This lecture was given in New York at the Foundation for the Advancement of Art’s conference.
‘For a long time critics of modern and postmodern art have relied on the “Isn’t that disgusting” strategy. By that I mean the strategy of pointing out that given works of art are ugly, trivial, or in bad taste, that “a five-year-old could have made them,” and so on. And they have mostly left it at that. The points have often been true, but they have also been tiresome and unconvincing—and the art world has been entirely unmoved. …’
It was my first run-through of the arguments that led to “Why Art Became Ugly.” That essay, in turn, has been republished in this short book with Michael Newberry, Art: Modern, Postmodern, and Beyond.
(Part 2 of the talk has now also been posted at CEE’s video channel at YouTube this week.)