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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.

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