Notebook

Notebook, 1993-

APPROACHES - In The Words Of . . . .

From: Ferrier, Jean-Louis, Director and Yann le Pichon, Walter D. Glanze [English Translation]. Art of Our Century, The Chronicle of Western Art, 1900 to the Present. New York: Prentice-Hall Editions. 1988.

Michel Tapié


Art of Another Kind
1952 - Writings and Theories

One may say that Impressionism raised questions regarding the notions of beauty, form, space, and esthetics. The more daring works attacked them, turning their back on them, and even denying their existence. In all cases, they took a contrary position to these notions, which still meant taking them into account. But contemporary works exist in a completely separate sphere, with a total indifference to their ever having existed. Dada represented the major rupture. In the preceding movements, including Cubism, all the classical criteria were still at play, though in totally anarchic appearances. Order, composition, balance, and rhythm were in keeping with a humanism that was at the point of exhuastion, but which stayed alive because certain routines were still being followed by artists and collectors. Until Dadaism, all "isms" [except for the great German Expressionist movement, the importance of which is just beginning to be suspected] were only superficially revolutionary. They departed from accepted laws in their spectacular sacrilegious denials, but did not go so far as to ignore completely these useless laws.

Everything was put into question following the avalanche of revolutions from Impressionism to Dadaism and Surrealism. We are barely beginning to realize the full significance of this, and to see what extent this questioning has made the epoch in which we live a particularly exciting one. For centuries, if not millennia, evolution could not be perceived for the slowness of its pace, artistic [and ethical-esthetic] problems were of no concern, nothing arose unexpectedly, and one was sure to know the direction one was moving in. Then, the entire system of décor, based on certitudes, collapsed, and the ossified and ossifying false order of the past gave way to a fruitful and exhilarating anarchy that, having gained momentum, is now moving toward a new order, a new system of notions commensurate with our potential. It is unheard-of to know that one is headed toward the unknown [which should always be the case for creators]. In the words of Saint John of the Cross, "To reach the unknown, you must pass through the unknown." Academicism--finished for good, isn't it?

Michel Tapié, Art of Another Kind

[An Exerpt From: Ferrier, Jean-Louis, Director and Yann le Pichon, Walter D. Glanze [English Translation]. Art of Our Century, The Chronicle of Western Art, 1900 to the Present. New York: Prentice-Hall Editions. 1988. p. 495]




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