Page 51 - Studio International - October 1970

no greater than that of any producer the moment promise of greater freedom; freedom to move to 17 are all from 'Avant-Garde and Kitsch' by
that he needs to survive and sell his product in beyond the specialized style by which the artist Clement Greenberg, published in Art and Culture,
Beacon Press, Boston 1961.
the competitive market. To assume that because gained acceptance; to create according to the 18 to 30 are all from 'The Plight of Culture' by
the nature of art is free communication, art is true nature of art and still sell; to beat the Clement Greenberg, published in Art and Culture.
therefore free in practice is to take no account of system by dictating terms to it. In fact, of 31 `Avant-Garde and Kitsch' p 5.
32 The German Ideology, Marx and Engels. Ed. and
the actual conditions under which art is course, all the other factors are still at work, and Introd. C. J. Arthur, Lawrence and Wishart 1970,
produced and distributed. It is like assuming since, in any case, the market is only interested p 65.
that because men are naturally free in the in the product in so far as it represents money, 33 The Philosophy of Art of Karl Marx by Mikhail
Lifshitz, trans. by Ralph B. Winn. Critics Group,
exercise of their gifts and the conscious control new meaning can still be absorbed. Even if the New York 1938, p 44.
of the material world, there must be in existence artist no longer needs to sell at all, he is still more 34 'The Plight of Culture.'
35 `Avant-Garde and Kitsch' p 5.
a system of society which corresponds to that the producer and consumer of his own work. 36 Ibid.
nature. In these ways capitalism limits both the kind 37 Introduction to the Philosophy of Fine Art, Hegel.
In practice the conditions of production and of art produced and the relationship of the Quoted in The Aesthetic Theories of Kant, Hegel and
Schopenhauer by I. Knox. Thames and Hudson 1958.
distribution which govern art lead to three kinds artist to the rest of society. Its underlying 38 `The School of Paris' by Clement Greenberg, from
of limiting specialization. Art itself becomes philosophy offers only two responses to the Art and Culture, p 120.
specialized and inward-looking, like any human world—idealism and positivism—and cannot 39 `The School of Paris' pp 120-1.
p 120.
activity isolated from reality. This is the process reconcile them; while the social and economic 41 `The New Sculpture' by Clement Greenberg, from
Greenberg describes. Secondly artists system, through the division of labour, deprives Art and Culture, p 139.
themselves become specialized and trained the artist of a real response to his work, and 42 'The Crisis of the Easel Picture' by Clement
Greenberg, from Art and Culture, p 157.
producers of art, so that we find 'the exclusive through the objective relations of the market 43 `Abstract, Representational and so forth' by Clement
concentration of artistic talent in certain turns his meanings into commodities. The Greenberg, from Art and Culture, p 134.
individuals and its consequent suppression in notion of the avant-garde artist, at least as 44 Karl Marx, quoted in The Philosophy of Art of Karl
the broad masses of the people'.48 This Marx represented by Greenberg's earlier writing, as in Marx, p 74.
45 Ibid. p 77.
sees as an effect of the division of labour, which some way able to challenge this system, is a 46 Marx's Theory of Alienation by Istvan Meszaros.
is an integral part of capitalist production; fraudulent one since, like culture itself, it can Merlin Press, London 1970, p 208.
something which Greenberg, typically, denies. only criticize the state of affairs while in practice 47 Ibid. p 205.
48 The German Ideology, p 109.
He says, 'The growing specialization of the arts accepting them. 49 `The New Sculpture' by Clement Greenberg, from
is due chiefly not to the prevalence of the Finally, art which derives itself from these Art and Culture, p 139.
division of labour, but to our increasing faith in two philosophies displays the difficulty of 50 Finally, it may be worth pointing out that I see
no essential change in Greenberg's position in his
and taste for the immediate, the concrete, the uniting consciousness (which tends to remain in latest writing. The distinction which he makes
irreducible. To meet this taste, the various the mind, relying on the order and harmony of between 'avant-garde' and 'avant-gardist' (implied in
artists try to confine themselves to what is most the categories of thought), and external reality Studio International, April 1970, and stated in
Art International, May 1971) seems to me merely a
positive and immediate in themselves.'49 But, as (which tends to be presented as particulars way of presenting his own view of quality and his own
we have seen, this positivist art is itself an impenetrable to the powers of the mind). It was `line' on the art of the twentieth century.
expression of the philosophy which underlies all Marx who was the first to see clearly that this
capitalism, including the division of labour. was the problem, and his concern in all his work
Indeed the emphasis on particularity, on the but particularly in his early criticisms—of both
fixed, self-consistent object, could be said to idealism and empiricism — was to find the real
correspond to the separations within society relationship of thought and reality. By seeing
itself. man as the producer of himself in the material
The artist's acceptance of his specialized world, he was able to see even his consciousness
position implies precisely the acceptance of the as a product of his material needs and activity,
very social specializations which he sees as while always stressing the power of
inimical to the universal human values of his art. consciousness to act upon the real world and
These, in the tradition of Romantic art theory, change it. He thus sets up a dialectical
emerge from the artist's nature as a human relationship in which man's ideas are formed by
being, not just from his specialized training. But, his civil life—the whole pattern of his social and
in fact, this leads to the third form of political relationships, these ideas, in turn,
specialization. In this form his own personality operate to direct and change the course of that
becomes specialized into a recognizable style pattern. This represents an advance on both
and content, so that his individual personality idealism and empiricism. Just as idealism
becomes his product. The pressure of the market separates thought from the real world to erect a
demands originality (to distinguish between the harmonious conceptual structure, so positivism,
products of different artists), but also by refusing to generalize from particulars, by
consistency. The artist's apparent freedom to only recognizing their existence, is helpless to
derive his creations from his whole being is in control them. Dialectical materialism, by
practice limited, if he wishes to sell his work, to bringing to consciousness the laws underlying
a series of similar productions with minor reality itself, rather than the laws of thought, can
variations which are recognized as 'his own'. provide consciousness with a real object, and
Just as he becomes a painter, a sculptor, a thus make it a real subject, so that thought can
writer, a musician, so, within his field, he both observe and act upon reality. There are
develops himself as something to sell. Perhaps great problems still in basing art practice on
this explains why there is such a strong Marxist thought, not least because of the
temptation to 'succeed' among artists, apart vulgarizations of Socialist Realism. But there is
from Meszaros' point that ultimately the only little point in clinging to the half-truths and
garde.5o
response to art that our society can provide is inconsistencies of the theory of the avant
money. Success can also seem to offer the q
147