressors Get out of Indo-China (Dugger), 113n22 indecency, 183, 187–88, 190–94, 193 Independent Group, 2, 169 Index 02 (Art & Language), 92 Indica gallery and bookstore, 7 Inflatable (Stevens), 97, 106, 107 Information (exhibition), 70 Institute for Phenomenological Studies, 162 Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) artist collectives at, 2 exhibitions at, conceptual art, 7–8 exhibitions at, controversial, 183–84, 197–98 exhibitions at, kinetic art, 32, 53n61 exhibitions at, Latin American art, 27, 37n17, 57, 58, 73–74n15, 109 exhibitions at, mail art, 185 exhibitions at, 1960s British sculpture, 1, 8, 82, 83, 92 seminars at, 33 women’s experimental performance films presented at, 146 “The Institutionalization of Dissent” (Nairne), 91 Instituto Poltécnico Nacional, Mexico City, 55 International Coalition for the Liquidation of Art, 9, 13, 63, 65 Internationale Situationniste (journal), 153, 154, 154–55, 165n7 internationalism, 4–5, 8–9, 10, 21, 23. See also diaspora International Poetry Incarnation, 163 International Surrealist Exhibition, 169 International Times (newspaper), 1–2, 2, 163–64 International Underground Film Festival, 146 Interview Sculpture (Gilbert & George), 173 “Interviews with Three Filmmakers” (Glassner, Time Out), 136–37, 138, 140, 144, 145 In the Shadow of Your Smile, Bob (McLean), 174 Inversions (Martin, M.), 32 The Invisible Insurrection of a Million Minds (Trocchi collection), 164n2

224  Index

The Invisible Insurrection of a Million Minds (Trocchi sigma project founding text), 155–56, 165n7 It’s a Sort of Disease Part II (film), 67 Jack Wendler Gallery, 43 Jaded Vision (Nicolson), 142 James, Nicholas Philip, 48 Janiger, Oscar, 153 Jaray, Tess, 131n36 Johnston, Claire, 134 Jones, Amelia, 139 Jong, Jacqueline de, 154, 165–66n19 Jongh, Nicholas de, 80–81 Jorn, Asger, 154, 165–66n19 A Journal of Objects for the Chilean Resistance 1973–4 (Vicuña), 10, 11 Judd, Donald, 103 “Junkie Jottings” (Trocchi), 161 Kahler, Dean, 124 Kaprow, Allan, 4, 146 Kardia, Peter, 122 Kasmin, John, 6, 191 Kasmin Gallery, 6–7, 92 Keeler, Charles, 22, 34 Keeler, Paul art sales and museum acquisitions brokered by, 25–26 Brazil visits, 35 exhibitions organized by, 22 gallery-forums and publications founded by, 7, 13, 22, 23 networking roles, 25 studio visits, 31 Kelly, Mary Antepartum, 134 feminist reading groups of, 134 Post-Partum Document, 134, 184 Women and Work, with Harrison, M. and Hunt, K., 134 Kent, Sarah, 128 Kent State (Hamilton), 124–25 Kent State University shootings, 123–25, 128 Kepes, György, 31, 33, 34 Kester, Grant, 19n44, 44, 52n7 Kienholz, Edward: Five Car Stud, 103 kinetic art British, 32 definitions and descriptions, 23–24, 34, 36 exhibitions of, 13, 22–29, 27, 28, 34, 36 historical vs. modern views of, 24

North American, 29, 31 science and technology relationship, 32–34 Kinetic Theater, 145 King, Anthony D., 111 King, Phillip, 83, 93n9 Kingsley Hall, 157, 162 Klassnik, Robin Mail Action invitation recipient, 191 Yellow Objects, 185 Klein, Yves, 31, 37n16, 175 Klüver, Billy, 33 Kopinski, Jan: Minformation Is Coming, with McKay, 53n42 Kosuth, Joseph, 43, 47 Kozlov, Christine, 43 Krauss, Sigi. See also Gallery House; Sigi Krauss Gallery associates, 102, 113n19 demonstrations at Tate Gallery, 9, 64, 65 Krebs, Allen, 162 Kriesche, Richard: Polygonal Workshop/Garbage Walk, 66–70, 68, 69 Kustow, Michael, 146 Lacey, Bruce, 161, 191 Laing, R. D., 146, 156, 157, 161, 162, 167n42 Lamelas, David diaspora community, 57 exhibitions, 73n15 Publication, 131n17 A Study of the Relationship Between Inner and Outer Space, 73n15 Lampert, Catherine, 126 Landscape Hats (Dugger), 113n22 La Pérgola gallery, 56 Latham, John Big Breather, 42 exhibitions, 42, 48 Mail Action invitation recipient, 191 OHO (OI-IO) Context, 42 publications promoting, 32 speaker-performance exhibitions featuring, 175 sTigma collaborative environment, 161 studio locations of, 167n42 Latin American art. See also specific artists’ names and countries diaspora/exile influences on, 4–5, 6, 10, 55–58, 61 exhibitions of, 21, 25–29, 27, 28, 31, 35, 35, 57, 58, 73–74n15 galleries specializing in, 4, 21, 24–29, 57 museum acquisitions of, 25–26

225    Index

perceptions of, 35–36 Lauretis, Teresa de, 148 Lavrin, Beba, 161 “Laws of Sculpture” (Gilbert & George), 172–73 Leary, Timothy, 162 lecture performances. See speaker-performances Lee, Pamela M., 23–24, 26, 29 Legge, Rupert, 100 Let a Hundred Flowers Blossom (Dugger), 113n22 Letter from Stan Brakhage to Robert Kelly (Brakhage), 156, 166–67n37 Lettrist International (LI), 151, 152, 153, 165n6 Lexus, Roy, 67 Libro Tul Rojo (Vicuña), 10, 11 Lifton, John, 146 Lijn, Liliane associates, 98 Power Game, 111 Limpkin, Clive, 126, 127, 128 A Line Made by Walking (Long), 92 linguistic conceptual art, 47–48, 50 Lippard, Lucy, 40, 61, 82, 114n37 Liss, Carla, 14, 147 Liss, Jerome, 167n42 Lisson Gallery, 43, 86 Littlewood, Joan: Fun Palace, 156 Live in Your Head: Concept and Experiment in Britain (2000 exhibition), 87–88, 91–92 Live in Your Head: When Attitudes Become Form (1969 exhibition), 7–8, 81, 82, 86, 92, 102 Location (Louw), 86 Locations (exhibition), 131n17, 131n30 “Locked Room” (art education curriculum), 122 Lole, Kevin biographical information, 47, 54n78 CBA event participation, 54n74 journals edited by, 47 periodical contributions, 41, 46, 47 London, overview. See also related topics art activism against, 70 art education reforms in, 170–71 art market descriptions in vs. outside, 4 art networks, 4, 6, 8–10, 12 art scene descriptions, 57, 66 city/streets as artistic production sites, 58–61, 66–70, 85–86 exhibitions of influence, 5–6 galleries and alternative exhibition spaces, 7–8 international influences on, 4–5, 6

London Filmmakers’ Co-operative American influences on, 147 collaboration and collectivity of, 7, 14, 140, 141, 142, 144, 145 distribution secretaries and networking through, 147 locations of, 137 programs featuring women filmmakers at, 136 London Free School, 162 London Print Studio, 114n42 London Women’s Film Group, 134 London Women’s Liberation Art Group, 133 Long, Richard exhibitions, 81 A Line Made by Walking, 92 magazine articles on sculpture featuring, 81 Lougee, Jane, 164n5 Louw, Roelof. See also Soul City (Pyramid of Oranges) art scene participation, 81–82, 92 Arts Lab membership form and proposal, 79, 79 biographical information, 79 Exercises 3, 86 exhibitions, 81, 82, 85, 86–87, 92 Holland Park, 82, 82, 87 influences on, 83–84, 85, 89 Location, 86 Park Lane, 86 residences of, 79 Ring II, 85 Sound Recorder Works or Tape Recorder Scripts, 86, 91 Square 4 (Red / Light Green), 83, 84 studio locations, 79, 82, 83 teaching positions, 78–79 Untitled 1968, 83, 84, 87 Lucie-Smith, Edward, 130 Lütticken, Sven, 121–22 Lyceum Club, 169 Magazine Actions (COUM Transmissions), 184. See also Cosey Fanni Tutti “A Magazine Sculpture” (Gilbert & George), 172–73 Magritte, René: Time Transfixed, 190 Maharaj, Sarat, 121, 130 mail art anti-art statements and infrastructure challenges, 185, 188–90, 189, 195 for controversy, 195 indecency arrests and trials, 183, 187–88, 190–97, 193 Latin American political activism collaboration using, 70–71

226  Index

for networking, 10, 12 as walking sculptural documentation, 59–60, 60 yellow artifact donations and display, 185 Maler, Leopoldo Crane Ballet, 74n16 diaspora community, 57 exhibitions, 73–74n15 Mallen, George, 50, 51n3, 52n30, 53n42 Man from the Twenty-first Century (CBA/Willats), 50 Manifeste Situationniste (Trocchi), 165n7 Manson, Charles, 191 Mao Tsetung, 104, 107 mapping, 120–22, 125, 128–29, 130 Marinetti, Filippo Tommaso, 169 Marioni, Tom, 43 Martin, Agnes, 121 Martin, Courtney J., 66 Martin, David: Behavioural Treasure Hunt, with Shotbolt, 53n42 Martin, Frank, 172 Martin, Leslie, 37n5 Martin, Mary exhibitions, 29, 32 Inversions, 32 Marx, Erica, 33, 34 Marxism, 110 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), 31–32, 34 Massarenti, Cesare, 67 The Masses Have Boundless Creative Power–Mao Tsetung (Dugger), 113n22 Mass Media People (Burrows), 53n42 Mauss, Marcel, 90 Mayor, David, 12, 65, 69–72, 74n52 McCann, Eamonn, 126 McClure, Michael, 156 McKay, Andy: Minformation Is Coming, with Kopinski, 53n42 McLean, Bruce anti-art activism, 8 British art exhibition criticism, 18n1, 82 magazine articles on sculpture featuring, 81 speaker-performances, 172, 173, 174, 175, 177 McLuhan, Marshall, 124, 125 McShine, Kynaston, 70 Meat Joy (Schneemann), 145 Meat Science Essays (McClure), 156, 166n37 Medalla, David artist collective memberships, 98 artist-political group memberships, 13, 35, 57, 108–9, 109

artist spaces founded by, 114n42 art spaces, favorite, 33 biographical information, 25 exhibition installations, 31, 97, 99, 100, 107 exhibitions organized by, 22, 29, 30 forums and publications founded by, 13, 22, 23, 25, 32–33 galleries founded by, 7 protest posters produced by, 109 A Stitch in Time, 105, 107, 113n23 student advising at Slade, 175 media communication ethics themes, 117–18, 122, 124–25, 126–27, 130 for publicity, 187, 191 Medina, Cuauhtémoc, 61, 71 Megson, Neil Andrew. See P-Orridge, Genesis Mekas, Jonas, 147 Mellor, David, 89 Menstrual Hut (Nicolson), 148 The Mental Furniture Industry (exhibition), 19n30 Merlin (journal), 151, 152, 164–65n5 Metzger, Gustav anti-art coalitions founded by, 9, 63, 65, 89 art demonstrations at Tate Gallery, 9, 65 art forum memberships, 22 biographical information, 9 exhibitions, 5, 7, 41–42 Mass-Media-Today, 5 speaker-performances by, 174 Stockholm June: A Project for Stockholm 1–15 June 1972, 42 union membership, 42 Mexico exhibitions featuring artists from, 37–38n27 London-based artists from, 12–13, 25, 55–57, 58, 71, 72 political campaigns as art themes, 70–71 political activism and student protests, 55, 56, 58, 71 publishing collaborations with artists from, 71 Signals Newsbulletin featuring new museums in, 27 Microcosm (Camden Arts Centre exhibition), 101 Microcosm (Dugger solo exhibition), 97, 101–2 Midland Group Gallery art forum collaborations with, 32 exhibitions at, 35, 35, 36, 45–46, 52n39 Mindlin, Henrique E., 27 Mind Rover (Cornock and Edmonds), 53n42 Minformation Is Coming (Kopinski and McKay), 53n42 Minimalism, 48, 174

227    Index

“Miss World Demonstration” (Mulvey), 134 MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), 31–32, 34 Mitchell, Juliet, 134 Mondragón, Sergio, 71 Monotipias (exhibition), 26 “...morning workers pass...” (Donagh), 131n19 Morris, Lynda, 40, 175 Morris, Robert, 103, 174 Mortal Issues (exhibition), 73–74n15 Le Mouvement (exhibition), 22–23 The Moving Times–project sigma, sigma portfolio 1 (poster), 156, 162, 166n28 Mulvey, Laura, 134, 150n26 Mumford, Lewis, 34 Museum of Conceptual Art, San Francisco, 43 Museum of Modern Art Oxford (now Modern Art Oxford) artists and social projects featured at, 43, 45–46 building history, 99 exhibitions at, 33–34, 99–101, 100 founding and influence of, 4 participation art at, 113n23 sculptural installations and genius loci themes, 86 Museum of Modern Art, Rio de Janeiro, 35 Museum of Normal Art, New York, 43 Mutation Phenomena (exhibitions), 36, 37n27 My Own Mag (magazine), 157, 160–61, 162 Nairne, Sandy, 91 Naked Action Lecture (Schneemann), 146, 177 The National Advisory Council on Art Education, 180n5 National Women’s Liberation Conference, 134, 142 Naylor, Colin, 190, 191, 193 N.E. Thing Co. Ltd., 43 Neoconcretismo, 98 “Nest-Cells” (Oiticica), 4 networking. See also mail art; project sigma art centers for, 40 art collaboration through, 70–71 circulation methods for, 10, 12 contact zones for, 4, 9 exhibitions influencing, 6, 8 galleries supporting, 25, 29 internationalism and technology promoting, 8–9 periodical publications for, 12, 25, 46, 47, 58, 71 as social movement for politicized practices, 8 studios as artistic communities for, 85 urban decentralization and, 70

networking (continued) women artists’ collectives for, 178 women’s filmmaking practices for, 134, 137, 140, 141, 142, 144, 146 “The New Art” (Brooks, Studio International), 48 The New Art (exhibition), 47–48 New Arts Lab, 137, 140, 144, 146 “New Generation,” 81, 83 New Generation (exhibition), 81 Newsbulletin (publication) contents and layout descriptions, 24–25 future plans and growth expectations, 29, 34 kinetic art, defined, 23 Latin American art featured in, 27–28 networking function of, 12, 13, 25, 32–33 North American art featured in, 34 purpose of, 32 themes of, 21 New Scientist (magazine), 27 Newsheet (publication), 42 New Vision Centre, 18n16, 25, 33, 37n16 New York Art Strike, 65 New York Film-makers’ Co-operative, 147 Nicholson, Ben, 22, 37n5 Nicolson, Annabel Anju, 141 collective practices, 141, 142, 144 education, 141 as Feminist Art News guest editor, 148 film-and-video-distribution collectives founded by, 148 filmmaking style descriptions, 141–42, 144 in independent filmmaking directories, 135, 136 Jaded Vision, 142 on Liss film performance descriptions, 147 Menstrual Hut, 148 with Potter and Schwartz (Ess) at the Co-op, 141 Reel Time, 140, 142–43, 143 on Schwartz film performance descriptions, 144–45 Slides, 141, 142 Time Out interview, 149n9 on women’s identity conflicts, 140, 142 Nigel Greenwood Gallery, 43, 131n17, 131n30, 175, 191 Nitro Benzol & Black Linoleum (Oiticica), 57 nonart, 67, 68–69, 101, 108. See also anti-art/aesthetics movement Norse, Harold, 162 Northern Ireland art exhibition controversy, 127 civil-rights art themes, 115–19, 116, 125–29, 130, 131n5, 132n44

228  Index

journal cover imagery, 1–2 media coverage, 117–18, 126–27 political conflict descriptions, 9–10, 115, 117, 126–27, 128 Northern Ireland 1968–May Day 1975 (Atkinson, C.), 131n5 Nul, 25 Nuttall, Jeff magazines founded by, 157 Mail Action invitation recipient, 191 project sigma interpersonal logs, 157, 160–61 project sigma weekend meeting organized by, 161 sTigma collaborative environment, 161–62 Oasis 7 (Haus-Rucker-Co), 102 Obra secretamente titulada Arriba y Adelante...y si no, pos también (Ehrenberg), 70–71 obscenity, 188, 193–94 O’Connor, Howard, 43, 51n3 Offenbach, David, 192, 193, 195 OHO (OI-IO) Context (Latham), 42 Oiticica, Hélio as artistic influence, 58, 99 diaspora community, 57 Eden, 73–74n15 exhibitions, 4, 25, 29, 73–74n15 Keeler and Brett meeting with, 35 networking, 25 Nitro Benzol & Black Linoleum, 57 Parangolé, 35 proposition/thought theories, 98 university worships of, 4 Whitechapel Experiment, 58, 73–74n15 Oliver, Felicity (Super Girl), 44, 45 Olympia Press, 164–65n5 Olympics, 52–53n40, 55, 71, 73n6 Omissions (Kleiinie Spielinie) (COUM Transmissions), 186, 187 O’Neill, Terence, 117 Op Losse Schroeven (exhibition), 81 “Orange Pyramid Show, Arts Laboratory, 1967,” 90 Orchard Gallery, 132n54 Otero, Alejandro, 25, 26, 27, 28, 32 Our New Sculpture (Gilbert & George), 172 over-participation, 100–101 Overy, Paul, 115, 117 Oxford Insight Development Project (CBA/Willats), 44, 52n39 Paddington Printshop, 114n42 Pain Things and Explanations (exhibitions), 73–74n15, 109

Paolozzi, Eduardo exhibition protest, 18n1 As Is When series, 2 speaker-performances of, 169 Papaconstantinou, Leda, 137 Parangolé (Oiticica), 35 Parker, Rozsika, 133 Park Lane (Louw), 86 participation art (part-art) architectural installations for social engagement, 95–96, 96, 103–8, 105, 106 exhibitions for, 97, 99, 100–102 over-participation challenges, 100–101 Pask, Gordon, 42, 50 patriarchy, 134, 139, 146, 149 Penrose, Sir Ronald, 33 People’s Participation Pavilion (Pavilion Dugger) (Dugger), 95–96, 96, 103–8, 105, 106, 113n22 performance art. See also participation art; speaker-performances anti-aesthetic philosophies on, 185 controversial, 183–84, 197–98 film, 137–40, 144–46, 148 mail art as, 70–71, 190 sculpture-, 58–61, 66–70, 77–78, 148, 172–73 trials appropriated for, 183, 190–97, 193 Philadelphia Association, 157, 161, 162 Piersol, Virginia, 148 Pilkington, Philip, 47, 53n46 Pilot (CACS exhibitions), 22, 27, 31 Pinochet, Augusto, 10, 15, 57, 74n17, 110, 114n29 Pioneers of Part-Art, 99–101, 100 Piper, Adrian, 112, 179 The Place theater, 140 Plant, John, 64, 65 Play (Potter), 137 The Plumed Horn (magazine), 71 political art and activism. See also diaspora; Northern Ireland anti-imperialism, 5, 13 antiwar, 10, 34, 98, 107, 109, 122 pro-democracy, 15, 70–71, 72, 102, 109, 110–11, 113n22 pro-socialism, 104, 107, 113n22 waste collection strikes, 66–70, 68, 69 The Politics of Experience (Laing), 162 Pollock, Griselda, 133 Polygonal Workshop, 66–70, 68, 69 PoPa at MoMA (exhibition), 99–101, 100 Pop art, 2–3

229    Index

pornography, 164–65n5, 183, 188, 194, 196, 197 P-Orridge, Genesis (Neil Andrew Megson). See also COUM Transmissions alter ego collectives of, 184 artist encyclopedias edited by, 190 art scene withdrawal, 183 biographical information, 185, 198n2 exhibitions of controversy, 183–84, 197–98 Mail Action indecency trial and performance, 183, 187–88, 190–97, 193 performance art statements, 185 postcards and mail projects, 188–90, 189 reconditioned language of, 198n7 relocations, 186–87 positivist science, 139 postal service distribution. See mail art postcard art anti-aesthetic philosophies on, 185, 195 arrest and prosecution for indecency, 183, 187–97, 189, 193 pro-democracy activism and international collaboration, 70–71 walking documentation, 59–60, 60 Poster-Film Collective, 114n42 Postminimalism, 48 Poston, Tim, 188 Post-Partum Document (Kelly), 134, 184 Potlatch (journal), 90, 152, 165n6 potlatches, 90 Potter, Sally The Building, 137–39, 138 collective and collaborative practices, 137, 140, 148 Combines, 137, 140 education, 140 feminist dialogue limitations, 142 filmmaking style descriptions, 137–40 Gold Diggers, 148 in independent filmmaking directories, 136 with Nicolson and Schwartz (Ess) at the Co-op, 141 Play, 137 Thriller, 148 Time Out interview, 136–37, 138, 140 women artists’ identity conflicts, 138, 139–40 women’s liberation conferences attended by, 142, 150n23 Powell-Jones, Mark, 100 Power Game (Lijn), 111 Precarious Objects (or Precarios) (Vicuña), 10 The Present Situation (Laing), 156, 166n37

Price, Cedric: Fun Palace, 156 Prismatic Conversation in Silver Space (Dugger), 113n22 project sigma (Trocchi) box office location, 164 challenges of, 155 creation of, 155 descriptions, 151, 155 distribution models for, 165n6 environment installations as allegiance to, 161–62 founding text of, 155–56, 161, 162, 165n7 influence of, 162–63 influences on, 151 interpersonal logs for, 156–57, 158–59, 160, 163, 165n7, 168n62 poetry events as example of, 163 posters for, 156, 162, 166n28 purpose and theoretical statements, 7, 14, 156, 161, 163–64, 165n7 themes, 152, 153, 155, 163 transatlantic distribution and advocacy, 162 university construction prototypes, 156, 157, 162 weekend meeting events, 161 Project sigma—Public Relations—List of People Interested, 156–57, 158–59 Prostitution (exhibition), 183–84, 197–98 Publication (Lamelas), 131n17 Pyramid of Oranges. See Soul City (Pyramid of Oranges) (Louw) A Quarter of a Century of the Beautiful Art of Alejandro Otero: 1940–1965 (exhibition), 26, 27, 28 Rains Retreat (Dugger), 102, 104, 111 Randall, Margaret, 71 Rayns, Tony, 135 Read, Sir Herbert, 33 Real Space (conference), 176–77 Record as Artwork (exhibition), 175 Reel Time (Nicolson), 140, 142–44, 143 Reflection on Three Weeks in May 1970 (Donagh), 118, 119–23, 124 Reichardt, Jasia, 50, 73–74n15 Reichenbach, Francois, 67 Reid, Norman, 107, 192, 196, 197 Reise, Barbara, 175, 191, 194, 198 relational aesthetics, 111–12 René, Denise, 22–23, 25 Resistance to Civil Government (Thoreau), 125 “Resolution Concerning the Imprisonment of Alexander Trocchi” (Internationale Situationniste), 153, 154

230  Index

Richard Demarco Gallery, 4, 18n10 Ring II (Louw), 85 Robert Fraser Gallery, 33 Robertson, Geoffrey, 188, 193–94 Rockburne, Dorothea, 113n21 Roelof Louw: Project Space (exhibition), 86 Rosenberg, Jan, 140 Rosenthal, Irving, 153 Rothenstein, Sir John, 26, 27 Royal College of Art pro-democracy festivals held at, 97, 109–11, 110, 114n40 speaker-performance exhibitions at, 175–76 speaker-performances at, 169–70, 173, 174, 176 Rushton, David, 47, 53n46 Russell, John, 125 Salvadori, Marcello, 22, 25, 31, 33–34 Sandback, Fred, 103 Sandbrook, Dominic, 127 Sanger, Colston biographical information, 54n78 gallery representation, 46 journals founded by, 46 Signs, Grips and Words, 46–47, 53n42 Santos, Bartolomeu dos, 63 Savage, Robert J., 126 Schatzman, Morton, 167n42 Schendel, Mira, 7, 25, 26, 35 Schmuck (magazine), 72 Schneemann, Carolee Blood Work Diary, 146 collective and collaborative practices, 14, 145, 146 critical response to, 146 diasporic experiences, 145 exhibitions and performances, 4, 101 Fuses, 145, 146, 177 Illinois Central, 145 in independent filmmaking directories, 136 Meat Joy, 145 Naked Action Lecture, 146, 177 political conflict recollections, 10 Snows, 145 Thames Crawling, 146 Time Out interview, 136 Schwartz (Ess), Barbara biographical information, 145, 148 collective and collaboration practices, 144, 147, 148

education, 140, 144 Everything’s Gonna Be Alright, 144 exhibitions organized by, 147 Gina, 144 Home Movies, 144, 148 in independent filmmaking directories, 136 with Potter and Nicolson at the Co-op, 141 Time Out interview, 136, 137, 145 women artists’ identity conflicts, 144 science and technology, 8–9, 33–34 Scott, Tim, 81 sculpture art education courses, 122 Ergonic, 99 museum acquisition controversies, 184, 196 as performance, 58–61, 66–70, 77–78, 148, 172–73 Sculpture in the 60s, Impresarios of the Art World (Gilbert & George), 173 “Sculpture Now” (Cork), 170 Sculpture Number 2 (Hide), 85 Seghal, Tino, 112 Semina (magazine), 153 The Seventh Day Chicken: Polygonal Workshop Investigates Garbage (exhibition), 68–69 sexism as art theme, 112 equal representation issues, 65 exhibitions with women artist, 132n73 filmmaking and gender-based oppression, 14, 134, 136, 139–40, 146, 149, 177 Shadow of Six Counties (Donagh), 130 Sharp, Willoughby, 31, 36 Shaw, Jeffrey, 42 Sheeper (Rosenthal), 153 Shotbolt, Jack: Behavioural Treasure Hunt, with Martin, 53n42 Shrew (journal), 134, 148 Side, 4 Siegelaub, Seth, 40, 93n41 A Sightseeing Tour in Exeter (Polygonal Workshop), 69–70 Sigi Krauss Gallery artists featured at, 7, 42 closure, 113n19 exhibitions at, 57, 97, 101–2, 105 founding and descriptions, 7, 41, 113n16 social protest workshop collaborations, 68 Signals London (formerly Centre for Advanced Creative Study) artists featured at, 24

231    Index

British art and, 32 closure, 7, 25, 34–35 descriptions, 7 exhibitions at, 22, 23, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 32 founding and history, 7, 22, 33 future plans and growth expectations, 23, 29, 31, 34 influence and legacy, 7, 21, 25, 28–34, 35–36 kinetic art and role of, 13, 21, 24 Latin American art, 21, 25–27, 29 location, 22 museum acquisitions through, 25–26 name origins, 22 North American art, 29, 31, 34 patrons of, 26, 31 periodicals published by (see Newsbulletin) Signalz: Newsbulletin of the Centre for Advanced Creative Study, 22, 23 Signs, Grips and Words (Sanger), 46–47, 53n42 Silence (exhibition), 73–74n15 Silver Liberties (Atkinson, C.), 127, 128 Singing in the Body Electric (Dugger), 113n22 Singing Sculpture (Gilbert & George), 172 Site Gallery, 4 Sitney, P. Adams, 150n25 Situationist International (SI), 153, 154–55, 165n16, 166n35. See also Internationale Situationniste Situationists, 61, 66, 165n7 Six Latin American Countries (exhibition), 37–38n27 Sixties Art Scene in London (exhibition), 92 Sixties Art Scene in London (Mellor exhibition catalogue), 89 Sjöo, Monica, 142 Slade School of Art speaker-performances at, 174–75, 180n24 student advisors at, 63, 174–75 students at, 10, 63 teachers at, 131n36 teaching practices at, 171 Slides (Nicolson), 141, 142 Smith, Pauline Hitler Fan Club mail art project, 195 Mail Action invitation recipient, 191 P-Orridge mail art theories and card recycling, 195 P-Orridge trial attendance, 191, 193 Smith, Peter, 54n74, 175 Smith, Pippa, 114n42 Smyth, Cherry, 119 Snake Pit (Dugger), 104, 113n22 The Snake Pit for Art Critics (Dugger), 102

Snow, George: International Times cover design, 1, 2 Snows (Schneemann), 145 socialism, 104, 107, 113n22 Socialist Art Through Socialist Revolution (Dugger), 113n22 Social Resource Project for Munich Olympics (CBA/Willats), 52–53n40 Social Resource Project for Tennis Clubs (CBA/Willats), 53n42 SoHo Artists Association, 65 “Some Aspects of Contemporary British Sculpture” (Harrison), 81 Soto, Jesús Rafael, 23, 25–26, 35 Soul City (Pyramid of Oranges) (Louw) artists influenced by, 93n28 description, 77–78, 91 exhibitions of, 77–78, 81, 82, 87–88, 89–90, 91, 92 installation views, 78 magazine articles featuring, 13, 79, 80, 81, 82 museum acquisitions and displays of, 78 other sculptures exhibited with, 90–91 as signature work, 77, 87, 89, 91–92 site specificity vs. global recreations, 88–89 themes of, 89–90 Soundings One (exhibition), 22 Soundings series (exhibitions), 22 Soundings Three (exhibition), 29, 30, 32 Soundings Two (exhibition), 22, 23 Sound Recorder Works (Louw), 86, 91 South African artists, 79, 83 South Bank Demonstration (Metzger), 9 South London Gay Community Centre, 7 A Space: A Thousand Words (exhibition), 176–77 Spare Rib (journal), 147–48 speaker-performances art schools and early development of, 172–77 art tradition of, 169 descriptions and definitions, 169–70, 172, 179–80 influences on development of, 170–72 legacy of, 180 of Mexican artists, 56 scholarship and legitimacy issues of, 178–79 sculpture and, 172–73 sound recordings of, 175 themes, 173, 174–75, 177–78, 179–80 Square 4 (Red / Light Green) (Louw), 83, 84 St. Martin’s School of Art exchange/distribution concepts, 90 publications of, 90 sculpture performances at, 172

232  Index

speaker-performances at, 173, 174 teachers at, 78–79, 81, 83, 87 teaching styles at, 122, 171 The State (Hamilton), 132n44 Statements (magazine), 53n46 Steiner, Rudolph, 102 Stevens, Graham artist collective memberships, 98 exhibition installations, 97, 99, 100 Inflatable, 97, 106, 107 Stezaker, John biographical information, 41, 54n78 exhibitions, 43, 48, 175, 176 networking practices, 47 periodical contributions, 41, 46, 53n44 speaker-performances, 175, 176, 177 sTigma (Nuttall, et al.), 161–62 A Stitch in Time (Medalla), 105, 107, 113n23 Stockholm June: A Project for Stockholm 1–15 June 1972 (Metzger), 42 Stockwell Depot, 79, 81, 82, 83, 85, 93n2 Stone Brothers Printing, 153 A Stroll in July, or One Thursday Afternoon, or Half Day in London, or (The) Afternoon, or ...Topology of Sculpture (Ehrenberg), 58–60, 60 Structure & Codes (exhibition), 175–76 Studio International (magazine) conceptual sculpture, 13, 79, 80, 81, 82 cybernetic exhibitions, 50 exhibition reviews, 48 kinetic art, 53n61 Laws of Sculpture published in, 172–73 office location, 79 Potlatch cartoons reproduced in, 90 sculptors featured in, 83 women artists, 129 A Study of the Relationship Between Inner and Outer Space (Lamelas), 73n15 The Subject (Hamilton), 132n44 Super Girls, 44, 45 Survey ‘68 (exhibition), 90 Survey ‘69 (exhibition), 47 Survey ‘70 (exhibition), 47 Survey of Distance Models of Art (Willats), 48–49, 49 Survey of the Avant-Garde in Britain (exhibition), 41, 45, 47–48, 113n23, 147 System Research Ltd., 42

Szeemann, Harald Dugger invitation to documenta 5, 102 exhibitions organized by, 7, 13, 95, 102, 103 on Louw’s Park Lane exhibition, 86 Mail Action invitation recipient, 191 Szulakowska, Ursula, 130 A Tactical Blueprint (Trocchi), 156, 161, 164n7 “taking the trouble to sound it” (Donagh), 120–21, 121 Takis (Panagiotis Vassilakis), 22, 25, 31, 34, 98 Talking to Women (Dunn), 137 Taller de Gráfica Popular, 73n3 Tape Recorder Project by Roelof Louw (exhibition), 86–87, 93n25 Tape Recorder Works (Louw), 86, 91 Tate Gallery anti-art demonstrations at, 9, 13, 64, 65, 66 art acquisition controversies, 184 conceptual sculpture exhibitions at, 78 kinetic art acquisitions, 25–26, 32 Medalla correspondence with, as art exhibit, 107 sculpture acquisitions and displays, 78, 83 “Technique du coup du monde” (retitled Invisible Insurrection of a Million Minds) (Trocchi), 155–56, 165n7 Thames Crawling (Schneemann), 146 Thatcher, Margaret, 9, 128 The Theatre and Its Double (Artaud), 155 Thinking About Exhibitions (Greenberg, Ferguson and Nairne), 91 III Salón Independiente (exhibition), 70–71 30,000 Bananas (Fishbone), 93n28 Thoreau, Henry David, 120, 122, 125 Three Friends (exhibition), 147–48 3 Life Situations (exhibition), 41–42 Thriller (Potter), 148 Throbbing Gristle (band), 195 Tickner, Lisa, 2, 6, 122, 178 Time Out (magazine), 136–37, 138, 140, 144, 145, 191 Time Transfixed (Magritte), 190 Tinguely, Miriam, 113n19 Tiravanija, Rirkrit, 112 Tisdall, Caroline, 125, 126, 129, 191 Tlatelolco massacre, 55, 58, 71 Towards the Invisible (exhibition), 23, 29, 31 Transformer (Hiller), 148 Transgravity (magazine), 72 trials, as performance art venues, 183, 190–97, 193 Trocchi, Alexander. See also project sigma arrests and imprisonment, 153, 154, 165–66n19–20

233    Index

autobiographical novels of, 153, 155 collection of writings by, 164n2 drug use as identity, 151, 152–53, 153–54 education, 151 French radical group memberships, 151, 152, 165n6 marriage, 153 papers of, 164n2 periodical contributions, 151, 164–65n5 philosophies of, 151–52, 154, 161 pornography writings and pseudonyms of, 164–65n5 Situationist group memberships, 154–55, 166n35 in US, 152–53 Tschumi, Bernard, 176 Tube-O-Nauts’ Travels, a Voyage Under London (Ehrenberg), 61, 62, 63 Tucker, William Cat’s Cradle, 84–85 Louw comparisons, 84 sculpture visibility due to, 83 symposium participation, 81 Turner, Alwyn, 184 Tutti, Cosey Fanni, 183–84, 187, 191, 193, 194, 197 12 Books for the Chilean Resistance (Vicuña), 10, 11 2B Butler’s Wharf, 7 Ulster Museum, Belfast, 127 Underneath the Arches (Gilbert & George), 172–73, 174, 180n24 Understanding Media (McLuhan), 124 Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 55, 73n3 University of California, Berkeley, 34 University of Sussex, 4 Untitled 1968 (Louw), 83, 84, 87 Untitled (Portrait of Ross in L.A.) (González-Torres), 91 Vachon, Gail, 148 Vaizey, Marina, 119 VALIE EXPORT, 142, 145, 179 Vasarely, Victor, 22–23 Vassilakis, Panagiotis (Takis), 22, 25, 31, 34, 98 Venezuela (exhibition), 35 Venezuelan artists, 25, 26–29, 35, 35 Victoria & Albert Museum, 81 Victory to the Just Struggle of the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola–M.P.L.A.! (Dugger), 113n22 Vicuña, Cecilia art subjects and themes, 57 diaspora and exile, 10, 57, 109

Vicuña, Cecilia (continued) exhibitions, 73–74n15, 109 A Journal of Objects for the Chilean Resistance 1973–4, 10, 11 Libro Tul Rojo, from 12 Books for the Chilean Resistance, 11 political art groups founded by, 109 Precarious Objects (or Precarios), 10 protest sculpture for Artists for Democracy, 109 publishing collaborations, 71 12 Books for the Chilean Resistance, 10, 11 Vietnam War, 10, 34, 98, 107, 109, 122 Visitors’ Profiles (Haacke), 48–49 Visual Meta Language Simulation (CBA/Willats), 52n39, 53n42 “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” (Mulvey), 134 Walden (Thoreau), 120 Walker, James Faure, 93n34 Walker, John A., 57 walking, as art form, 58–61 Wall Show (exhibition), 86 waste collection strikes and protests, 66–70, 68, 69 Waterlow, Nick, 54n74 Weaver, Mike, 74n52 Wegner, Nicholas, 125 Welch, Chris, 71 Well, Rudolfine, 67 West London Manual (CBA/Willats), 44 West London Re-Modelling Book (CBA/Willats), 44 West London Social Resource Project (CBA/Willats), 44–45, 45 When Attitudes Become Form. See Live in Your Head: When Attitudes Become Form (1969 exhibition) When Attitudes Become Form: Bern 1969 / Venice 2013 (exhibition), 92 White, Kenneth, 156 Whitechapel Art Gallery exhibitions controversy in Northern Ireland, 127 Latin American art exhibited at, 4, 57, 73–74n15, 99 sculptural installations at, 87–88, 91–92 sculpture exhibitions at, 81 sound exhibition installations at, 86

234  Index

Whitechapel Experiment (Oiticica), 58, 73–74n15 White Room (Donagh), 123 White Studio (Donagh), 123 Why I Paint What I Paint (Ehrenberg lecture), 56 Wieland, Joyce, 145 Willats, Stephen. See also Centre for Behavioural Art CBA event participation, 44–45, 54n74 Edinburgh Social Model Construction Project, 50, 51 employment at System Research Ltd. as assistant, 52n19 exhibitions, 45–46, 46, 48 periodicals of, 13, 39, 41 publications of, 41, 52n4 publications promoting, 32 speaker-performance exhibitions featuring, 175 teaching positions, 45 Wilson, Harold, 9–10, 66 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 48 Women and Work (Harrison, M., Hunt K. and Kelly, M.), 134 Women Artists Collective, 178 Women Artists in Revolution, 65 The Women’s Event (Edinburgh Film Festival), 134 Women’s Free Arts Alliance, 134 women’s liberation movement. See feminism Women’s Workshop of the Artists’ Union, 133–34, 140, 142, 148, 149n2 Wood, Jon, 88, 89 World Cup, 70–71 Wreckers of Civilisation (Ford), 195 Yellow Objects (Klassnik), 185 Y Pants, 148 “Zang Tumb Tuuum” (Marinetti), 169 Zero, 25, 37n16

rm

REFIGURING MODERNISM

ARTS L I T E R AT U R E S SCIENCES

(A Series Edited By) Jonathan Eburne Refiguring Modernism features cutting-edge interdisciplinary approaches to the study of art, literature, science, and cultural history. With an eye to the different modernisms emerging throughout the world during the twentieth century and beyond, we seek to publish scholarship that engages creatively with canonical and eccentric works alike, bringing fresh concepts and original research to bear on modernist cultural production, whether aesthetic, social, or epistemological. What does it mean to study modernism in a global context characterized at once by decolonization and nation-building; international cooperation and conflict; changing ideas about subjectivity and identity; new understandings of language, religion, poetics, and myth; and new paradigms for science, politics, and religion? What did modernism offer artists, writers, and intellectuals? How do we theorize and historicize modernism? How do we rethink its forms, its past, and its futures?

(Other Books in the Series) David Peters Corbett The World in Paint: Modern Art and Visuality in England, 1848–1914 Jordana Mendelson Documenting Spain: Artists, Exhibition Culture, and the Modern Nation, 1929–1939 Barbara Larson The Dark Side of Nature: Science, Society, and the Fantastic in the Work of Odilon Redon Alejandro Anreus, Diana L. Linden, and Jonathan Weinberg, eds. The Social and the Real: Political Art of the 1930s in the Western Hemisphere Margaret Iversen Beyond Pleasure: Freud, Lacan, Barthes Stephen Bann, ed. The Coral Mind: Adrian Stokes’s Engagement with Architecture, Art History, Criticism, and Psychoanalysis Charles Palermo Fixed Ecstasy: Joan Miró in the 1920s Marius Roux The Substance and the Shadow Aruna D’Souza Cézanne’s Bathers: Biography and the Erotics of Paint Abigail Gillman Viennese Jewish Modernism: Freud, Hofmannsthal, BeerHofmann, and Schnitzler Stephen Petersen Space-Age Aesthetics: Lucio Fontana, Yves Klein, and the Postwar European Avant-Garde Stefanie Harris Mediating Modernity: German Literature and the “New” Media, 1895–1930 Michele Greet Beyond National Identity: Pictorial Indigenism as a Modernist Strategy for Andean Art, 1920–1960 Paul Smith, ed. Seurat Re-viewed David Prochaska and Jordana Mendelson, eds. Postcards: Ephemeral Histories of Modernity David Getsy From Diversion to Subversion: Games, Play, and TwentiethCentury Art Jessica Burstein Cold Modernism: Literature, Fashion, Art Adam Jolles The Curatorial Avant-Garde: Surrealism and the Making of the Modern Exhibition Highfill, Juli Modernism and Its Merchandise: The Spanish Avant-Garde and Material Culture, 1920–1930 Keane, Damien Ireland and the Problem of Information: Irish Writing, Radio, Late Modernist Communication Kalba, Laura, Color in the Age of Impressionism: Commerce, Technology, and Art Morehead, Allison, Nature’s Experiments and the Search for Symbolist Form Walworth, Catherine, Soviet Salvage: Imperial Debris, Revolutionary Reuse, and Russian Constructivism