MELVIN M. TUMIN
543
T umin:
But each doma in is outside of every o ther domain .
Rosenberg:
But thi s on e is outside of domains in general. In o ther
words, if you make a psycho logical ana lys is and write it down and
print it in a book o r an articl e, it is recognizable as psychol ogy. But if
you make a psychological sta tement tha t has no reference to known
con cepts in psycho logy and is hardl y identifi able even as psychol–
ogy, you may h ang it in an art ga ll ery as a conceptual work of art. All
I'm say ing is tha t art is ultima tely in the socia l-hi stori cal doma in
and, if society h as decided to accept o th erw ise indefinabl e activiti es
as work s of art, it's poin tless fo r you to say, " Society is wrong, art is
rea ll y like
this"
-unl ess you set up the o ld academic " realm of the
beautiful. " When the rea lm o f the beautiful coll apsed, and the realm
o f th e beautiful , of course, is rela ted to o ther idea l realms, and art
became a positi visti c set of phenomena, you could no t es tabli sh an y
set of criteri a excep t th e ones you es tabli sh on the bas is of your own
experi en ce and which you enfo rce by the strength of your own
rh etori c. T ha t is to say, a rt has become to tall y polemi ca l. I was
defea ted in the sixti es by the overr iding power of the publi c relation s
of wha t I cons ider to be terribl e art. T here was nothing I could do
abo ut it. I wrote on e p iece say ing tha t criti cism used to come before
the wor k was accepted by society, but tha t now criti cism comes when
works are a lready beyond d ispute. Yo u can keep on repeating over
and over aga in th a t X (I don ' t want to menti on any names in this
context ) is no t even an a rti st. He doesn 't even use a medium. H e' s a
g uy who is an arti st in sofar as he's known to be an arti st.
Tumin:
If
two o th er peopl e ca ll him an arti st, he's an a rti st?
R osenberg:
No, it's like the p h rase, he's famous for bein g famou s.
T hi s arti st is famous fo r bein g a famou s a rti st. When you look a t hi s
work there's no thing there. But he's famous fo r being a famous
a rti st. H e will appear in vari o us shows, inev itabl y. He belon gs to the
hi story o f th e decade and hi s "work" can brin g a ll sorts of fancy
pr ices from co ll ecto rs and become a stapl e part of the museums. Now
wh at am I going to do a bout tha t?
Tumin:
You woul d have something to say a bout why he's no longer
an a rti st, wouldn 't you ?
Rosenberg:
I've sa id it and it's produced no effect wha tsoever, except to
bring denunc ia ti on s. I kn ow wh y he's no t an arti st and I know a lso
wh y he's successful as a non-a rti st. T ha t's mo re impo rtant because
tha t's socio logica l.
T umin:
In your arti cle on J asper Johns you sa id , " Reacting to
pa inting as a socia l realit y, John s and o ther pos t-Abstract Expres-
