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OF RAUSCHENBERG, POLICY AND REPRESENTATION AT THE VANCOUVER ART GALLERY: A PARTIAL HISTORY 1966 - 1983 By JOHN STEVEN HARRIS B.A., The University of British Columbia, 1980 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES (Department of Fine Arts) We accept this thesis as conforming to the required standard THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA October 1985 0 John Steven Harris, 1985 In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of British Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make it freely available for reference and study. I further agree that permission for extensive copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the head of my department or by his or her representatives. It is understood that copying or publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. Department of T~ ><^.e- The University of British Columbia 1956 Main Mall Vancouver, Canada V6T 1Y3 / Date tCO^Ue^^n^ ABSTRACT My thesis examines the policy of the Vancouver Art Gallery (VAG) as it affected the representation of art in its community in the 1960s and '70s. It was begun in order to understand what determined the changes in policy as they were experienced during this period, which saw an enormous expansion in the activities of the Gallery. To some extent the expansion was realized by means of increased cultural expenditure by the federal government, but this only made programmes possible, it did not carry them out. During the 1960s the Vancouver Art Gallery gained a measure of international recognition for its innovative programming, which depended to a degree on the redefinition of its relationship to the local, whether that signified its traditional patronage, Vancouver artists or the "man in the street". VAG's new outreach programme was not unique, but it was contemporary with developments in other locations. Given the popular and critical success of his policy, VAG director Tony Emery pushed it to the relative exclusion of the more traditional type of gallery programme, in this manner angering VAG's "more conservative" audience. With the first indications of a fiscal crisis in the 1970s, the government began reining in public expenditure, including that on the arts. There was first a freeze on funding to the larger arts institutions, which by now included the Gallery, and then the slow withering of govern• ment support. VAG's experiments in programming, which had been made possible through this support, became expendable, and there was soon a re-orientation towards more traditional programmes, accompanied by another redefinition of the Gallery's audience. The Gallery's structure, policy and programme were gradually transformed to fit an increasingly corporate model or paradigm in order to secure the extra funds it needed to remain solvent. A crucial aspect of this change was the plan to move the Gallery into larger quarters, which would be more attractive to donors and collectors, and which would allow prestigious exhibitions to be brought into the city. The thesis undertakes to examine the vagaries of Gallery policy with the aid of the current literature on museums and government cultural policy, and with government and Gallery documents. The other major section examines the formation of the reputation of Robert Rauschenberg, as it bears on the reception of a group of his works exhibited at VAG in 1978. Rauschenberg was an artist in frequent contact with Vancouver through exhibitions of his work at a private gallery, and the consolidation of his reputation following the 1976 retrospective of his work by the Smithsonian made his work apt for the promotion of VAG. Rauschenberg's use-value for VAG depends on a particular reading of his work which had become generalized after 1963, and reinforced in 1976, which was appropriate to the new Gallery role promoted by VAG's paladins. This interpretation, which was developed by Alan Solomon in 1963, fixed Rauschenberg's works as celebrations of a way of looking at one's environ• ment and of what was looked at. Solomon's reading became the accepted one, but by an examination of the reception of Rauschenberg's art prior to 1963, and by an analysis of two of his works, I argue that it is neither the only possibility nor even the most accurate one. In the 1970s, critics conflated Rauschenberg's earlier and later work within the context of Solomon's interpretation, which has hardly been expanded upon. They have usually tried to establish an identity of the earlier and later work, based upon Solomon's reading, where I am trying to establish their difference. An analysis of two of the works which appeared in the 1978 Works from Captiva exhibition at VAG indicates the differences with the earlier work and the susceptibility of their iconography to the new role the Gallery was attempting to promote. V TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT ii LIST OF FIGURES vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS vii INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER 1. WHAT'S IN A NAME? RAUSCHENBERG AT THE VAG 7 Rauschenberg's First Comeback 8 The History of Rauschenberg's Reputation: From Ironist to Patriot 14 A Closing Circle 32 Retrieval in the Seventies 34 Rauschenberg in Vancouver 40 Illustrations 52 CHAPTER 2. THE VANCOUVER ART GALLERY 1966-74: SUCCESS AND FAILURE 65 CHAPTER 3. THE VANCOUVER ART GALLERY 1975-83: "SUCCESS" 113 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 143 VI LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 1 Castelli Small Turtle Bowl ("Cardboard"), 1971 Leo Castelli Gallery (photo: Smithsonian Institution) 52 2 1/2 GALS/AAPCO ("Cardboard"), 1971 Collection the artist (photo: Smithsonian Institution) 53 3 Studies for Currents #27, 1970 Collection the artist (photo: Staatliche Kunsthalle, Berlin) 54 4 Rebus, 1955 Mr. & Mrs. Victor Ganz, New York (photo: Smithsonian Institution) 55 5 Canyon, 1959 Anonymous collection, Paris (photo: Harry N. Abrams, New York) 56 6 Crocus, 1962 Leo Castelli Gallery (photo: Smithsonian Institution) 57 7 Monogram, 1955-59 Moderna Museet, Stockholm (photo: Harry N. Abrams, New York) 58 8 Contemporanea ("Early Egyptian Series"), 1973 Leo Castelli Gallery (photo: Staatliche Kunsthalle, Berlin) 59 9 Sybil ("Hoarfrost"), 1974 Collection the artist (photo: Smithsonian Institution) 60 10 Time cover (29 November 1976) (photo: Time) 61 11 Golden Grebe ("Scale"), 1978 Collection the artist (photo: Vancouver Art Gallery) 62 12 Solar Tribune Jr. ("Spread"), 1978 Collection the artist (photo: Vancouver Art Gallery) 63 13 Gift for Apollo, 1959 Dr. Giuseppe Panza, Milan (photo: Harry N. Abrams, New York) 64 The end of cultural history manifests itself on two opposite sides: the project of its supersession in total history, and the organization of its preser• vation as a dead object in spectacular contem• plation. One of these movements has linked its fate to social critique, the other to the defense of class power. - Guy Debord, Society of the Spectacle Special thanks to Ann Rosenberg, with whom I first talked over this project, to Nora Blair and to Linda Harris For all of my enemies INTRODUCTION Probably no more useless public institution, useless relatively to its cost, was ever devised than that popular ideal, the classical building of a museum of art, filled with rare and costly objects. - John Cotton Dana, A Plan for a New Museum, 1920 I offer here an analysis and a critique of the policies of the Vancouver Art Gallery (VAG), as they were pursued in the 1960s and '70s, and as they led to the Gallery's move from its site on Georgia Street to expanded premises in the old Courthouse. It is hoped that this critique, however provisional, may be a contribution towards the unmasking of the edifice of bourgeois culture, smashed as that may sometimes appear. There are still many who regard the institutions of art as good-in-themselves - merit goods, in the parlance of economists (and of the Federal Cultural Policy Review Committee, which reported in 1982). Apparently, no one may doubt this. Stress here has been laid on the changing aspect of a provin• cial art institution (which achieved national status in the 1960s) negotiating its way between the Scylla of government funding and the Charybdis of private interests - though this metaphor grants VAG more autonomy that has ever actually been the case. It is more accurately the creature of the whirlpool, raised in the cave, from which it looks lovingly at its oblivion. The thesis begins and ends (more or less) with Robert Rauschenberg's Works from Captiva, an exhibition personally supervised by VAG director Luke Rombout, which appeared at the Gallery in 1978. I take it to be paradigmatic of the kind of exhibitions favoured under the tutelage of Rombout, as well as being the most ambitious show from the time of his hiring to the re-opening of the Gallery in 1983. The first chapter examines the history of Rauschenberg's reputation, in order to show how the artist could be used in a particular way to bolster the Gallery's reputation, and as fodder for the capital campaign launched in 1978 in order to raise money for VAG's removal to the Courthouse. The revival of Rauschenberg's reputation in the 1970s, which was based on an early '60s reading, is examined, as is Rauschenberg's accommodation to this reading in his later work. The history of his relations with Vancouver is dis• cussed before looking at the 1978 exhibition, its works and its reception. The second and third chapters examine, respectively, the programmes and policies of the Vancouver Art Gallery under the administrations of Tony Emery and Luke Rombout. Throughout the period there runs a dialectic of the local vs.

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