Black Mountain College: An Exploration in Community.

Martin Duberman's history of Black Mountain College has been published in a paperback edition, reissuing this early chapter in Duberman's ongoing process of self-revelation as a homosexual. Written in the late '60s and early '70s, when the original actors retained fresh memories and the will to replay conflicts of personality and (perhaps incidentally) of educational philosophies, the book has a lively sense of the struggles of an "intentional" community.

For the art world the book also serves as a corrective to the notion of Black Mountain College as some idyll in the mountains of North Carolina, a hall of fame for the great at a time when they were still uncelebrated and for future greats who arrived unwashed and were inspired to achieve. In fact many of the most famous visitors, Willem de Kooning and Franz Kline among them, participated only in the Summer Institutes, sessions of a few weeks at most. With his usual verbal pith, de Kooning summed up one aspect of the experience: "The only thing wrong with Black Mountain College is if you go there they want to give it to you," an indication of the extent to which he was being lionized as early as 1948.

The real travail of Black Mountain as retold in Duberman's book was undergone during the academic year, when various strong leaders and their factions vied for the soul of the enterprise. The author quotes to great effect Emerson's "We descend to meet." Playing counterpoint to the policy disagreements was the constant struggle for funds sufficient to survive.

From the point of view of the arts, the main thrust of the college's educational programs, there was a longish first phase, from 1933 to 1950, during which Josef Albers' spirit dominated the place, followed by the final years, to 1956, under the cultural aegis of the poet Charles Olson. In 1940 Albers left for a year to teach at Harvard; he commented at a faculty meeting on his return to Black Mountain that "I have been at a place proud of a three centuries' tradition" and that he did not find it "discouraging" to return to a place that had existed for only eight years, "an institution in which I believe." He went on to say that it is "our belief that behavior and social adjustment are as interesting and important as knowledge. That besides statements and statistics we must cultivate expression and metaphor. That the manual type, as well as eye or ear people, are as valuable as the intellectual type."

Albers' philosophy is additionally revealed in his response to Harrison Begay, an American Indian student who wanted to be shown a way to paint in a "contemporary" manner more rapidly than Albers thought salubrious, as he was concerned about breaking the student's continuity with his cultural tradition. "I do not believe much in environment," Albers told Begay; "but I believe more in heritage."

Olson, who in quite a different way maintained Black Mountain College's respect for a student's independence to grow from his own roots, said, "I despair where teaching is put on any other ground . . . than the individual."

Large segments quoted from the actual records of faculty meetings give detail and flavor to this lengthy work. It is kept lively and relevant by the author's own engagement with the unfolding story. Albers, at first reluctant to talk with Duberman, told him that the book was worth doing only if it encouraged "some growth in |his own~ mind." It did and we share in it.

Henry Geldzahler writes, lectures, and serves as curator of the DIA Center for the Arts, Bridgehampton. He lives in Southhampton, New York.