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Lippard - 10

pertain to the new art?

LL: Frankly, for the most part they haven't "pertained availed" at all; they haven't entertained either, entertained the idea that ideas can be art. They're just beginning to realize they're going to have to treat the new art seriously. Generally, though, the artists are so much more intelligent than the writers on the subject that absence of critical comment hasn't been mourned.

I suppose one of the problems is that there is usually an editor who has a particular idea about what he likes, and what is art, and he isn't that interested in other ideas. And on the other hand, you have something like Time, which is not at all interested in any art and just wants to have a broad coverage of what happens in that ghetto- the art world. If Time and Newsweek were more accurate, they'd probably be better art magazines than the art magazines. The trouble is they simply hand out incorrect and oversimplified information.

As the art becomes more and more experiential, pertaining less to the object and more to pure experience, there seems less and less need for interpretation; and the art's often already translated into words anyway. Immediate criticism, that is, thinking about and looking at the work in the studio and when it's first shown, is tremendously exciting and challenging, but also frustrating. By the time it's published, especially in a book, it's usually out of date, contexts change so fast. When a tendency or "movement" first surfaces, it's important for the critic to note it and note resemblances that might otherwise not have noticed; when it's been around a while the differences are most significant, and distinctions become the critic's job; the third stage is the monograph, a detailed investigation of what the particular artist is about, and why, and how he thinks of his work and how it fits into the rest of art. There will always be a valid art-historical interest in relating what was past to what is present, but certainly very few people share that interest. They want to be told how to look at or experience art and they want value judgements. When I was working at the Museum of Modern Art Library in 1959, people would call up and ask how such-and-such