12/3/02

Massow martyr

Ivan Massow, former Chairman, has now left the ICA, some would say as a martyr, for criticising — among other things — ‘conceptual art’. (Tom Stoppard survived his personal questioning of the phenomenology of that which isn’t. Will Massow?) Massow has claimed that the ICA has abandoned its ‘radicalism’ as experienced in the 1970s. ‘Having described the arts establishment as totalitarian in their stoical silent defence of conceptual art, what better way for the ICA to demonstrate this than by sacking me,’ he says. This happening, he claims, actually ‘inadvertently validated my comments’. But Massow won’t burn at the stake either. No less than Sir Anthony Caro has supported his views.