PART EIGHTPERCEPTION & CONCEPTION,
CRITICS, WORDS & SEEING. Betty Soarre: In your artist's statement for your 1989 show at the Burlington Cultural Centre, you emphasized the difference between a "conceptual" and "perceptual" approach to art. Perception is more important to you than conception? Robert Yates: Certainly in viewing art, yes. The description of another person's experience of a work, or an explanation of what it means and what you should be thinking or feeling, this is secondary to direct perception. B.S.: Kate Taylor in her review of your Burlington show expressed what I am feeling now, that it is inhibiting for a commentator on the arts to talk about art when the artist thinks talking gets in the way of seeing. R.Y.: It seems to me she spent a good portion of her review talking about my artist's statement, so I suppose I defeated my own purpose by making a statement. Attacking the use of words puts a severe limitation on a critic, so I admit that was kind of dumb of me. But I was thinking of the viewer not the reviewer when I wrote it. Not everyone likes or even sees the same thing, since we tend to see things through our own preconceived notions, through our own veil of words and images. B.S.: You can't be too much against words. You write and are a published author. R.Y.: But we are talking about the visual arts. We are talking about seeing. It is true we are not in the act of looking at art. Reading reviews is quite different from looking at art. So is talking about art. Words must not be confused with the visual art itself. B.S.: Do what critics say of your work influence you? Does it matter to you what they say? R.Y.: My first one man show — it was in 1975, paintings at the Hamilton Artists' Inc. — in many ways it was my most important show personally, as far as my little growing ego was concerned. I had the most emotional involvement or self-consciousness and stage fright. Here I was, a young man on the verge of being discovered as a great Canadian artist. The critics had nothing to say. The show went unreviewed. That was the critic's statement that I felt most deeply, and it was, in the long run, most influential. It wasn't obvious to me at the time, but it was for the good. B.S.: But you do want your shows reviewed, critiqued and talked about, don't you? R.Y.: Another fairly recent solo show was in Saint Paul's Anglican church. It was the best looking installation for a formal show I've ever had. I felt my work and the sacred setting mutually complimented each other. That show was also unreviewed, but it didn't matter in the least to me. It's an exhibition I feel very good about. I would rather my work spoke privately and directly to individuals than to be talked about publicly and remain unfelt. The show from which I got the most feed-back from the "art world" was the one that John Bentley Mays reviewed, and I attribute that directly to the review. The Globe and Mail is considered national coverage. There were even requests to the gallery from afar to forward catalogues to the show. But there were no catalogues. I didn't even write an artist's statement for that show. And quite a few people more than usual, including fellow artists, talked to me, not so much about the show as about the review of the show. I got more of an idea of Mays' influence as an "important" critic than my growing reputation as an "important" artist. People can be quite impressed by newspaper reviews and the public recognition you receive. I think it has directly to do with a preference for conception over perception. We like to talk, don't we? B.S.: Don't you think the average person needs an explanation of art, or to hear the more complete understanding of someone who has studied art and become sensitive to it and all the issues? R.Y.: All talk and theories about art or the idea of beauty are not art or beauty. They are words and belong in the realm of opinion. They may interest me but they don't concern me. They have nothing to do with the experience of beauty or art. Beauty, like truth and love, is of the present, that is, it is eternal — which is to say, it is not of time. Beauty, truth, love and art must be discovered moment by moment. There is no saving this experience. There can be no accumulation. It is like breathing and your breath. It is the essence of living. A recollection of truth and love or beauty is not truth and love or beauty. It is just words hoping to remind us of truth and love or beauty. The past and the future are meaningless to the living experience of beauty. Now is the only time when looking at art. B.S.: Many people have trouble looking at art. Can they learn to see? R.Y.: Anyone who claims to be an authority can only lead people astray because there is no method to learn. Anyone who wants to lay down the law in these matters, or any matters, should be distrusted. Or at least, they must not be unquestioningly believed, because it is you who must see these things for yourself. You must see it, and your opinions are of no consequence, not to mention your theories. When you realize this, you are free from all authority and free from the dictates of culture, tradition, history, from all narrow belief systems that divide life into little zooish cages, each with antlers and quills of conflict which they carry around with them to ward off the whole. It is the nature of the fragment to deny the whole. Everything outside this cage is behind bars. All you have to do is see. See this and you are free from all suppositions and theories. All you have to do is see. You must see that your theories, your nationality, your loyalty to race, culture and traditions lock you into a corner of existence, into a fragment of the whole. They exclude you from there, and them from here. Theories theoretically are to help you understand. But the art world would have us looking — not through our eyes — but through theories and personalities, which only rob you of direct experience. Seeing is understanding. You must see that. Seeing what is is all important. And seeing is an act of love. And with love there is no time, no space, no conflict — just direct perception. No chattering theories, no hierarchy, no comparison — all that is necessary is a quiet mind. Why should we agree or disagree? That's nothing but potential conflict and is unnecessary when we see what is. What is: it is. Our opinions don't enter into it. When they do, we introduce conflict and potential violence. Seeing without dogmatic opinions and preconceived images is sensitivity, it is holistic, it is virtuous, it is doing what needs to be done. Nothing more is required. See, and you have accomplished everything. |
PART ONE
Making Art; For Whom & Why PART TWO The Artist, Childhood Influence, Family & Other Artists. PART THREE Education, Relationship to Nature, Artistic Making, Trail Signs. PART FOUR Further Influences & Education, Signatures & Definition Problems. PART FIVE High Art & Folk Art, Snobbery, Colonialism, Roots, Nationalism, Canada. PART SIX Culture, Tradition, Ancestry, The Importance of Art. PART SEVEN The Art World, Hierarchies, Comparisons, Juried Shows & Fashions. PART EIGHT Perception & Conception, Critics, Words & Seeing. PART NINE Art, Beauty, Meaning, Opinions, Judgement. |