1960s, A Tumultuous Time

 

In giving more thought to the mechanism of an art movement and the factionist artists in search of the truth, free from the pollution of making art for the purpose of compulsion.  “War” was not only in Viet Nam but a war on ideas was taking place all over the world. 

In 1966, The Guardian (Friday, September 9, 1966) writes, “Art is ripe for destruction.”  The article is an exposé in brief on the activities of some very radical artists in over 10 countries, all asking the question, why shouldn’t an artist affront us to make us see what he wants us to see?  “The destroyers” as they are dubbed the fashion of the English lingo, obliterate words, burn books and cut out odd words of dictionaries and paste them up “haywire.”  Tearing books apart and shuffling the pages and rewriting the narrative in surprising ways. 

Yet, it is meaningful.

Below is an example of the thesis of the international artist group, Destruction In Art:

Program for program-painting announces the 10 premises ordered as re-destruction of art:

1.       The re-destruction of the vertical stripe and the horizontal band in art

2.       The re-dissolution of the line and edge, color and contrast in art

3.       The re-obliteration of the texture and brushwork in art

4.       The re-abrogation of the asymmetry composition in art

5.       The re-annihilation of the scrub and smear in art

6.       The re-demolition of the shape, fi - - and sign in art

7.       The re-negation of stylization, spontaneity in art

8.       The re-nullification of subject and reaction in art

9.       The re-extermination of neo- existentialism and neo-pop in art

10.   The re-devastation of meaning, ---ity and rusticity in art

 -          Adolph Frederick "Ad" Reinhart, Statement for DIAS, May 1966, New York

Sounds a lot like the early thoughts about a manifesto on concrete poetry.  Not just a conveniently wrapped leather-bound tomb with a locking clasp containing the tenants of a new movement in art. 

Artists were being arrested in Amsterdam for causing riots.  Creating art that was seen as a close relationship between art forms using aggressive and actual destruction of material.  In truth, it was a reflection of the social reality of that time. 

Under The Ground 1989 [detail]

A press release quotes “The cataclysmic increase in world destructive potential since 1945 is inextricabl[y] linked with the most disturbing tendencies in modern art, and the proliferation of programmes of research into aggression and destruction in society. “  - May 1966 DIAS (Destruction In Art Symposium)

Artists, from around the world, including Carl Fernbach-Flarsheim, submitted to the exhibition in London to share documentation, art and other material in a concentrated influx of work since the surrealist movement in the thirties.  The conceptual distinction described by DIAS as the destructive technique of art, was hailed as a world-wide activity, although it was little understood by the established art world of the day. 

Yet the participants who contributed to the symposium saw a need for maintaining contact.  The institute of Direct Art in Vienna and Group ZAJ of Madrid were two mentioned institutions that felt strongly about the newly emerging direction. And as a counter-point, the youth of the day sang along with Dylan, “Blowing in the Wind.”  A need for change had come, and all were reaching out.

Yet, world view perception of concrete art wasn’t always about destruction and radical societal change, I found a wonderful letter from Dom Sylvester Houedard, a Benedictine of Prinknash Abbey in Gloucestershire, England, who wrote Carl in 1964 concerning the need to reach out to other artists.  It’s a wonderful odyssey in history of what Houedard called “typewriter art” and he suggests his view of the birth pinning of concrete poetry.

Houedard discussed Dadaism and Futurism as ancestors of concrete poetry.  His thoughts on kinetic art was in forms of folded paper with words on them. “Visual and Audio Concrete would soon follow,” he said.  He would call it “Concrete Prose.”  In the letter, he described his work, “Frog, Pond, Plop” as “kinetic movement in folded origami-like paper with the words wrapped around the edge so one could read it alternately inside and out.”

There was no talk about aggression or destruction of art but the anticipation of a forward momentum in terms of other artists who brought their own ideas and meaning, who contributed to the vibrancy of the art.  Yet, in the examples of Houedard’s understanding of concrete poetry, one can’t help but conclude that his vision was altogether different than the fiery manifestos of Pounds and others.

For the moment, imagine an artist coming from a background of family destruction from a bitter world war that left world-wide change.  Idealism and that the nature of the human mind would like to build on was now without dissemination.  The conclusion that the solid structure of society and the foundations relied on to make a life filled with evidence of good outcomes, now being faced with a strikingly new conclusion.  Carl called it “the lie.”

Life was now change.  All was not as easily explained as Euclidian philosophy. Perception was a slippery slope.  That was the world Carl Fernbach-Flarsheim found himself. With the necessity to explain publically, and call to consciousness, his evidence.

In Carl’s world view, the supports of typical recognized art, art as compulsion, was a form of pollution.  Art needed to return to the spirit of the truth.  Art must break free from the chains of contrived poetry and imagery and manifesto.  The pursuit in understanding re-destruction in art and the full nature of what this looked like would be enough for any one lifetime.  It was with a profound desire to expose this and to be understood that he attacked his new direction in art.

Yet, as with any newly formed direction of modern art, it was the least understood by the art dealer whose desire was to sell the art.  It was no wonder that Carl felt misunderstood, yet the desire to explain the concepts he envisioned continued.  He felt deeply involved with the experimental scores that he produced as the “interweaving of cosmic patterns with the human voice.”

In my opinion, this is enough to humble any human being, emerging from that time to offer the ideas of a new time, one filled with an understanding of unity and judgement based on the human substance of life.  He pursued the hypobolic of the Kototama philosophy and as his understanding grew, so did the formation of his new aesthetic mixture of the human voice and sound. 

With this new manifestation of form, color, and line in his art, he began to describe, solidify and produce wild forms of imagery.  Imagery that slipped away from the conventional sense of order into something that no longer needed to be destroyed, or fought about or to be protected by national pride.  

In his essay, “Apocalypse” (10/27/1979) he writes, “Brothers, together we bring forth what has been for all to hear.  Too all of them in whom we confide our inside feelings, to whom we give the inherited outside temple of our being; to them there is no such temple given but from the outside.