I wrote this piece 15 years ago — my explanation of how two lines of development of modern art culminated in postmodernism. (Translations via here into German, Spanish, Korean, and Portuguese). Now I feel the need to write a follow-up: Why Art is Still Ugly. Related: * Taking Modern Artists at Their Word. September 2014. […]
Why Is Art *Still* Ugly? Read More »
I met a traveller from an antique land, Who said “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert … near them, on the sand, Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lips, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped
“Ozymandias,” Percy Bysshe Shelley Read More »
[A discussion post.] President Trump’s now-serious proposal to eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities has elicited the first round of responses ranging from Philistine! to It’s about time! Both agencies were created in 1965 by President Lyndon Johnson, who said at the time: “it is necessary and
Trump’s Call to Eliminate Government Art Funding Read More »
At the Museum of Modern Art in Stockholm, Marina Abramović hired a man to lie on a bed and scream for 2.5 hours (or until his voice gives out, according to the show’s pamphlet). Nearby, at the Finglefarber Asylum for the Touchingly Insane, one may also hear a bedded man screaming — but the two
Art that screams for attention — progress in postmodern art Read More »
Updating this humorous remembrance from the composer Igor Stravinksy, who met Pablo Picasso in Italy in 1917. Picasso drew Stravinsky and gave him the portrait as a gift. But when Stravinksy tried to cross the border with it — the Great War was still raging — he was suspected of attempting to smuggle secret plans
Picasso’s Stravinksy — amusing anecdote Read More »
Yet another reason to despise the Russian experiment in socialism. After the communist revolution, the great composer Sergei Rachmaninoff went into exile, losing his home and other property to the Soviets — along with his publisher and his status in Russia as leading musician of his generation. Starting over in the West was a challenge,
How Rachmaninoff’s composing was hurt by the Soviet Union Read More »
Don’t you care for my love? she said bitterly. I handed her the mirror, and said: Please address these questions to the proper person! Please make all requests to head-quarters! In all matters of emotional importance please approach the supreme authority direct! — So I handed her the mirror. And she would have broken it
“Intimates,” D. H. Lawrence Read More »
Art critic Eric Gibson pronounces: “Objectivity is a cardinal rule in the discipline of art history. Mr. [Paul] Johnson’s book, by contrast, abounds in strong opinions.” (“Bold Strokes, Strong Opinions,” WSJ) But literary critic Tracy Kidder sneers: “As every graduate student knows, only a fool would try to think or bear witness to events objectively
Competing epistemological imperatives in the arts Read More »