The con game of avant-garde art is thus surprisingly robust. But this
illusion requires very strict policing and absolute solidarity to maintain
itself. Schjeldahl likes to tell his students that they are like a gang, whose
one loyalty is to the gang colors:
I have what I call a “gang theory” of education. All gangs are formed by indi-
viduals who, for one reason or another, are misfits, wander to the margin by
themselves, discover each other, discover other people like themselves. They
bond together. If all they have in common is that alienation, they’re a very
dangerous group of kids. But if they have some aspiration in common, they
can be intensely creative. In a way, everybody does this growing up. Every
age group is a cohort—particularly in our culture, which is intensely gener-
ational. When we grow up, we tend to trust only those who share our exact
historic and cultural period, who watch the same television shows with the
same attitudes. Childhood, for everyone, is more than formative. It’s a trove
of spiritual material for a lifetime. But this is especially true of artists.
Gang members are extremely competitive, but not with each other. They
pool their resources, their information, their knowledge, and attack the
world. Teams work this way, too, but I like the concept of the gang because,
with art, there has to be an element of condoned anarchy. You can’t meas-
ure creative development by criteria that are like crisply executed football
plays. Coaching a gang, it seems to me, one must concede the role of judg-
ing individual worth to the group.
In a gang—of art students, say—everybody knows without saying who
is the best. It’s very primitive, very hierarchical, in the way wild animals are
hierarchical. Everyone knows who’s best, who’s second best. There’s a lot of
doubt about who’s third best, because everybody else thinks they’re third
best. Except for one person who is absolutely hopeless. This person, as a
mascot and scapegoat, is cherished by everyone.
The problem is: How do you nurture a gang in academe? I don’t think
academia should take much responsibility for this. A college education is,
and should be, people wanting typical careers in the structure of the world.
Education must not distort itself in service to the tiny minority of narcissis-
tic and ungrateful misfits who are, or might be, artists.
You’re learning about the course of art, the course of society, the course
of the world, the course of your life. You are joining a conversation. You do
not prepare to join a conversation. You come up to the edge of it and listen
and kind of get the beat, then you jump in. And maybe if you jump in too
soon, everyone’s going to give you a look and you’ll slink off and come
back later.What Schjeldahl omits to point out, but which is implied in his pep-
talk, is that it is the duty of a gang to maim anyone who tries to muscle
A Changing of the Avant Guard 133