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don ' t ass ume tha t he has the same background. We don 't ass ume tha t
he's had the same kind o f unity o r coherence in hi s life.
T umin:
Wh y do you say tha t?
If
you and I go, let's say, if we ta lked fo r
man y years and we ha ve sort o f developed a set of unsta ted, com–
mo nl y shared assumpti on s about some things, and if we go, let's say,
to
a mov ie or we go to a mu seum o r we go to a concert , isn 't it likely
tha t we're going to have man y of the same reacti on s, o r at leas t we
will know wh a t th e o th er on e is likely
to
feel, g iven ou r know ledge o f
each o th er's reactio ns in the pas t?
R osenberg:
Well , you 're making a postul a te which doesn 't exist in the
a rt wo rl d, tha t is, th a t we know each o th er fo r yea rs, th a t we've been
ta lking to each o th er, tha t we have vari ous things in commo n to
begin with th at made us fri end s. We' re now ta lking abo ut a to ta ll y
d ifferent ma tter. We' re talking a bout a fi eld of acti vity call ed art
whi ch has been in vaded by man y things. Let me g ive you some ideas
o f what in vades art. Histo rica ll y, Wes tern art was invaded in th e
nin eteenth century by Chin ese a rt o r by J apanese a rt , subsequentl y
by African art, la ter on by pre-Columbian a rt, by the art of the stree ts
and the backwoods, th a t is to say, by na ive art, by ecclesiastical a rt , by
a ll kinds of elements and styles. Now tha t does no t h appen in any
scien ce. You do no t h ave a tremendous fl ood of phenomena and
concepts tha t are unrela ted to one ano ther makin g their way into th e
center of p h ys ics and decidin g wh a t is va lua bl e in ph ys ics. You have
a continuo us tradition which is o ne of the reasons why science has
man aged to ho ld its line of develo pment mo re or less, and has been
abl e, as they say, to p rogress. In art such a development does no t
exi st. Think of the element o f a li enness tha t enters into works o f a rt
a t an y given moment. Fo r exampl e, ri ght now somethin g new has
been dug up somewhere whi ch n obody has ever seen befo re and is
bein g put on di spl ay in the Eu ropean museums. It's just been
excava ted and now is being p ut on di splay in a big museum and will
undo ubtedl y influ ence arti sts and a rt itself.
Now, how can we enter into such a melange with the idea of a
con sen su s? T o me, thi s is to ta ll y a bsurd . Even if you get two peopl e
who know each o th er, who are sittin g around with th e same a rti sts
fo r h alf their lifetime, you get the most vio lent di sagreement. I'll give
you a concrete examp le. Ba rn ett Tewman had a retrospecti ve a few
yea rs ago fo r whi ch Tom Hess wrote the ca ta log, and he found tha t
Ba rn ell Newman was interested in Hass idism. He interpreted hi s
work in terms o f Hass idi c number rela tion s, and Anna lee Newman ,
who is the widow of Barn ell, was indi gnant a t the way in whi ch
