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would they do with th a t wh en they 've had th a t expe ri ence. I have no
way of knowing tha t You kn ow, I' ve had influence in certa in p laces
and fo r a certain leng th ()f time. I don ' t know wha t comes out of th at.
Very oft en , you know, peopl e say to me, I was very mu ch influ enced
by you , and then I see wha t they're do ing.
Es vehrt mir nit gUll.
How
do you know wha t o ther peop le do with your way of lookin g at
things? Some o f the worst a rt around today is definitely ow ing to my
theori es. No ques tion about it I can ma ke a direct lin e from some of
the works th a t I can leas t stand
to
a concep t. of action pa inting and
vari o us o ther ideas which I have let loose.
T umin:
Well , as we all know, a ll grea t prophets get mi sused and
abused.
R osenberg:
I'm no t sore. It's just tha t you ca n 't tell wha t the log ic of
your ideas is in th e minds of o thers. Wha t wo uld be ni ce, th e thin g
tha t would be des irabl e and tha t LO me woul d be a constituent aspect
of a culture, would be tha t one's ideas should be related LO a cen ter o f
di scussion , so tha t they should be elabo ra ted in different directi on s a t
the moment tha t they appeared. In tha t way, th ey'd co rrect them–
selves in one's own mind, too. But one ch aracteri sti c, as you know, of
our culture is isola ti on . No ma ller how much publi ca ti o n or
publi city you get, o r no ma ller how much you r ideas a re ta lked
abo ut, you ra rely have any genuin e di scu ss io n o f wha t they mean . So
you don 't get th e kind o f co rrec ti on o r ela bora ti on o f you r ideas
whi ch could be useful LO you. T hi s is o ne o f the cha racteri sti cs o f
Ameri can culture.
T umin:
T ha t leads us to two conn ected topi cs-nOl conn ected with
the criti c, but conn ected with th e arti st. Sometimes it's sa id pa inters
o r writers shape the consciousness o f a society. Yo u 're famili a r with
th at kind of sta tement Lo ts of pa inters and writers say, Wh a t th e
hell , we've never had th e sli ghtes t influence on th e conscio usness o f a
society. Is tha t a ques ti on to whi ch you can res pond ? Have there been
times wh en paintin gs and o ther works o f a rt have, in fact, h ad an
impo rtant influence o n th e genera l consciousness of a society? Let's
admit tha t in Christian art, when everythin g else was conjo int, and
there was a homogeneous cultu re .. .
R osen berg:
Well , then , you can ' t ta lk abo ut influence. T hey're pa rt o f
the same thing.
Tumin:
But h ave you seen occasion s when pa intin g has a lt ered
consciousness in impo rtant direction s?
Rosenberg:
Impo rtant directions is the stumbling bl ock in tha t ques–
tion , because there's no doubt tha t, fo r exampl e, in the rea lm o f
