The Essential New Art Examiner

The Tradition

J ane A llen and D erek G uthrie The Tradition February 1975 The bulk of this article was printed in Studio International in December, 1973. An introduction has been added and some internal changes have been made to bring it up to date. What happened to the “new regionalism” which seemed in 1973 to be the ground swell of the future? At that time critics and artists vied with each other in pouring scorn on internationalist, formalist New York art. It was a time for true grit, corn pone, anti intellectualism, nostalgia, ecology and a-political funk—a time of cozy artists’ get-togethers where outsiders were treated with deliberate rudeness. William Wiley was number one hero and Jim Nutt the heir presumptive. When Chicago imagists were selected to represent the United States at the prestigious Sao Paolo Bienal, art observers here expected the international exhibition to be a springboard to future triumphs for our home-grown school. Now a scant two years later, Chicago critics Franz Schulze and Alan Artner unhesitatingly label “Made in Chicago” the returned Sao Paolo show “final flowering” or “last gasp” according to their respective points of view. But both consign the Imagist movement per se to an early grave. What happened? The exhibition’s notices abroad and in Washington were restrained but not that bad. The artists for the most part are still in their early thirties with their best work still ahead of them. Our best guess is that the profound changes that have occurred in the world and national political situation have radically undermined the J A N E A L L E N A N D D E R E K G U T H R I E    The Tradition   25 premises of Chicago funk art. It was a kind of art that flourished in the repressive atmosphere typical of the Nixon era. In the late 1960s and early ’70s the key phrase was “doing your own thing” regardless of larger issues and there was a deep seated distrust of missionary zeal. Immediacies of time and place seemed infinitely more important than formal principles. In the wake of Watergate and the world oil crisis, how remote that era now seems. Such an isolationist, inward turned position is no longer even possible, let alone desirable. There is a post-Watergate revulsion against hidden values and closet activities that extends even to art. For this reason it is unlikely that any younger artists will elect to follow the lead of the Hairy Who? and post-Hairy Who? artists. Their achievement stands, but the spirit that animated their activity has disappeared. It has now become history to be analyzed and evaluated. One interpretation of the Chicago choice for Sao Paolo was that the National Collection of Fine Arts, the Smithsonian agency charged with the task of organizing U.S. overseas exhibitions, took to heart John Canaday ’s suggestion that the agency tailor overseas shows to their foreign locale. For a number of reasons the choice of Chicago artists for the Brazilian exhibition seemed an apt one. Sao Paolo, a sprawling industrial city, has been called, the “Chicago of South America,” and by coincidence is Chicago’s “sister city” in the Partnership for the Americas program. Like Chicago it is a tough bourgeois town of unlimited cultural ambition combined with an ambivalent attitude towards its resident artists. According to its first catalogue: the Bienal, founded in 1951 by one of the city’s major industrialists, “Ciccillo” Matarazzo, was designed “. . . to place Brazil modern art not just in a mere confrontation, but in a lively contact with the art of the rest of the world, while at the same time an attempt would be made to conquer for Sao Paolo the position of a world art center.” The first task was carried out successfully. Brilliant exhibitions in early Bienals of such artists as Picasso, Moore, Chagall, Calder, Pollock and Morandi attracted visitors from all over the world. Important developments in contemporary art appeared in Sao Paolo quickly after their inception so that native artists had firsthand knowledge of current art trends. Yet in spite of this exposure to contemporary art, no Brazilian artist to date has achieved a sizeable international reputation and Sao Paolo remains very much of a provincial center. Observers have noted that the most enthusiastic response of Sao Paolo art patrons is still given to Brazilian naives who characteristically remain indifferent to international trends. [18.223.32.230] Project MUSE (2024-04...