Saving Abstraction by Dohoney Ryan;

Author:Dohoney, Ryan; [Dohoney, Ryan;]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780190948573
Publisher: OxfordUP
Published: 2019-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

[I]t is the very beauty of religious art which transforms religious and other-worldly contents and concerns into tangible worldly realities; in this sense all art is secular, and the distinction of religious art is merely that it “secularizes”—reifies and transforms into an “objective,” tangible, worldly presence—what had existed before outside the world.

hannah arendt, “The Crisis in Culture”1

3

Shaken into Seeing and Hearing

“Anyone who can do that I have to know”

Morton Feldman had good reason to be anxious in 1966, the year he met the de Menils. His community of artists and musicians had dispersed. Death had claimed more than a few of his friends and the glory days of the 1950s had long since waned. Jackson Pollock and Franz Kline were dead and by summer’s end Frank O’Hara would be too. John Cage and David Tudor had moved to Stony Point and were often on tour with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. Earle Brown lived an itinerant life as a recording engineer, conductor, and composer in Western Europe. Christian Wolff taught classics in Cambridge, MA and, later, Hanover, NH. Willem de Kooning rarely came in from the Hamptons.2 Feldman’s closest friend, Philip Guston, decamped to Florida and then to Woodstock, NY—though he made occasional appearances at the New York Studio School. There, he and his old friend waxed nostalgic and talked Kierkegaard to the slightly confused delight of the students.3 Mark Rothko remained and he and Feldman spent more and more time together, especially during his years of work on the Chapel paintings.

Feldman had been “doing pretty well as the boss’ son” at a children’s coat factory but by the mid-1960s the city’s garment industry had begun to buckle under the pressure of a globalized labor market and low-cost alternatives to US-made clothing.4 He reported his situation to Cage in late March of 1966: “The business went kaput, and now I’m blessed with total insecurity. The Guggenheim came just in time—but must line up a lecture tour for the Fall and Winter. If this doesn’t work, then goodbye to the old U.S.A. and [I] will probably settle in England.”5 As is obvious in the letter, such insecurity wasn’t total. The award of a Guggenheim fellowship saved the day and affected a change in his professional status. For the first time in his life, he was a full-time composer. With the funds from the Guggenheim, he made his first trip to Europe, going to the UK and France. Feldman was well received on his tour of Great Britain, which was planned in collaboration with musicologist Wilfred Mellers.6 Mellers helped Feldman secure a number of lectures and concerts across the UK in 1966, including a program on the BBC’s “New Music” series in April of that year. Though his music had long been played in Western Europe, 1966 marked Feldman’s first time abroad. It was an annus mirabulus. He gained the patronage of a major foundation, was able to focus on his musical endeavors full time, and broadened his audiences with major tours not only in Europe but also at home.

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