Pavel Jordanowitch and the Disumbrationist School of Art
Great fun: An artworld scam from the 1920s.
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Art
William Wordsworth in Explaining Postmodernism
The poet William Wordsworth said: “Our meddling intellect Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things; –We murder to dissect.” For more on the meaning and implications of Wordsworth’s claim, see p. 68 of my Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism from Rousseau to Foucault. Information about other editions and translations is available at this dedicated page.
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TRAC Netherlands art conference
I will be a keynote speaker at the first TRAC conference to be held in Europe. Related video: Comments on Odd Nerdrum and Roger Scruton. From Modern to Postmodern Art and Beyond.
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Rachmaninoff upon becoming an American citizen
When he became an American citizen in 1943, Sergei Rachmaninoff said: “This is the only place on earth where a human being is respected for what he is and what he does, and it does not matter who he is and where he came from.” Related: “How Rachmaninoff’s composing was hurt by the Soviet Union.”
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Comments on Roger Scruton and Odd Nerdrum
At the TRAC 2014 conference in Ventura, California (“The Aesthetics of 21st Century”), I participated in a panel discussion on talks presented by philosopher Roger Scruton and artist Odd Nerdrum. Scruton spoke of Beauty and Nerdrum spoke of Kitsch. My comments in response run for 18 minutes, beginning at the 40:16 mark, following a quick
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Was Magritte an artist — or a philosopher?
In my “Why Art Became Ugly,” I claimed that modern art’s trajectory was to abandon art for philosophy. In modernism, art becomes a *philosophical* enterprise rather than an *artistic* one. The driving purpose of modernism is not to *do* art but to *find out* what art is. Here’s a new-to-me datum about René Magritte, from
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The significance of Duchamp’s urinal
Why does Fountain matter so much to art history? Honored to be included in this collection of quotations on Duchamp’s significance. For more context and development: “The Most Important Artist of the Century” and “Why Art Became Ugly.”
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“Bankers are just like anybody else, except richer,” Ogden Nash
This is a song to celebrate banks, Because they are full of money and you go into them and all you hear is clinks and clanks, Or maybe a sound like the wind in the trees on the hills, Which is the rustling of the thousand dollar bills. Most bankers dwell in marble halls, Which
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