Reign of modernism will end in 21st century, critics contend

The Art Renewal Center ^ | Originally printed on Sunday the 29th of October, 2000. | Robert McCain

[kidd]

Modernism, by definition, cannot be universal, because if you're not conversant with the lexicon, you're not invited to the debate

I was a guard at the Walker Art Museum, a modern art museum in Minneapolis, for three years in the late 70s. I had lots of time to look at their collection and the reaction of the visitors to the art.

I would guess that 99% of the visitors had no idea why 99% of the stuff was called "art". The only ones who seemed to have an appreciation for the modern art were the guards who were art students. And amongst them, they all had one or two favorite artists that they had studied and thought the rest of the stuff was junk.

The only time the general public enjoyed the exhibits was when the museum had a big Alexander Calder show (he made large mobiles and had a number of circus toy collections) - the show catered to children, and was sort of "fun".

[Lessismore]

Art was, before 1850, an expensive but necessary way of constructing a visual representation of a scene. In many cases, the artist made a living doing portraits, rather than the grander paintings.

It was killed by photography. It died during the last half of the 19th century. It is not just resting.

[Erasmus]

Six years ago, the Christian Science Monitor sneered at Bouguereau's work as "official art" that was mostly "purchased by rich, undereducated Americans."

Brings to mind a story about Henry Ford and his wife Clara.

Henry had very little in the way of formal education, but by 1920 or so he was of course wealthy, and perhaps the best known industrial tycoon in the world.

Yet his tastes remained, shall we say, simple.

He and his wife were visited by some art collectors who felt that persons of their socioeconomic stature should have invesmtments in fine art. So the collectors brought catalogs of color reproductions of available masterpieces and went over these with their hosts, explaining the virtues of each piece and its artist. It was understood that the catalog itself was a gift to the Fords.

At the end of the presentation, the collectors discreetly brought up the subject of acqusition of some of the works illustrated in the catalog.

One of the Fords (I do not recall which) replied, "but with all of these wonderful illustrations, why would we need the originals?"

As a coda to this little anecdote....

Henry's son Edsel was a very different soul. Although he was denied an education by his father, he (with the help of his society wife) became interested in the arts. He became a patron of the Detroit Institute of the Arts, and was responsible for bringing Diego Rivera and his mistress Frida Kahlo to Detroit for some time, to paint a monumental mural, depicting industrial America, at the DIA.

[livius]

Great story!

[ConservativeConvert]

I have long belived that history will judge the conceptual art movement of the late 20th century as pure trash and the critics, galleries and collectors who uphold such nonsense as fools. Sticking a finger up one's ass and wiping it on a canvas does not make one an "artist". Those who claim that such rubbish is indeed art and look condescendingly down their noses at those too "unenlightened" to appreciate it as such are the equivalent of those who insist that "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter". That is not to say that all abstract art is devoid of aesthetic or creative value - much of it is real art. Howver, those who claim to be "artists" without demonstrating a shred of craftsmanship, creativity or aesthetic integrity will be relegated to the dustbins of history. The thousands of fine artists who create beautiful things but who are entirely ingnored by the art "establishment" or denigrated as mere "decorative artists" will not recieve their due until they are long dead. Several years working in the art industry left me bitter and disgusted with a system that ignores talent and beauty while rewarding charlatinism and creative/aesthetic bankruptcy.

[Sam Cree]

"It was killed by photography. It died during the last half of the 19th century. It is not just resting."

I don't know, it's true that photography ended the need to send artists all over the place to record events and scenes, clearly that part of art is about dead. But art has always been much more than that, even in the days of cave paintings.

IMO, photography, an art in itself, freed and inspired fine art painting to go on and find new horizons. And computer generated art will have unforseen effects on all the previous fine arts.

It seems to me that American society, whose freedoms have allowed a standard of living and education unheard of in the past, has also allowed a pursuit of art that continues to gain strength.

[Sam Cree]

"Those who claim that such rubbish is indeed art and look condescendingly down their noses at those too "unenlightened" to appreciate it as such are the equivalent of those who insist that "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter"."

I think it is no coincidence that they are actually the very same people. And that today's artists overwhelmingly count themselves as part of the Left.

[quebecois]

In so many ways, the internet is allowing normal folks to run an end-around the blockades set up by the leftist establishment. It is allowing folks like these traditional artists to band together and cooperate...where as before they probably felt themselves to be loners caught in modernist-dominated institutions.

[beavus]

Art should be communicative, something that is grasped by the common person, not a cipher of artist narssicism.

At least you'd think the artist would want some audience. Some of the late 20th century museum hangings leave me wondering who that audience could possibly be.

[supercat]

It was killed by photography. It died during the last half of the 19th century. It is not just resting.

Modern electronic sound enhancement and reproduction has killed liver performance, until one actually goes to see a really good show.

What has changed is that there is now little need for mediocrity. It used to be that even a mediocre painter could expect to find work, since his renderings may be the best his customers can afford. Nowadays, however, if an artist can't beat the work of a cheap camera and has no ambition of doing so, there's far less value in persuing it for anything beyond personal satisfaction.

[supercat]

...one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter

freedom fighter : freedom :: fire fighter : fire

Understand that, and the terms make sense.

[supercat]

So many times as I've walked through *modern* art exhibits and musuems, I've thought, "The emperor really does have no clothes". It was all nonsense, that evoked nothing but wonder reading the convulated critical praise of such....nothing. But like the emperor's crowd, we were all supposed to marvel at it, for fear of being called bourgeoise and anti-intellectual.

To the right is a copy (reproduced from memory) of one of the paintings at the Tate Modern in London. The painting, btw, is entitled "Gray". I hope the artist doesn't come after me for copyright violation, though I'd suggest that he first go after the manufacturers of photographic test cards.

While I'll admit that artistic merit need not always be apparent to the casual observer (random-dot stereograms are kitchy at best, but they have some artistic potential even though one needs to look at them 'just right' to see anything). The "Gray" painting, however, showed no such subtleties. It looked instead like someone had taken a canvas and slapped some gray paint on it (which is no doubt what the artist, in fact, did).

[John Locke]

Beauiful. But let's not forget that the greatest landscape painter of the Nineteenth Century was an American:

Thomas Cole, 1801 - 1848.

[Tokhtamish]

The enduring mass popularity of Thomas Kinkade demonstrates that for a while now a substantial portion of the art consuming public has stopped listening to the deconstructionist babble of the elite critics and decides for themselves what is beautiful. After all, do you need a critic to tell you whether a Raphael or a Titian or an El Greco is beautiful ? If a piece of 'art' cannot communicate directly with you without some elite critic condescending to explain it to you, isn't it a bad piece of 'art' ?

It's like Erich von Stroheim, a 'great' silent director who made these 10 hour movies. There are critics who acclaim his 'Greed' as a masterpiece but a 10 hour movie is a bad movie, however good individual scenes may be, because no one can watch it.

To know something about art history is to know that critical tastes change like hemlines. There are lots of artist who are praised now who didn't make dime one in their lifetimes (Has anyone ever thought of a science fiction story where someone goes into the past and becomes rich by commissioning works from future great artists while they were starving bohemians ?) Has the consuming audience decided that whatever critics may be saying now, it is ridiculous to believe that a century from now art consumers are going to actually want a pig sawed in half and dipped in formaldehyde in their living rooms ?

[Old Professer]

Modern electronic sound enhancement and reproduction has killed liver performance,

Hepatitis B-flat?????

[Lady Eileen]

bump........thanks for the posts.

[paltz]

I alway liked Hughes' "Home From Sea" Here, a little boy is told his father had passed away while at sea. It's pretty powerful.

[Lessismore]

Modern electronic sound enhancement and reproduction has killed live performance, until one actually goes to see a really good show.

This was true during the era of "high-fidelity stereo records". It also imposed a deadening uniformity on music.

However, it seems that the Internet and cheap digital reproduction are loosening the grip of the recording companies. MP3s on web sites and short-run CDs published by the musicians themselves are creating more interest in a wide variety of music played in clubs and small venues.

[Sam Cree]

"freedom fighter : freedom :: fire fighter : fire"

Hey, I like that.

[HHFi]

I recently went to the Dallas Museum of Art to see a touring display of older works, and while there, I went through a display by some modern artist who is allegedly some sort of genius. His "art works" consisted of gigantic squarish blocks of beeswax and jars containing pollen. One of his "works" was a small wooden shelf with five mason jars sitting on it, each containing a different amount of pollen. It looked like something you'd see in the corner of someone's garden shed. Luckily, there was a beautifully-printed flier for visitors, explaining why this worthless crap was supposed to be so brilliant. I never would have known otherwise.