[A]rtists... have been pushing the boundaries of any... definition [of
‘art’], challenging our preconceptions, and leaving most philosophers,
psychologists and critics well behind—to say nothing of the general
public.—JOSEPHA. GOGUENOne of the hottest topics of intellectual inquiry in recent years has
been the relationship between art and cognition. And the idea that cog-
nition plays a central role in the arts has great bearing on their future,
the theme of this volume. As documented by Louis Torres in Chapter
9 below, today’s gatekeepers of the arts—from philosophers and cura-
tors to critics and teachers—tend to favor “avant-garde” or “cutting-
edge” work, most conspicuously in the realm of the visual arts. One
lamentable result has been that contemporary painting and sculpture in
a “traditional” vein have been virtually excluded from the main insti-
tutions of culture.^1 Yet, as the epigraph above suggests, the general
public is likely to feel out of step with “cutting-edge” work. More
often than not, people outside the art world do not even recognize such
work as art, much less experience it as such. As reported a decade ago,
for example, trash collectors in Frankfurt, Germany, hauled away and
disposed of a purported work of public sculpture because they thought
it was merely a heap of abandoned building material. Incidents of this
kind remain quite common. Moreover, if one reads the critical litera-
ture at all carefully, the conclusion is inescapable that much of the
“avant-garde” work of the past hundred years is incomprehensible
even to its defenders, who appear unable to offer a reasonably intelli-
gible and consistent account of it.^2
[ 2 ]
Mimesis versus the
Avant-Garde: Art and
Cognition
MICHELLE MARDERKAMHI
37