Abstract
In May 1969, Charles Harrison reviewed Morris Louis’ exhibition at the Waddington Galleries in London. Months later, he helped to install the exhibition When Attitudes Become Form at the Institute of Contemporary Arts. Harrison also wrote the catalogue text, published in Studio International. Those two texts marked a significant point in Harrison’s career. They were indicative of his disillusionment with modernist criticism, and of his burgeoning interest in the work of post-minimal and conceptual art. In this respect, the two essays mark a transition from modernism to post-modernism in the space between a formalist analysis of the art object and a more dispersed field of artistic practice, where a changed relationship between art practice, criticism, and curating was taking place. However, in the 2000s, Harrison came to reflect upon this cardinal moment. Harrison referred to his recollected experiences of the late 1960s as a ‘cherished moment of involuntary realism’, opening up issues around art writing which remain pertinent to the practice of art history.
Highlights
Morris LouisAs an explanation to the reader, Harrison writes that, to those who might have found it ‘a bit odd to have regarded Louis as a controversial figure in 1969, I can only plead that this was England. . . ’ (Harrison 2009a, p. 128; Melvin 2011, p. 99)
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Between April and May 1969, a twenty-seven-year-old Charles Harrison stood before Morris Louis’ Red Go (1962) at the Waddington Galleries in London
Summary
As an explanation to the reader, Harrison writes that, to those who might have found it ‘a bit odd to have regarded Louis as a controversial figure in 1969, I can only plead that this was England. . . ’ (Harrison 2009a, p. 128; Melvin 2011, p. 99). The young Harrison admired of the criticism in Artforum, and the cogency of the modernist narrative which provided a historical rationale for its development This rationale was accompanied by a compelling set of requirements for the proper apprehension of modernist painting. Drawing on his experience of the artist’s studio, he argued that Louis took great care with the color and placement of his waves and sheaves of paint, and that Robbins had misinterpreted the note left to staff. It did not, Greenberg argued, allow museum staff to determine the picture’s size and shape. Harrison continued, was ‘irrelevant either to [Louis’] intentions or to his procedures’ (Harrison 1969a, p. 190)
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