The Cult of the Avant-Garde Artist

An examination of the philosophical, psychological and aesthetic premises for avant-garde art.

Donald Kuspit (Author)

9780521469227, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 24 June 1994

188 pages
22.8 x 15.3 x 1.3 cm, 0.27 kg

The Cult of the Avant-Garde Artist examines the philosophical, psychological and aesthetic premises for avant-garde art and its subsequent evolution and corruption in the late twentieth century. Arguing that modernist art is essentially therapeutic in intention, both towards self and society, Donald Kuspit further posits that neo-avant-garde, or post-modern art, at once mocks and denies the possibility of therapeutic change. As such, it accommodates the status quo of capitalist society, in which fame and fortune are valued above anything else. Stripping avant-garde art of its missionary, therapeutic intention, neo-avant-garde art instead converts it into a cliché of creative novelty or ironical value for its fashionable look. Moreover, it destroys the precarious balance of artistic narcissism and social empathy that characterizes modern art, tilting it cynically towards the former. Incorporating psychoanalytic ideas, particularly those concerned with narcissism, The Cult of the Avant-Garde Artist offers a reinterpretation of modern art history. Donald Kuspit, one of America's foremost art critics, is a contributing editor to Artforum and the author of many books.

1. Avant-Garde and the neo-avant-garde: from the pursuit of the primordial to the nihilism of narcissism
1A. The idealisation of the avant-garde artist as transmuter of value
1B. Fame, fortune, publicity, paratism: The narcissistic illusions of the neo-avant-garde artist
2. Preliminary therapeutic attitude: the provocative object as a path to primordiality (Picasso and Duchamp)
3. The geometrical cure: art as a matter of principle (Mondrian and Malevich)
4. The expressive cure: art as the recovery of primal emotion (Expressionism and Surrealism)
5. Fame as the cure-all, or the charisma of cynicism: Andy Warhol
6. Enchanting the disenchanted, or the artist's last stand: Joseph Beuys
7. The decadence or cloning of the avant-garde: appropriating art
Notes
Index.

Subject Areas: History of art & design styles: from c 1900 - [ACX], Theory of art [ABA]