The room is spacious and dimly lit. it is well furnished in the classic english style, wide windows on every corner of the room allow the light of the grey winter day to pass through the translucent embroidered draping. The aroma of the Romeo and Juliet mingles with that of strawberry tea. Ad Reinhardt enters the room, holding his hat in his left hand. He extends his right to Linda Nochlin, who cordially greets him: “I see you finally accepted my invitation, Mr. Reinhardt. Come, please sit down”. They both sit on the sofas on the living room; Linda sips her tea and then lays the cup on the low table that lies between them.“How could I not come? After all, the subject seems to be quite interesting, if not amusing. So, what exactly is it that you wish to discuss with me, Ms. Nochlin?” Reinhardt questions.
“Please, call me Linda. Well, I am going to give a lecture next month on female rights and the reflection of the feminist movement on art, and I was just wondering what is your standing on the subject, since you are a fellow artist and thinker, and will probably go to the lecture” she says.
“Well, I don’t know if I am going to this lecture… after all, it is in Providence, Rhode Island, right? But still, I can give you some advice on your lecture.. Don’t do it.”
“What!!” she exclaims, almost choking on her tea.
“That’s right, it’s exactly what you heard. All this feminist crap just annoys me; besides, feminism in itself should not interfere with art anyway, and-“
“Say what?! What do you mean, ‘feminist crap’? Do you not believe in equal rights, Mr. Reinhardt?”
“Well, of course I do. I just think that women should not let their feminism interfere with their art, nor their art interfere with their feminism… wait, that makes no sense… anyway, I just think that going around and protesting for equal rights just isn’t right; women should be content with what they’ve got. Women do not, in truth, want liberty- thay want to be superior, to have the same privileges as they had before, plus equal opportunities.”
“Is that a fact?”
“Yep.”
“Well, if that isn’t the biggest logical fallacy that I have ever seen! How can you assume something that you do not know, and on such a large scale! And besides, most of us just do want equality, we want to have equal opportunities to compete with men out there. In art, for example. Why do you think that there are no great women artists out there? There might be a handful of Picassos and Rembrandts out there who are just waiting for the opportunity to show themselves. They are all repressed, Mr. Reinhardt, by your fascist chauvinistic culture who gives us no freedom of expression. It is people like you that-“
“Rembrandt and Picasso weren’t great artists.”
“… what do you mean? They were obviously geniuses!”
“Well, I mean that they had absolutely no grasp for art, their idea of form and representing everything in pictures just goes to show their misconception about art.”
“You’re out of your mind. They represented what they felt and joined with what they say to create the most beautiful pictures!”
“Cameras do that now, as they did then. There was no need for the “art” which they were creating; they weren’t expressing art, but rather mechanically transposing a scene onto canvas.”
“There were no color cameras back then, wiseguy.”
“And there need not have been. Color just gets in the way of art-as-art. All paintings should be monochromatic and without brushmarks of any sort. The least we know about how a painting was done, the better.“
“Monochromatic designs without brushmarks-“
“And in geometric forms, preferably with absolutely no analogy to any given extant form or idea. Art should be just art.”
“But that would just create boring patterns on canvas! And what would be the point of looking at something like that, something that should, if not express any idea or form, or something, then at least it should express a feeling or emotion with color, a fact which is impossible in your idea of a monochromatic painting.”
“Which should have no depth,”
“And what should it have? You are reducing art to nothing!”
“Or rather, to art. Art should be art-as-art.”
“So, applying the concepts of syllogistic logic, we may deduce that you think that art is nothing? For sure you at least must think that it should have no meaning at all” she said, with a sarcastic tone.
“Well, not in our world. Art should be pure and immaculate, it should be clean without being antiseptic, is should be monochromatic without using color, and it should not have white as well-“
“Which leaves us with black floor tiles.”
“The art studio should measure thirty by sixty by twelve feet high, and should have a sink in the corner.”
“On which corner?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, that is besides the point!”
“I see… well, Mr. Reinhardt, I see that it is running late; I must go to my ranch and count my horses. It was a very enlightening conversation. I must go now, Mr. Reinhardt. I bid you good-bye.”
“Well then”, he puts on his hat. “Good-bye, Linda.”
“It’s Ms. Nochlin, please.”
