Notes on Greenberg, "Avant-Garde and Kitsch"

The Historical Emergence of the Avant-Garde

When tradition is challenged in a society, the artistic response has historically been to ossify (by means of "academicism") the fine points of style and form, theme and variation.

The modern western response to the crisis of tradition in the modern age gave birth to a new approach -- the avant-garde. [3] This was made possible by a new criticism of society emerging in the late nineteenth century based on historicism. [Cf. Marx.]

Artists defined themselves in opposition to the bourgeoisie by drawing on revolutionary political ideas.

The nascent avant-garde broke free of society, eventually rejecting its political foundation in favor of a cultural goal -- to move art "forward" on its own terms. ("Art for art's sake".) This involved a "search for absolutes" beyond content.

Greenberg's claim is that artistic practices in the modern world inevitably became reflexive -- focused on the medium itself.[4] Cutoff from the social world, art was (and should be) justified in its own terms. Thus, art became the subject matter of art. And since art and literature are imitations [of what?], avant-garde art is an imitation of an imitation. [Cf. Plato.] [5]

Ironically, this can lead to a kind of Alexandrianism. But the difference between the avant-garde and the degenerate Alexandrian forms of art is that the avant-garde "moves" [progresses] while the Alexandrian stands still.[6] In this sense, avant-garde method is vindicated. This movement and method is necessary in order to create "high art".

Also, paradoxically, avant-garde "belongs" to the dominant culture (ruling class). Culture requires support and, thus, the avant-garde maintains its connection (its "umbilical cord of gold", to borrow a phrase from Marx) to the dominant culture. But since this "elite" audience is shrinking, the future of the avant-garde is in danger.

Is this problem endemic to avant-garde practice, or are there other factors involved?

Folk Culture, Formal Culture, and Kitsch

Kitsch arose together with the avant-garde as a product of the industrial revolution and an increase in literacy.[7] As urbanization and literacy made authentic folk culture less relevant, popular culture took its place.

Popular culture is characterized by insensitivity to "the values of genuine culture". It is a simulation -- mechanical, formulaic, and spurious. It makes no demands on its consumers.

It is also parasitic on high culture for its forms and themes.

The influence of popular culture is reinforced by market values due to its mechanicalness and reproducibility.[8] Thus, it is enormously profitable.

One of the dangers of popular culture is that it's deceptive -- it often masquerades as "genuine" culture.

It has been argued, by Dwight Mac Donald, that kitsch became the dominant culture in the Soviet Union due to the social conditioning and education of the people by the Soviet leaders. But Greenberg argues that conditioning cannot explain the emergence of kitsch in Soviet culture.[9] There is a historical and cross-cultural tendency in matters of taste based on a consistent emphasis on the "values of art" over other values. [Autonomy] Kitsch erases this distinction. Thus, the peasant is more likely seduced by the technique of convincing representation [illusionism], the self-evident narrative, and the heightened drama of the scene depicted.

The Conditions Necessary for Avant-Garde Art

In contrast to the easy assimilation of the kitsch consumer, the higher level of appreciation of a "cultivated spectator" of a Picasso depends on a "second order" of reflection on form -- an aesthetic distance that permits viewer "projection" (or contribution) to the experience of viewing.[10] In kitsch, nothing is left to the viewer -- everything is given and obvious, i.e. the work requires no distancing and presents no difficulties. In the end, the avant-garde work imitates the causes -- kitsch the effects -- of art.

Authentic Art, Politics and the Economic Order

Given the necessity of education and leisure necessary for appreciating "high art", and recognizing that only a privileged few have the means and the time, the disparity between avant-garde art and kitsch is clearly underwritten by class distinction and power.

Kitsch is easily employed by the powerful for their own purposes. When this happens, it functions as a tool of fascism, conceding to the masses its form of entertainment while imbuing the entertainment with propaganda. This is not possible with avant-garde art due to its "difficulty" and critical nature. [Cf. Guilbaut's argument.] [11] Thus, quality and social criticism are threats to totalitarianism as well as capitalism.

Avant-garde culture requires leisure, energy, and comfort. This is possible only under democratic socialism where quality, cooperation, freedom of thought and action, and social criticism can flourish.[12]

Notes

1. In a later essay, "Modernist Painting", his approach shifts to a highly immanent and formal justification of modern art. Historical evidence is drawn solely from the arts. And the reasons and assumptions used seem to be of a purely logical and technical nature. Thus, he runs the risk of losing touch with the social and material world "outside" the arts. This is, of course, consistent with his theory of "immanent deduction" or justification. [return]

2. Art and Culture: Critical Essays, Clement Greenberg, Boston: Beacon Press, 1961, 3. [return]

3. Ibid., 4.[return]

4. Ibid., 5f.[return]

5. Ibid., 6f [return]

6. Ibid., 8. [return]

7. Ibid., 9. [return]

8. Ibid., 11.[return]

9. Ibid., 12f. [return]

10. Ibid., 14f. [return]

11. How New York Stole the Idea of Modern Art, Serge Guilbaut, Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1983.[return]

12. Ibid., 21. [return]