ONE of the most arresting developments in the fine arts since the Second War must be the championing of self-consciously 'modern art by the institutions of the ruling class.
In Britain, the Arts Council, the British Council. the Tate. Hayward and Bond Street galleries have all done WicH Slial c abstract, minimalist, pop and conceptual art all styles which have been defended on the grounds that they challenge overthrow established tions.
In America the pattern Is even more striking. in the JUs absiracl expressionism became the patronage.
Rockefellers and considerable the CIA, assiance rol was promoted all over the world as a triumph of modern American culuc To the Cold War ideologues 'modern' art served as example of the freedom enjoyed by Western all Anti-witchcraft figure artists in contrast to the blatant ideological subservience the arts in the Union.
Peter Fuller argues in his book* that Western counterpart ncial soviet art is nol lo De found in the work of the 'fine all protessionals ubiquitous imagery of what calls the tradition of capitalism - advertising.
Through its use of technology of reproduction and transmission, permeates society with its lies to an extent state-supportec Soviet Union, lies, does not.
As this tradition has come to occupy a more and more central culture, the fine arts occone marginalised. They beyond historical very much as the the The opened TV Lullai because good savages had CIVilIse.
trading Coast century Other Church has survived its era and, Soviet resort more and more to the devices of the world which has rejected them — pop art is the real the obvious example.
to ofnur socie ne arass are given the freedom, and in some cases ine micals almost anything they like ano call it art. "mega-visual' iney work. lo wnom is tel monopoly work addressed?
As Fuller the freedom of the artist in the West is built upon the absence of the one freedom without which the others that even the ingless, the freedom of socially. with its own Now, tion and the arts and increas ingly the government, this freedom is gradually being exposed as the illusion it always was. have acutely aware of the crisis in SuI VIVC the fine art tradition and have Christian Cla responded in diverse ways. Inlike the Church, they Conercice particularly decade. feature. Response to do Yet this experiments But to what end do public points out, the bourgeois press (as it ty. al call to act criticism, with cuts in educadirect interference by Of course many artists are and drawing I nrougnour terviews, Fuller deed, the sheer variety and inof the art scene the ovcl timeless reference proliferation meets with little At times this indifference can be necessarily orchestrated, when it suits the did the case of the Tate 'Bricks'), the two into outright philistine hostili- images of idealist Fuller opposes this kind of just as he opposes attacks on the arts. But he argues that artists sion through have opened the door to unis painting, kind of reaction by their own rejection of the material bases sculptule of the fine art tradition, the practices of painting, sculpthis collec- of late tion of essays, reviews and inpolemicises on two fronts. On the one the hand he attacks the bourgeois formalists for whom the art object contains within itself a value bearing no the outside On the other he disputes with the left avant-garde who object altogether and believe that it expresses the In the end, Fuller presents position. each other, both reductions of art which denigrate the creative subject and the possibility of its social expres Ine skills of drawing and Fuller does not advocate a return to the conventions 19th century naturalism protests against the emptiness modernism in the name of the great promise held out by modernists of the Executioner with victim's head In conjunction with the exhibition, a book on the Asante has been written by M D McLeod. keeper of the Museum of Mankind, which tremely informative and simply written Guortunate the subject matter has been treated in a most timid and conventional way by publishers, with ap palling misuse photographs and is expensive along with it.
Among the themes is the social structures of the Asante. For example: 'The system of Asante, to a large extent based on the matrilineal group, produceu a varie ty of residential patterns.
These constantly shifted and altered "Early in a marriage man and wife might cohabit but the wife could also spend a great deal of time her mothers and sisters in Shel matrilineal house, travelling to trade or husband on WIls their farm.
'Children might live a while with their fathers mothers' brother whom they could eventually inherit property, rights and duties.
Socialist Challenge early part of the century such as Cezanne, Picasso, and the revolutionary artists or ine Soviet Union painting, sculpture and are historically phenomena and have acted as carriers tainted ideology But that does not make them the same as that ideology or necessarily bound Through them the imagination can be brought to bear upon the real world and the elements of that world can be transformed into a new unity, not merely reshuffled or ignored altogether as in so much contemporary art It is because these practices afford material base, , something deeper than passing laeologies. that art, CVCIl in the bosom of bourgeois culture. can stand against that culture. As Trotsaid SOUl CHIE Stalinist art of the '30s. 'Art can become a stong ally of the revolution only insofar as it remains faithful to itself. *Beyond the Crisis in Art by Peter Fuller is published by Writer and Publishing Cooperative. Price t5.95 But there are ques tions raised by exhibitions like Asante.
Should national treasures be returned to their country of origin? Everyone knows that the British Museum is jamm. ed full of things stolen countries all over the British Army imposed its Will Those who believe that Britain has no moral right retain them would be hand them over to some ot the regimes that exist today There are warehouses full of the centuries of human skil navellioli Ninety per cent of it is seen by no one but academics, and it often uncatalogued and uncared for What is needed is the preservation and display of historical artifacts in the context of their society so that more people can benefit knowledge of the past. Asante: Kingdom of Gold is at the Museum of Mankind Burlington Gardens, London W1 Admission is free • 6. The 10-5 Sundays 2.30-6.
Asante by M D McLeod published Museum Publications. Price £12.95 26 February 1981 , Page 11