Page 23 - Studio International - November 1967

Modern art and the virtues of decadence

'Perhaps it should be said . . that all modern art is decadent, at least in its premise. That is, it wants to
make permanent some intensely felt aspect of experience by sensuous means that are eventually
sufficient unto themselves.'

Max Kozloff

With nice paradox, someone once said that only in skinned, Nazified gaggle of alienated youth, as illustra-
America could one move from being a primitive to a tive of a mingled primitivism and decadence ? Tribal in
decadent in one small step. It was Gertrude Stein who themselves, they have broken free from most of society's
also said that this was the oldest country in the twentieth conventions. On one side of the 'Hell's Angels' are the
century, because it was the first to have been industrial- porn shops and fag coteries of the country; the soft,
ized. This combination of youth and sophistication affected, swishy styles in clothes-goggle sunglasses,
crashing together, is one of the most fascinating and vinyl capes, pointed-toe boots-all shot through with a
disconcerting spectacles of modern civilization. It com- slithering fetishism. It is the world, too, of the affectless
presses an image of corrupted innocence that now has ecstacies of Andy Warhol, and the flatulent, apple-cheeked
taken over, for better or worse, the cultural leadership. sexuality of Playboy clubs-a go-go cosmos of surfers,
If we look around in American national life-its style and underground movies, LSD, folk-rock, silicone inflated
behaviour-telling emblems of this situation come easily topless waitresses, and androgynous youth: THE NEW
to mind. What they have in common is their origin in UNISEX. But on the other side, one can find
youth, for the young, almost inevitably, define or typify Muhammed Ali, the John Birch Society and SNCC field workers,
the various currents of a modern sensibility. Is it not too young Green Berets, and echelons of boys whose attitude
far-fetched to think of the 'Hell's Angels', that sheep- is best summed up in a line from a recent Tom Lehrer

Above Tom Wesselmann Great American nude series no. 40 1962
collage and oil on board, vertical oval, 60 in. high
Galerie Saqqarah, Gstaad
Left Andy Warhol Liz 1963
silkscreen on canvas (four panels), each 40 x 40 in.
Leo Castelli Gallery, New York