1. Suzi Gablik: Has
Modernism Failed?
(being Chapter 5 of Gablik’s book
with the same title)

2. Has Modernism Failed?
 At first blush, it looks that way. Modernism in
art has gone from optimism and “a crusading
spirit of disobedience” to a mood of “decadence
and weary cynicism.” Gilbert and George are a
good example of the result.
 But to really answer the question, we need to ask
what modernism was trying to accomplish.
What were its values, and has it done what it set
out to do?

3. The values of modernism
 Marinetti’s Futurist Manifesto: get rid of “the stinking
gangrene of professors, archaeologists, touring guides
and antiques dealers”, burn museums and libraries.
Get rid of tradition, in order to bring on the new forms
of speed and technology. (So, almost a worship of
technology.)
 Dada: The corrupt, war-mongering modern world
doesn’t deserve art. Give it irrational baby-talk instead.
Insult it with nonsense. (A rejection of “the industrial
disease” – Dire Straits song.)

4. The values of modernism
 But both the futurist worship of the modern,
and the Dadaist rejection of modern corruption,
had the same effect: Overthrow the past, reject
traditions, keep questioning, always make
something new. In other words, “the new”
became “the chief emblem of positive value.”
(Question: do you think this is an accurate
assessment of modernism?)

5. Problems with rejecting tradition
 “To sustain itself, a society must also have values
that resist change.” Modernism did not provide
these.
 As a result, there is now no way to measure
success or failure, no standards to use as a
reference. In fact, the end result of modernism
is that we now have no valid conception of what
a work of art is.

6. Problems with rejecting tradition
 “…[T]radition and authority may be necessary,
even to make a genuine avant-garde possible—
in order to provide something to revolt against.”
 One principle collapses into its opposite—the
only way to be modern, now, is to borrow from
the past. (Danto might agree, though he would
give a different explanation. Danto thinks that
post-historical artists play with the past, rather
than making anything historically new.)

7. Problems with rejecting tradition
 “[M]odernism, as a tradition, . . . has failed to
develop the means for training artists.”
 Question: is this your experience? Is there a
clear curriculum at Rowan in visual art? In
music? Especially in the BFA programs.
 Quote from Bruce Boice, speaking at SVA.
“There’s no motivation, no rules to say what you
should do, or whether it’s good or not.

8. What art (and society) needs
 Basic human needs (from Erich Fromm):
 Relatedness
 Transcendence
 Rootedness
 Identity
 A frame of orientation
 An object of devotion

9. Has modernism failed?
 Modernism has failed to provide these basic
things.
 Modernism has focused on the self, on freedom
and self-sufficiency, at the expense of these
other basic needs. Barnett Newman: “We
actually began . . . from scratch, as if painting
were not only dead but had never existed.”
Baselitz on the artist’s social role (none).
Contrast Kandinsky (artist as visionary prophet)

10. The paradox of freedom
 Freedom requires rules and restrictions in order
to exist. To put it another way, society needs
virtues in order to exist, and it’s not up to me
what those virtues are. (E.g., integrity, courage,
etc.) Practices require virtues, and arts are
practices. Too much freedom destroys virtues.
 Modernity promotes as virtues what were
formerly vices (e.g., greed).

11. Another failure of modernism:
surrendering to bureaucratic power
 Art, for example, once it has abandoned any
governing traditions, is ripe for manipulation by
the forces of market capitalism.
 Question: compare this thought with Shiner’s
historical argument that the existence of fine art
is due in significant part to the development of
an art market among the new middle class in the
18th century.

12. Is there any hope for art?
(melodramatic music builds in
background)
 (drumroll) Joseph Beuys! Anselm Kiefer!
 Gablik: these two artists are filled with vision
and a sense of transcendence, positively related
to society.
 Think about their work, and that of others you
know about. Is there such a thing as post-
modern art? Is it a hopeful art? Does it make
sense to think of the artist as a shaman?

13. How can art go forward?
 We need traditions, but we can’t just “reimpose
traditional forms of authority.”
 Gablik seems to suggest that we as individuals
must find our way forward to new traditions,
resisting the pressures to reduce all values to
money. Can we do that? And what role may art
play in the process?

14. So has modernism failed?
 Gablik does not answer the question. She
appears to think that we are not ready to answer
it, because at this stage in our history (and partly
as a result of modernism) we no longer know
what success and failure are.
 What sort of transformation can we accomplish?
Presumably, if we can build something better,
and if modernism has prepared the ground, it
may after all have succeeded.

15. Postmodernism
 Gablik mentions postmodernism, but does not
define it. Perhaps it should not be defined.
Perhaps it is just a way of saying, “Modernism is
over, but we can’t tell yet what is taking its
place.”
 However, J-F. Lyotard (Ross, pp. 561-564) has
attempted a definition.

16. Lyotard on postmodernism
 Lyotard defines modernism as the attempt to make
visible (or audible) presentations of the
unpresentable. This is the category of “the
sublime”, that which goes beyond our
experience and imagination, yet is conceivable,
the transcendent.
 Thus, Lyotard has more positive things to say
than Gablik about modernism. See Kandinsky,
and the catalog for The Spiritual in Art.

17. Lyotard on postmodernism (cont.)
 The post-modern is part of the modern. But
instead of nostalgia for the simpler past, it
declares “war on totality”. I.e., there is not just
one way to do things, one way to make art, one
truth. So it is even more anti-traditional than
straight-ahead modernism. Lyotard thinks it is
necessary; nostalgia is dangerous. Totality is
dangerous; it brings terror (totalitarianism).

18. Further thoughts on the post-modern
 A plurality of traditions, interests and values is
assumed. None is preferred over others nor
reduced to others. Dialog and negotiation take
the place of integration and assimilation.
(Progress, a chief characteristic of modernism,
becomes a problematic category within post-
modernism.)
 The past is not rejected, but is mined for what it
can offer, often in a spirit of whimsy and humor.

19. Further thoughts on the post-modern
 Our relation to the natural world is re-
envisioned. Sustainable life in harmony with
nature, rather than conquest of nature, becomes
the ideal.
 In keeping with these trends, the arts are
multicultural, often playful, traditionally
conscious (but on a pick-and-choose basis),
environmentally aware and seeking harmony
with nature.

20. Postmodernism
 Modernism is over. The idea that there must be
one set of values, one way to make art, or one
superior culture is rejected.

21. Summary
 Four visions of western art history since the Renaissance:
1. Shiner: a great divide between crafts and fine art in the 18th
century. Consequence: art divorced from life, crafts minimized,
distorted view of arts in other cultures. Maybe a 3rd system of
arts is coming.
2. Hegel: art seeks to express the transcendent in the physical,
finally comes to an end in favor of philosophy.
3. Danto: art seeks its own essence: art history ends once art puts
the proper question to philosophy (i.e., what makes something
art if it looks just like a piece of non-art?)
4. Gablik: modernism overthrew tradition, we must recover it if
art is to survive.

22. Discussion Question
 Does any of these views seem right to you in any
way?
 Thinking about them, looking at art history and
at present art, where are we, and where are we
headed?