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31 decembre 1964
Art International
Strada Regina 5
6900 Lugano

[[left margin]] F [[/left margin]]

Dear Ileana,

Sorry you weren't able to come through Lugano, and that we didn't get to Paris-- we flew directly to London from Milano and didn't stop off in Paris either way to see you because we figured you wouldn't be there over the holidays. Only stayed in London about a week but it was pleasant; mad storms everywhere in England but London was clear and dry, if quite cold.

About those things of Gassiot-Talabot: I don't find them so bad. Naturally, I think some of the things he says are misguided or foolish-- but that's true of all critics, and I sympathize with his wish to steer a middle path, which I think he earnestly trying to do. In the past, in this magazine and elsewhere, he has highlypraised American artists. When he criticizes Solomon's catalogue preface and raises his eyebrows over the fact that U.S. representation at Venice overflowed into the former consulate building, and also criticizes Hunter for speaking on the Italian radio during the juryin--I think he is on firm ground. I quite agree that Solomon's remark about U.S supremacy was in bad taste, and infantile as well. I also think that our show in Venice should have been confined to our pavilion. Sure, the pavilion is in adequate; the British and French pavilions are decidedly inadequate too which did not lead the British and French to put pressure on the Biennale authorities through their embassies in Rome (as I know for a fact we did through our Ambassador) to permit them to stage additional exhibition off the Bienne grounds. I think that if one enters a game, one should play it according to the rules observed by all the other players and not demand special favors. It seta very bad precedent, for now every country that feels it could put on a better show if it had more space can reasonable demand the same privilege of the Biennale authorities that was granted to us.

In the number of AI that is about to come out, Gassiot*Talabot criticizes Tapie quite sharply for his remarks about "barbarism"; but he does so from the middle position of one who deplores chauvinism on either side as I do. If I am outraged by the attitudes of Tapie and some other French critics, I am also outraged by the fact that a French artist in New York at present hasn't a Chinaman's chance of getting a good review there, unless his work happens to parallel in some way what New Y ork artists are doing. (For example, a few motnhs back Barbara Rose, in

Transcription Notes:
included typos in the letter