In a New Yorker article a few years ago Peter Schjeldahl, the mag’s art
critic, solemnly praised Richard Serra for the “beauty” of his recent
sculpture. The article was illustrated with a small photograph depicting
a miserable and very large piece of cor-ten steel, identical in inspiration
and intelligence to his earlier work, Tilted Arc, which was removed from
the plaza of the Federal Building in New York City as a public
nuisance. The article contrasted Serra’s “beautiful” work with what
Schjeldahl called the “florid” and “Victorian” art of Frederick Hart,
who, having recently died, was in no condition to respond and thus con-
stituted a safe target. Discretion is, after all, the better part of valor.
Obviously the first reaction of the reader who has some idea of what
is going on in the art world would be to laugh. The idea that an estab-
lishment art critic, who prides himself on his peculiar expertise of being
savvy about the New York art world, should be appropriating kitschy old
words like “beauty”—which no avant-garde art courtier would be caught
dead using a few years ago—is deeply funny. Things must really be get-
ting desperate down at postmodern headquarters, for them to be rolling
out the antique cannon of the great tradition, and trying to get it to fire.
Dave Hickey, who is the Peter Schjeldahl of intellectually responsible art
criticism, has been saying similar things, as empty of philosophical sub-
stance, but with a colorable and interesting twist—that the “jouissance”
or pleasure of art cannot be constrained within a political program, how-
ever righteous. In Art Newsand similar house organs, an agonizing self-
appraisal is going on, with words like “beauty,” “quality,” and “value”
being freely bandied about.
Of course there is no acknowledgement of the current source of these
shocking old ideas—that is, outlaw publications like The American Arts
Quarterly—and only abuse for those of us, such as Tom Wolfe, who
have been pointing out that the avant-garde emperor is wearing no
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A Changing of the
Avant Guard
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