All “postmodernisms” had in common an essential scepticism about the
existence of an objective reality, and/or the possibility of arriving at an
agreed understanding of it by rational means. All tended to a radical rela-
tivism.... the modernist avant-gardes had... extended the limits of what
could claim to be art... almost to infinity.
—ERICHOBSBAWM^1In matters regarding the art of our time, the avant-garde enjoys a virtual
monopoly, one that is so entrenched as to seem to be without end. Its
influence is felt everywhere, from kindergarten classrooms and the halls
of academia to museums, the New York Times, and the National
Endowment for the Arts. Those who optimistically predict a renaissance
of traditional values and craft in painting and sculpture engage in wish-
ful thinking. Ironically, many such optimists, while critical of the avant-
garde, inadvertently lend it support by regarding its products as art,
thereby granting them an ill-deserved legitimacy. In truth, the term
“avant-garde art” is a misnomer, for the work it refers to is, as I will
argue, not art at all.^2
The ceaseless proliferation of avant-garde art forms began early in
the twentieth century with the invention of abstract painting, which
broke with all previous practice and opened the door to the notion that
anything could “claim to be art” (to borrow a phrase from my epigraph).
It gained new force with the advent of Abstract Expressionism around
1950, and has accelerated with each succeeding decade, with new gen-
res (or variants of the old) invented at will, spurred on by technology and
the inventiveness of would-be artists and rank charlatans alike.^3 The end
to this madness—for it is in large measure a form of cultural pathol-
[ 9 ]
The Interminable Monopoly
of the Avant-Garde
LOUISTORRES
165