554
PARTISAN REVIEW
Tumin:
You don 't get locked up , you don't get penalized, and increas–
ingl y every day greater and newer varities of behavior are accepted as
part and parcel of reasonabl e public behavior, however distasteful
you may find them.
Rosenberg:
And your question is, is this good for an?
Tumin:
Well, I'm saying, isn 't that a correct characterizat ion of our
society, and, if it is, is it or is it not good for a rt?
Rosenberg:
There's no doubt that th e way things are is the only thing
that we know of that 's good for art. We cannot conceive, without
entering into a destructive utopianism, of better situations for art
than the one that exists.
Tumin:
You mean at any time?
Rosen berg:
No, now.
Tumin:
You mean , is that true of anybody in any society a t any time?
Rosenberg:
No.
Tumin:
You're now making a judgment about all hi stori cal periods
and saying this is really the riches t?
Rosen berg:
Not the riches t, it's the only thing we can do. This is a
predicament. This isn ' t a situation that we have chosen. But there
can't be a better one that we can think of. We tri ed that in the thirti es.
We tri ed to conceive of a better situation, and people became
involved, as you know, with all these organizations and with social
expectations. It was no damn good for art. The only thing we can
think of that would be good for art is intensifi ca tion and deepening
of indi vidual experience.
Tumin:
Which means, also, freedom. More and more freedom.
Rosenberg:
Yes, we can't think of a sin gle thing that would benefit art
today except
to
be more ourselves, more affirmative.
Tumin:
Are you being ironic, though , when you say that?
Rosenberg:
No.
Tumi"n:
You say we can't think anymore.
It
sounds like, how pitiful
our imaginations are that we can't think of anything more than that.
Rosenberg:
That's the limit of my imagination anyway, and I've been
watching this game for a long time, and I haven 't seen a single idea
that has come forward that wasn't worse than the idea that art
depends on individuals. That is, all the modern art that I know of
does that.
Tumin:
And who wil l have the freedom and the resources with which
to
try to express themselves?
Rosenberg:
That's right. We don't know how to promote freedom. It 's
a subjective matter. Peop le have to seize freedom. We know all about
