THE EDITION ENDLESS

If the ‘matrix’ created by the artist is capable of sustaining prolonged use, at the required level of quality, why shouldn’t the artist make a huge number of copies, thus making the sculpture widely available at affordable prices to all? Although an admirable ambition, this has rarely been achieved. Perhaps the most impressive example of such a limitless or mass-produced work of art were the Disposables of Les Levine (not in exhibition), 1,000s of vacuum-formed plastic sculptures which he produced from 1962 until about 1967.

‘Thousands have sold, and some have thrown them out. They’ve probably been sold to only ten or twelve people who could be considered collectors; this means that many people who have never owned a work of art have gotten involved with the activity of collecting. You see it’s like Keynesian economics: it’s not what you produce that’s so important, but turnover and circulation.’

The ‘Madonnenfigur’ by Katharina Fritsch is another example of the same urge to not close off the ‘matrix’ but to keep it continuously available; an open acceptance that there is no logical reason in this case to close the edition, an action which renders the image inevitable or unstoppable. Levine’s disposables, an action he is continuing in essence with his bill board projects, describe the antithesis of the first edition. Whereas Fritsch offers the image not closed by exclusivity, Levine offers the potential of art which could be sold in a supermarket. Jack Burnham comments:

‘The plastic disposables are a structural paradox, their production and sale as art produce a double bind. They challenge the market mechanisms which restrict the supply of certain art works, making it clear that this restriction is due not to rarity or scarcity, but to economic strategy. Levine thus notes that Noland’s stripe paintings could easily be manufactured like awning fabric with strip frames to match, at virtually no decrease in quality. If this is so, then the perpetuation of high art in the midst of mass-production is nothing short of social hallucination. By signing contracts with department stores for the sale of millions of disposables ($1.25 each), Levine is filling a niche in the ecology of art economics – and in the process may make as much money as Kenneth Noland. Hence Levine, as an artist, sees little use in uniqueness or pseudo-uniqueness, but only in well considered business methods, a juxtaposition of kitsch and high art which brings to mind the methods of Frank Zappa.’

Levine’s disposables do refer to the idea of pseudo-uniqueness, if only because of the reproductive technology used. The ‘matrix’ is potentially capable of sustaining massive replication, yet although the disposables are obviously not Kitsch, Burnham has to refer to Kitsch mass production, even though he qualifies it by reference to the subversive musical creations of Frank Zappa. Why?