It is possible that this is the popular interpretation of modernism. I'm sure that many artists would vehemently disagree with modernism structured around anything so unprincipled--as many as there are others who aspire by doing whatever they want. But modernism is not a distinct school when defined by a ubiquitous empty willfulness. It has features and characteristics. One of these, which Ortega Y Gasset explains, is the private tendency of art. It is aristocratic, clubby, purposefully separate and purposefully abstract and shielded from knowledgeable penetration by the masses. When the popular mind aspires and pretends membership, only so many can see the humor in that.