Discovering the Present: Three Decades in Art, Culture and Politics by Harold Rosenberg (review)

78 Books still life painting. The pages on Harnett and Sheeler, as well as the chapter on tronipe-l’oeil, are especially good. The essay, then, may still serve as a general introduction to the beginner and as a general survey of the field to be supplemented by later studies. The Documents of 20th-Century Art: The Tradition of Constructivism. Stephen Bann, ed. Thames & Hudson, London, 1974. 334 pp., illus. Cloth €3.75’. Reviewed by Donald K. McNamee* Bann’s book is an attempt to present Constructivism through the writings of artists primarily within the movement itself. The attempt is a logical outcome of a phenomenon most prominent in the 20th century, that is, the pressure on artists to explain their works in writing and to define their positions in lectures. This is done in self-defence as much as by way of explanation. Thus encouraged, artists also have, many times foolishly, rushed to be counted among those who have taken a courageous or daring step into the non-mimetic (abstract) art of our time. In response, critics have scrambled to define the trends, often derisively or arbitrarily labelling them as they seefit while others have ‘packaged’ history, supposedly to explain the labels. There are dangers inherent in Bann’s attempt. The documentation is inevitably limited to those artists who did explain or define, a group that does not necessarily include even all the important representatives of the movement. Moreover, Bann’s own selection among the documents available provides a further distortion. After the introduction, the documents sketch the work of Gabo, Tatlin, Alexei Can, El Lissitzky, the Congress of International Progressive Artists and the now famous Van Diemen exhibition of 1922. Then follow three sections that give excerpts from some of the Little Magazines (Lef, G, Disk and Blok), introduce van Doesburg, the Bauhaus, the cinema and architecture to the argument, and extend the date to 1932. This is followed by the French Ari Concrete concerns and the English publication Circle, which brings one to 1942. The book ends with eight comments on the period 1948-65 by such persons as Biederman, Vasarely, Lohse, Kenneth Martin and Baljeu and with a selected bibliography. This sampling of Constructivism is offered to students and teachers, as well as to knowledgeable viewers and collectors. The goal of the book is to demonstrate how the term Constructivism ‘arose . . . was extended and perhaps disiorted’ (emphasis mine) but purposely avoids ‘a historical or genetic definition’, in order to weave together ‘broader lines of historical development’ and ‘identifiable movements’, to explain the term’s continued use up to the 1960s. The title is impressive and the aim admirable; it implies a well researched, carefully organized and objective book at least three times the size of this one. However, the limitations imposed by the editor’s methods and selections make it a dangerously misleading guide for students or newcomers to the area; only the very experienced readers may be better equipped to fill in the gaps for themselves. The editor has tried to do too much and this has resulted in an arbitrary selection of material: serious omissions, strange inclusions and several confusions caused both by what is and what is not included. While the 37 reproductions (all in black and white) are good, the introductory chart setting out some artists and publications and two schools, chronologically and by country, is historical distortion ill-presented. It omits Poland and, therefore, the contributions of Strzeminski, Berlewi, Kobro, Stazewski et al. Yet, the work of Ms. Kobro could certainly cause some re-examination of the position of the minimalists and of modern architecture, as well as relate to the mobiles of Kenneth Martin, and Stazewski had an important exhibition in London in 1963 at the Grabowski Gallery. Indeed, only 3& pages (103-6) selected from Blok are devoted to Poland-an English translation of ‘What Constructivism Is’ and a montage, both by Szczuka. There is no mention of the important Polish publications Praesens and a.r. nor of Zwrotnica, Dzwirignia arid Fornia. In the few publications the chart does exhibit, why is prominence given to Stricctiire but The Striicriirisi omitted? The former has ceased to function; the latter, by Bann...