When Art Genius Becomes a Joke: Kant, and Postmodern Deceit
This essay contrasts the empty rhetoric of postmodern pretentious art speak with the unequivocal genius of Maria Callas and points a finger at the biggest fraud of all, Immanuel Kant.
Art Speak Warning!
A new exhibition at Hauser & Wirth (very similar to the White Cube): "In an exhibition that extends the artist’s recent formal and thematic investigations while pushing his practice towards distinctly new inventions, Bradford probes the enduring impact of colonialism and concepts of ‘otherness’ through the lens of individual experience."
It is an extraordinary stretch—though much closer to unadulterated PMBS (postmodern bullshit)—to connect paint splatters with formal thematic inventions, colonialism, and alienation concepts. What would be more sincere is to state something like: the artist has no idea how his paintings come about.
Then, quote Immanuel Kant on genius:
Genius:
"It cannot indicate scientifically how it brings about its product, but rather gives the rule as nature. Hence, where an author owes a product to his genius, he does not himself know how the ideas for it have entered into his head, nor has he it in his power to invent the like at pleasure, or methodically, and communicate the same to others in such precepts as would put them in a position to produce similar products."
— The Critique of Judgment by Immanuel Kant, translated by James Creed Meredith
Quoting Kant would, in this context, give much more academic weight and hail this paint-splashing moronic artist as a genius—though it doesn’t change the absurdity. In dramatic contrast, an authentic genius like Maria Callas shows exactly how it’s done in her brilliant Juilliard master classes, where she walks the students and audience through the hows and whys of her process. Greats like Placido Domingo were in attendance, gasping at how simple her reasoning was yet how powerful it became in practice.1
Immanuel Kant is the king of BS and, appropriately, the conceptual father of postmodern art through his aesthetics in The Critique of Judgment. So, if you're going to con people with PMBS, at least go with the PMBS king!
Michael Newberry, Idyllwild, September 26, 2024
I did purchase some abstract art this week, but I like it for non-post-modern reasons. As in, actual reasons to like something.