A Report on the Art and Technology Program of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1967–71 by Maurice Tuchman, and: Art and Science by Dolf Rieser, and: Science and Technology in Art Today by Jonathan Benthall, and: Art and the Future by Douglas Davis (review)

80 Bootis process has led modernist painters to accept and exploit painting’s fundamental condition of flatness. But this process has taken time because for centuries painting lay underneath ‘expendable’ baggage, much of it not easily recognized as really unnecessary. Greenberg offers the reader an insight into the inexorable march of history. Whether one agrees with his criteria for modernism or not (and they do appear narrow once one seeks a definition beyond wholly artistic matters), one must acknowledge the value of such concepts as one tries to deal with recent art. Similarly provocative is Greenberg’s observation in a 1957essay that so many artists have gone into decline after a period of twenty years (p. 61). This view of the artist and time was incisively treated by George Kubler in The Shape of Tirm (1962). There are moments in Art orid Ciiltrrre that have survived the years less well. The equation of Russian Socialist Realism with kitsch is based, we now know, on an untenable generality. The essays often fail to provide specific evidence to buttress the author’s statements. But, on the whole, Art arid Ciiltureremains an essential resource for anyone coming to terms with modern-and modernist-art. A Report on the Art and Technology Program of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1967-71. Maurice Tuchman . Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, 1971. 387 pp., illus. Art and Science. Dolf Rieser. Studio Vista, London, 1972. 96 pp., illus. 95p. Science and Technology in Art Today. Jonathan Benthall. Thames & Hudson, London, 1972. 180 pp., illus. f1.50. Art and the Future. Douglas Davis. Thames & Hudson, London, 1973. 208 pp., illus. f6.50. Reviewed by John H. Holloway* These four books all endeavour to draw attention to aspects of the interaction, interdependence and collaboration of science and technology with art in the past and up to the present time. The subject matter and the approaches of the authors differ widely. Tuchman’s book documents the background to the exhibitions he organized at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1971 to show the products of collaborative work between artists with and in some of the larger industrial enterprises in California. The physical scale of the works was extraordinarily impressive and many of the pieces are already well known, like Claes Oldenburg’s giant writhing salmon-pink ice bag, which was designed in collaboration with Gemini G.E.L., and Andy Warhol’s flowers in rain, which was built by Cowles Communications Corporation. The book is certainly the most detailed account of any series of collaborations between industrial concerns and individual artists. The obstacles in implementing such cooperative efforts are abundantly clear. The artists’ subjectivity against the companies’ objective outlook were a frequent source of stress. Many collaborations were short-lived and fruitless, because the artists’ ideas were beyond the scope of the technology available or too costly to research and execute. Some subsided when the industrial enterprise became concerned that insufficient publicity would result. Others failed through the total inability of the artists to come to terms with the technology they were trying to use or to plan with sufficient foresight to permit material progress. The book is a testament to the problems faced by any who seek to involve themselves with the application of new technology to art, especially at the industrial level. The chances of gaining an organic or interactive relationship are very small indeed and both sides in this venture seem to have come away feeling shaken and insecure. Rieser’s book is really four constrained essays on ‘modes of thinking’, ‘visual perception and artistic vision’, ‘art *26 Sherborne Ave., Wigston Magna, Leicester LE8 2GP, England. forms in nature’ and ‘art and the unconscious mind’. They are constrained by the limited amount of space given to each topic and by the author’s unwillingness to voice any radical opinion. The unfortunate outcome is that: (1) interesting points are touched on but not discussed or illustrated (e.g.: ‘Of equal importance has been the impact of modern psychology on scientific thinking, where a widening outlook has led to a deeper comprehension of conceptions of physics’ and ‘ .. .vision is greatly affected by psychological...