Today’s New York Times has an article by Neal Gabler that contains a few provocative statements and one stunning remark relevant to the art world. (The piece itself has more than one shocker, imho, but I like to stay away from politics, religion and the like on this blog.)
Headlined “The Elusive Big Idea,” Gabler posits that we’re living in an “increasingly post-idea world” because we don’t care about big ideas any more. That’s debatable on many levels, but I’m going straight to the sentence on art:
An artist friend of mine recently lamented that he felt the art world was adrift because there were no longer great critics like Harold Rosenberg and Clement Greenberg to provide theories of art that could fructify the art and energize it.
Whoa, I say. That’s an astonishing statement, partially true because there is no one, or two, critics who hold such sway as they did. But, I’d argue that 1) the art world is a much larger, more global, more varied place today, with more media qualifying as art, than it was then, and no critic could have such power today; and 2) who’d want two men to hold such power over what’s good, what’s bad, what’s retro, and what’s the future? Didn’t they curtail the rise of many wonderful artists that didn’t do AbEx? Wouldn’t that be just like a return to the academy, so strongly rejected in the 19th century?
Besides, why should the critics articulate the theories of art? Isn’t that a prerogative of artists? Would you want a return to those bad old days, with powerful arbiters?
Gabler made two more points, not about meant to be about art, but which could be:
The post-idea world has been a long time coming, and many factors have contributed to it. There is the retreat in universities from the real world, and an encouragement of and reward for the narrowest specialization rather than for daring — for tending potted plants rather than planting forests.
This is a complaint I hear regularly about students of art history, the people who go on to teach, write, curate and lead art institutions. I don’t know how that can be changed, but perhaps the powers-that-be in art scholarship will read Gabler’s article, recognize the syndrome and think about changing it.
And, Gabler wrote:
There is the eclipse of the public intellectual in the general media by the pundit who substitutes outrageousness for thoughtfulness…
Are artists guilty of the same thing? Are they encouraged along that line by critics, gallerists, and curators? It’s no secret that outrageousness gets attention. Think of the Chapman Brothers, Maurizio Cattalan, Takashi Murakami, on and on… Would you include them among today’s more thoughtful artists?
All worth thinking about.