ne of this summer’s pleasures was visiting, and revisiting ‘In & Out of Amsterdam: Travels in Conceptual Art, 1960-1976’ at MOMA,  an exhibition of ten European and American artists who resided, visited, or passed through Amsterdam during that period and a related show ‘In & Out of Amsterdam; Art & Project Bulletin, 1968-1989’.  The latter was a gift from ‘Art & Projects’ founders Geert van Beijeren and Adriaan van Ravesteijn to MOMA, a collection of the uneasily termed ‘conceptual’ or as John Baldesarri would soon identify it, ‘post-studio’ art.  Curated by Christophe Cherix, MOMA’s Print and Illustrated Books curator, both shows comprise a crash course in an art that remains radical, retaining that sense that it was made six months ago. Admittedly this art is ‘my area’ but I was surprised at how lively, smart, funny, social, and comprehensible the show(s) were, particularly in comparison to the glum ‘Pictures Generation’ uptown at the Met last spring-Warholian decadence cleaned up and put to service as a stepping stone in the 80’s revival of painting.  Finishing New York’s School of Visual Arts in 1973 I was aware that advanced ‘conceptual’, ‘idea’. ‘process’, or ‘body’ art was dependant upon a European audience and collector base for its survival.  My instructors, which included young artists like Bill Beckley, Vito Acconci, and Mel Bochner had begun to show in Italian, French, and German galleries.  In New York very few commercial contexts along with the exception of the emerging, grimy alternative spaces were willing to host project-oriented production of artists coming out of post minimalism.  The house organs for these activities differed as much as the artists they promoted Flash Art (Milan) Avalanche (New York) and Interfunktionen (Cologne).  Students also struggled through the thrillingly pompous ‘Art & Language’ and Joseph Kosuth’s breakaway publication ‘The Fox’.We now regard Art and Project’s program and publications with a respect shared by that other nearby mythic enterprise Antwerp’s Wide White Space, who naturally showed many of the same artists included in ‘In & Out’.  In recent boom times, the activities of these contexts have been fetishized by curators repulsed by the machinery of the market.  Now that the party is somewhat over, these spaces operate as models in their common sense economics, which served to elevate the stationary store over the art supply store and the Xerox copier over the printmaker’s studio. ‘Information’ was still a buzzword standing in for a chosen medium that one ‘worked’ with.   The dissemination of ‘information’ through any means necessary, usually meant the typewriter, the drugstore printed photo, the postcard, or Super-8 motion picture or video if one could finagle it.  Why add to a world of objects when there already too many around? to paraphrase a 1969 statement/mantra by Douglas Huebler.Scholarship of conceptual art forms itself around the list.  Important shows were invariably self documenting; it was an attitude with a built in sense of its own future relevance in the waiting out of history.  Lucy Lippard’s indispensable ‘6 Years; The dematerialization of the art object’(University of California 1973)is testament to this sensibility’s zeal to network and expand beyond the usual art social cliques.  As ‘In and Out’ demonstrates, cheap flights and ‘bridge building’ like-minded individuals aligned, making introductions, putting people up, and including them in them in these modest shows and projects.‘A & P’s bulletin, shown in its sweeping entirety in the museum’s second floor galleries requires a degree of background to appreciate its inclusions and absences.  It is a pure manifestation of the blank page as art space.  Besides the heavy hitters of conceptual art (Lewitt, Weiner, Barry, Wilson, etc) there are many artists that await reconsideration including, the truly unsettling David Askevold, nomadic David Tremlett, and Californian William Leavitt-whose ironic rendering of  ‘average American’ living room décor suggests the LA cool of Ed Ruscha, who along with Bruce Nauman looms over much of what is here.  Al Ruppersberg and Jan Dibbets are the two main mid-60’s ‘bridge builders’, having met Ger Van Elk and Bas Jan Ader at school in LA (Ruppersberg) and young fogies Gilbert & George in London (Dibbets).  Teasing out the personal politics would be an intriguing pursuit for some art historian willing to sift through it all.  Downtown hotshots Kosuth and Mel Bochner are included by, respectively, a print and a few pages in the bulletin, one of which (Bochner’s) is typically supercilious-no team player he.  No Dan Graham, Robert Smithson, Les Levine or ‘body’ artists (Acconci, Oppenheim, Fox, or later Wegman) as promoted by Willoughby Sharp and Liza Bear’s ‘Avalanche’-although all would show continually in Holland throughout the 70’s.  Embedded near the end of the floor to ceiling display are the seeds of this moments eventual passing, the inclusion of several pages by future Trans-Avantgardians Enzo Cucchi, Sandro Chia, and (I believe) Francesco Clemente.  By 1980, young artists in every art capital would be slinging paint instead of addressing postcards.  Outposts like Jaap Reitman’s bookstore in Soho would relegate ‘A & P’s publications along with stacks of the bulletin to a crowded table where a couple of bucks could have purchased history.Although the viewer is presented with much to read, this show surprises in its engagement with the world, living things and real time events-opposite concerns of most ‘Pictures Generation’ artists (Ruppersberg overlaps both shows).  Every work at MOMA, while physically ephemeral feels singular and finished-it is Art, not some byproduct, residue, or souvenir (Buren)-terms applied to usage of mainly photographic documentation to illustrate narratives and as with the work of Dibbets, locate the viewer in relation to some place or thing.  The third floor Special Exhibitions gallery host 10 artists crucial to ‘In and Out’; Bas Jan Ader, Stanley Brouwen Hanne Darboven, Jan Dibbets, Ger Van Elk, Sol Lewitt, Al Ruppersberg, Lawrence Weiner, Gilbert & George, and Charlotte Posenenske.  Posenenske has an intriguing presence in the show, having left the art world shortly after this period and having passed away in 1990.  This spring Peter Freeman Gallery mounted a show of her 60’s sculpture, a hybrid of hard-edge painting and minimal forms.  Also important is the little seen work of Bas Jan Ader-whose oeuvre has attained mythic status.  One of the lone romantics (other than Richard Long ) Ader’s early work is all we have. In one work Ader drifts through LA’s night with a flashlight-a set of black and white prints with hand written text, foreshadowing 70’s ‘narrative’ art.  Ader also rides his bike into a Dutch canal, tumbles from a California roof, and weeps-‘too sad’ to tell us.  There’s a Keatonesque silent film poignancy to all this artist did.  Al Ruppersberg’s deadpan ‘Where’s Al?’ (1970) where a cast of Californian’s ask after the absent artist is documented via instamatic camera and typed out onto note cards thumb tacked to the wall.  Represented by Marian Goodman for many years, Ger van Elk’s zany ‘body language’ forms the letter ‘K’ as in ‘OK’ in several delightful childlike images.  Jan Dibbet’s films and serial images of the flat landscape and stunning light of Holland were a huge influence to me when I first say his work at Sonnabend Gallery here in 1972 (?).  ‘Robin Redbreast’s Territory’ (1970), the documentation of alteration in a community of birds in what I assume was the artists backyard, is a simple poetic idea obsessively carried out and I believe one of the classic works of the period (I own the poster).  Gilbert & George’s absurdly British pamphlets and invitations proffer’s up a Edwardian male couple’s life in art, and like Van Elk, Ruppersberg, and Ader, are genuinely humorous-always an achievement in contemporary art.  The ubiquitous Lawrence Weiner gets the big end of the budget with the construction of a walkway into the third floor galleries developed out of his text piece ‘IN AND OUT, OUT AND IN, AND IN AND OUT, AND OUT AND IN’ (1970).  An interior ramp whose red exterior can only be seen from 54th street features large circular windows (portholes) where museum goers can look OUT while it remains impossible to see IN.  Weiner’s art has always allowed for erotic readings and this piece recalls not only the “old in-out in-out” of Clockwork Orange teen language but may also obliquely refer to that sailor’s friend, the splinter inducing masturbation aid known as a ‘Dutch Wife’.  Nautical themes are consistent throughout Weiner’s work, and I believe the artist still spends a part of the year in Amsterdam on his boat ‘Joma’.Media equipment aside, most of this exhibition could fit into one or several crates.  Miniaturization in art publishing was explored from Duchamp’s valise through the Fluxus movement to Aspen Magazine (1965-71).  As proto-conceptual art Fluxus is particularly relevant to ‘In & Out’, but appears eccentric in comparison to the purposeful design and cool presentation skills of the artists associated with ‘Art and Project’.  An after effect of minimal and earlier ‘hard edge’ painting’ nothing (except for one art noveaux hippie poster in the hallway) ever looks stale or even ‘60’s.  ‘White’ ruled simultaneously as a space, color, and background to the printed language that functioned as materials.  Amsterdam’s laid back (way back) society was already mythic, even to students in the early 70’s like me, notorious for things other than the diffusion of art ideas.  One always knew someone there, or someone who was going to be there when you were, etc. It may be naïve to propose that is lacked the cutthroat territoriality of a New York or Los Angeles.  Besides some amusing period hair, ‘lifestyle’ rarely seeps into the content of the art as it has for today’s current breed of endlessly tolerated art world hipsters.  The documents, maps, graphs, and other data set suggest a cool alternative area of study separate from the trippy delirium of the era.  I can assume that many of those participating in this exhibition partook of whatever refreshment available for purposes of experimentation or to aid in the militant enforcement of leisure.  Several years ago the Pace Wildenstein colossus spent a great deal of time and money establishing a link between early cinema and cubism, acknowledging that the use of hashish, opium, and other stimulants contributed to the jittery shapes of light jumping off the screen and onto the canvases of Picasso, Braque, and Gris.  I do not suggest that every ‘conceptual’ artist was a stoner, but in hearing Robert Barry’s audio piece of floating words, seeing Askevold’s obsessive actions, and imagining Stanley Brouwen’s ghostly figure striding through this ornate cityscape one cannot help to wonder.No-budget media was available to anyone-so why wasn’t this art embraced beyond the 70’s? That question is answered by a quick scan around the galleries; there was very little to actually sell.  An art educator like Baldesarri would, at Cal Arts, turn out literally a picture generation of artists like Barbara Bloom (who would reside in Amsterdam in the 70’s), David Salle, and Matt Mullican, among others who would absorb the lessons of ‘konzept kunst’ but also acknowledged its limited audience.  They would reinvest the object, the image, and construct the installation from the study of contemporary visual culture filtered through the lens of film theory.  While conceptual art looks right for these wavering times, in the 80’s it looked hermetic and a dead end to artists wishing to become upwardly mobile in society.  The ‘conceptual’ field narrowed and these artists survived through academia, loyal gallerists, and sympathetic institutions on the fringe of the main action.  The art market collapse in the late 80’s would provide for a reassessment of these economically frugal practitioners and reacquaint a generation of artists, art writers, and curators to art whose initial audience numbered in the several hundreds but whose influence could never be stronger.  Final point; I cannot find Richard Long’s ‘A & P’ publication ‘From Around A Lake’ anywhere in the show-a masterpiece you can hold in your hands-unlike a Serra.  I’ll go back and look.Tim Maul 8/09

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