Avant-garde and kitsch are contrasting concepts of art. These two concepts prevailed in the art world during a trivial time in history for artist. During this time there was no single religion, tradition, or authority that flourished nor wouldn't be questioned of validity. This made trying times for artists of this era because artists rely on these exact subjects to construct art appealing to a particular audience. For the first time in decades would the idea of what acceptable art was would be questioned.
- Clement Greenberg Avant Garde And Kitsch 1939 Pdf Francais
- Clement Greenberg Avant Garde And Kitsch 1939 Pdf Francais
- Avant-garde And Kitsch Pdf
- Clement Greenberg Avant Garde And Kitsch 1939 Pdf Free
- Avant Garde And Kitsch Summary
The lack of unity in the artist's audience left the artist with the strenuous task of creating an artifact that would be acceptable to his audience. With this newly discovered ambiguousness of culture, avant-garde surface. Avant-garde best illustrates this era of ambiguity because it is the search of a new original. Avant-garde is the practice of imitating the imitation; imitating the process by which techniques are formed rather than the technique itself. It is an attempt to illustrate the unconscious.
Clement Greenberg (/ ˈ ɡ r iː n b ɜːr ɡ /), occasionally writing under the pseudonym K. Hardesh (January 16, 1909 – May 7, 1994), was an American essayist. Clement Greenberg nel 1939 scrive e pubblica un saggio intitolato Avant-garde and kitsch in cui definisce i. Clement Greenberg was probably the single most influential art critic in the 20th. Particular he published 'Avant-Garde and Kitsch,' an essay which undertook an. Opera mini 7 download for samsung e2252 pc. Early essays such as 'Avant-Garde and Kitsch ' (1939) and 'Towards a New. Clement Greenberg: A Life., 1997. Other articles where Avant-Garde and Kitsch is discussed: Clement Greenberg: of an essay titled 'Avant-Garde and Kitsch' in the fall 1939 issue of Partisan Review. In this essay Greenberg, an avowed Trotskyite Marxist, claimed that avant-garde Modernism was 'the only living culture that we now have' and that it was threatened primarily by the emergence of sentimentalized 'kitsch. Clement Greenberg Imagines the Kitsch Public - Download as PDF File (.pdf), Text File (.txt) or read. Avant-Garde and Kitsch is the title of a 1939 essay by Clement Greenberg, first published in the Partisan Review, in which he claimed that avant-garde and modernist art was a means to resist the. Created Date: 7/6/2000 3:01:32 PM.
Avant-garde became known as abstract art. To the naked eye, abstract art, such as Jason Pollock's 'Number 31,' seems much less formed than the art people had considered as art for so many centuries. People see Pollock's work as a shower of misplaced and splatted paint; ignorant to the infinite control Pollock had of his 'splattered' paint. Pollock's work wouldn't be avant-garde if he did not use controlled methods to create his artifact. Avant-garde does not consist of accidental beauty but beauty in control of the incontrollable. The art must be true to itself; content must be true and whole.
Because the art demanded a different strategy for interpretation, the validity of it being a true form of art was questioned. However, to the trained and learned eye, interpretation and validity is found in this complex form of art. The only social class that has time to dedicate leisure time to training the eye to recognize tis concept of art is the bourgeois — laborers lacked leisure time. Therefore, avant-garde is associated with and funded by the bourgeois. Avant-garde continues to have obscurity in who its exact audience is because of its subjects's abstraction and variety. Because of this it has problems being funded at times because even the middle-class has trouble identifying which is true avant-garde and what is fallacious.
Perfectly contrasting the concept of avant-garde is the concept of kitsch. Kitsch is associated with the proletariate (lower-class) and consequently urbanized — manufacturer workers lived in the city to be close to their jobs. Kitsch's audience is distinguished from avant-garde's audience. Kitsch's audience consisted of people who weren't intellectuals of art but thirsted for some sort of diversion that only culture could provide; a medium for a culture. Failure to recognize and understand the genuine culture kitsch became an academicized simulacra of genuine culture. This welcomed and cultivated insensibility to the origin of art — opposite of avant-garde.
Whereas avant-garde is the imitation of the imitating, kitsch s mechanical and operates by formulas.If avant-garde illustrates the unconscious, kitsch illustrates the conscious. It is effortless to understand kitsch because its subject matter is evident to all who see look at it. Artists such as Ilya Yefimovich Repin's artifacts are concise in depth; they leave not room for personal interpretation or imagination — it doesn't force oneself to think but to relate from experience of similar scenes. If avant-garde imitates the process of art, kitsch imitates the effect of art. If avant-garde is purposeful beauty, kitsch is accidental beauty.
Because kitsch's audience is the general mass — the proletariat — governments used this concept as the staple of the culture to help control the masses. Though officials were naturally compelled to defend the validity and esteem of avant-garde, the sacrifice of losing the attention of the majority was subservient in significance.
Photo credits to:
nnc07, flickr.com 'Number 31,' Jason Pollock
Clement Greenberg Avant Garde And Kitsch 1939 Pdf Francais
Tschäff, flickr.com 'Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan on November 16, 1581,' Repin
THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT
OF
The Avant-Garde and Kitsch, 1939
by Clement Greenberg
What is life? If one paraphrases the painter, Ad Reinhardt, 'Life is everything that is not art or art is everything that is not life…' which means that much has been excluded from art…an exclusion, which would please the New York critic, Clement Greenberg. In 1939, against the backdrop of European Fascism, the American art critic wrote The Avant-Garde and Kitsch. The prevailing and popular art style, American regionalism, was waning when Greenberg set out to make the distinction between a true genuine culture and popular art. From the very beginning of the essay, Greenberg was very clear that he would deal with a question of 'aesthetics,' or how art is defined, and that he would do so by examining the experiences of a 'specific' individual and the 'social and historical contexts in which that experience takes place.'
Greenberg was writing at a very unique time indeed. It was rare for contemporary art to be under the kind of attacks that had been underway for years in Europe. In the Soviet Union, the avant-garde was completely suppressed. In German, avant-garde art was defined as 'degenerate.' The Avant-Garde and Kitsch was published in the new intellectual journal, Partisan Review, a good place for an up-and-coming literary critic to further his career. For years Greenberg, an English major in college, wrote mostly as a literary critic, and his first published article was on Berthold Brecht, a Berlin theater producer. Brecht, a devoted Communist, thought of popular entertainment as a means to raise the consciousness of the audience. Using the 'estrangement' strategy, Brecht broke the 'fourth wall' by addressing the audience directly from the stage and thus also breaking the illusion of 'reality.'
As his interest in Brecht's use of popular theater would suggest, Greenberg was not necessarily opposed to popular culture per se and it is important to understand the context in which this essay was developed. The entire world was poised on the edge of another world war and was witnessing the horrifying spectacle of a fascist war machine rolling over Europe. During this fascist period in Europe, 'culture' had been appropriated by the totalitarian powers in the Soviet Union, Germany and Italy and turned into spectacle for the masses, resulting in mesmerizing entertainment and psychic manipulation.
The ability of Hitler and Mussolini to make war with little opposition from their own people who supported the aggression was the result of a years-long, carefully orchestrated campaign of propaganda. Brecht understood all too well how 'culture' both popular and unpopular could be mobilized to mesmerize the masses, which was exactly what happened in Germany. Any form of culture that could protest the philosophy of the Nazis had long since been shut down and dissident artists were brutally silenced. German artists had fled to America or had retreated to an 'inner exile' of non-confrontational art. Indeed, Greenberg himself would later learn much about art from an émigré artist, Hans Hofmann.
Greenberg was repelled by the totalitarian seizure of 'culture' in Europe. But the critic is an American living in New York. If the examples of the demise of the avant-garde in Europe were extreme, the governmental use of American artists to its own end was also disturbing to an intellectual. Although many artists owned their careers to government patronage during the thirties, there was a cost to carrying on this kind of work. The role of art under the New Deal was to communicate very specific messages to a public, which was largely illiterate about art and the artist's freedom was often limited by the parameters of the project. That said, in America, there was artistic freedom, and Greenberg equated the freedom to make art with the freedom to make avant-garde abstract art. But there was also a small arena for avant-garde artists in America and the artists lacked the open playing field of art galleries that existed in France.
Writing at the end of the avant-garde in Europe, Greenberg explained the significance of the avant-garde tradition. He defined the avant-garde as a 'superior consciousness' which coincided with the emergence of modern scientific thinking. As a force for cultural critique, avant-garde art separated itself from the bourgeoisie. This separation included the artists' separation from subject matter and content and an adherence to art-for-art's-sake. Greenberg made reference to the avant-garde artists,
What is life? If one paraphrases the painter, Ad Reinhardt, 'Life is everything that is not art or art is everything that is not life…' which means that much has been excluded from art…an exclusion, which would please the New York critic, Clement Greenberg. In 1939, against the backdrop of European Fascism, the American art critic wrote The Avant-Garde and Kitsch. The prevailing and popular art style, American regionalism, was waning when Greenberg set out to make the distinction between a true genuine culture and popular art. From the very beginning of the essay, Greenberg was very clear that he would deal with a question of 'aesthetics,' or how art is defined, and that he would do so by examining the experiences of a 'specific' individual and the 'social and historical contexts in which that experience takes place.'
Greenberg was writing at a very unique time indeed. It was rare for contemporary art to be under the kind of attacks that had been underway for years in Europe. In the Soviet Union, the avant-garde was completely suppressed. In German, avant-garde art was defined as 'degenerate.' The Avant-Garde and Kitsch was published in the new intellectual journal, Partisan Review, a good place for an up-and-coming literary critic to further his career. For years Greenberg, an English major in college, wrote mostly as a literary critic, and his first published article was on Berthold Brecht, a Berlin theater producer. Brecht, a devoted Communist, thought of popular entertainment as a means to raise the consciousness of the audience. Using the 'estrangement' strategy, Brecht broke the 'fourth wall' by addressing the audience directly from the stage and thus also breaking the illusion of 'reality.'
As his interest in Brecht's use of popular theater would suggest, Greenberg was not necessarily opposed to popular culture per se and it is important to understand the context in which this essay was developed. The entire world was poised on the edge of another world war and was witnessing the horrifying spectacle of a fascist war machine rolling over Europe. During this fascist period in Europe, 'culture' had been appropriated by the totalitarian powers in the Soviet Union, Germany and Italy and turned into spectacle for the masses, resulting in mesmerizing entertainment and psychic manipulation.
The ability of Hitler and Mussolini to make war with little opposition from their own people who supported the aggression was the result of a years-long, carefully orchestrated campaign of propaganda. Brecht understood all too well how 'culture' both popular and unpopular could be mobilized to mesmerize the masses, which was exactly what happened in Germany. Any form of culture that could protest the philosophy of the Nazis had long since been shut down and dissident artists were brutally silenced. German artists had fled to America or had retreated to an 'inner exile' of non-confrontational art. Indeed, Greenberg himself would later learn much about art from an émigré artist, Hans Hofmann.
Greenberg was repelled by the totalitarian seizure of 'culture' in Europe. But the critic is an American living in New York. If the examples of the demise of the avant-garde in Europe were extreme, the governmental use of American artists to its own end was also disturbing to an intellectual. Although many artists owned their careers to government patronage during the thirties, there was a cost to carrying on this kind of work. The role of art under the New Deal was to communicate very specific messages to a public, which was largely illiterate about art and the artist's freedom was often limited by the parameters of the project. That said, in America, there was artistic freedom, and Greenberg equated the freedom to make art with the freedom to make avant-garde abstract art. But there was also a small arena for avant-garde artists in America and the artists lacked the open playing field of art galleries that existed in France.
Writing at the end of the avant-garde in Europe, Greenberg explained the significance of the avant-garde tradition. He defined the avant-garde as a 'superior consciousness' which coincided with the emergence of modern scientific thinking. As a force for cultural critique, avant-garde art separated itself from the bourgeoisie. This separation included the artists' separation from subject matter and content and an adherence to art-for-art's-sake. Greenberg made reference to the avant-garde artists,
'Picasso, Braque, Mondrian, Miro, Kandinsky, Brancusi, even Klee, Matisse and Cézanne derive their chief inspiration from the medium they work in,' and he adds, in a phrase which would be further developed in later essays, '…to the exclusion of whatever is not necessarily implicated in these factors.'
But, as a Marxist, Greenberg saw problems within the avant-garde in that this '…culture contains within itself some of the very Alexandrianism it seeks to overcome.' Greenberg feared for the avant-garde artist, for this artist was dependent upon capitalism and wealthy patrons. The artist was necessarily attached to bourgeois wealth by what Greenberg called 'an umbilical cord of gold.' He pointed to the paradox of artistic freedom being dependent upon an elite clientele, which is shrinking rather than growing. Greenberg wrote,
'…the avant-garde itself, already sensing the danger, is becoming more and more timid every day that passes. Academicism and commercialism are appearing in the strangest places. This can mean only one thing: that the avant-garde is becoming unsure of the audience it depends on — the rich and the cultivated.'
Greenberg looked elsewhere and wrote that the avant-garde was threatened by the rear guard, which, to Greenberg, was the dreaded phenomenon—kitsch, which he defined as,
'…popular, commercial art and literature with their chromeotypes, magazine covers, illustrations, ads, slick and pulp fiction, comics, Tin Pan Alley music, tap dancing, Hollywood movies, etc., etc…'
Later, Greenberg would disavow his definition of kitsch, and, indeed, his later discussion of kitsch indicates that he is less concerned about popular culture than with what would be better termed 'academic art.' It would be correct to assume that Greenberg despaired of a nation that thought it was receiving 'art' every week with the Norman Rockwell cover of The Saturday Evening Post, but it is also important to recall that what was considered art in the 1930s was 'academic.'
As the following quote from Greenberg would suggest, an example of 'kitsch' would be Alexandre Cabanal's Birth of Venus as opposed to avant-garde work of Édouard Manet's Le Dejeunner sur l'herbe. According to the critic,
The precondition for kitsch, a condition without which kitsch would be impossible, is the availability close at hand of a fully matured cultural tradition, whose discoveries, acquisitions, and perfected self-consciousness kitsch can take advantage of for its own ends. It borrows from it devices, tricks, stratagems, rules of thumb, themes, converts them into a system, and discards the rest. It draws its lifeblood, so to speak, from this reservoir of accumulated experience.
In other words, kitsch, using for raw material the debased and academicized simulacra of genuine culture, welcomes and cultivates this insensibility. It is the source of its profits. Kitsch is mechanical and operates by formulas. Kitsch is vicarious experience and faked sensations. Kitsch changes according to style, but remains always the same. Kitsch is the epitome of all that is spurious in the life of our times. Kitsch pretends to demand nothing of its customers except their money — not even their time. And speaking of money, Greenberg noted that the avant-garde has not always 'resisted' the 'of temptation' to turn their art into kitsch.
Kitsch is popular or commercial form of high art, a product of the industrial revolution, manufactured for a middle class audience who had enough literacy to want 'art' but not enough culture to understand the genuine article. The urbanized proletariat was given an ersatz culture—fake art, kitsch, which used a debased and academicized simulacra of genuine culture. Kitsch operated, according to Greenberg, as vicarious experience, as faked sensations, taking advantage of a fully matured cultural tradition for its own ends. Kitsch loots real art, borrows what it needs, converts inventions into formulas, waters down experiments and turns out familiar art-like images mechanically.
Clement Greenberg Avant Garde And Kitsch 1939 Pdf Francais
Often overlooked in the numerous analyses of this essay is Greenberg's lengthy and perceptive discussion of the relationship between kitsch and the regimes in Germany, Italy and Russia. These totalitarian regimes reject the avant-garde for two reasons. First, the dictatorial government must get close to the people in order to rule them and no government wishing to disperse propaganda would use avant-garde art to do so. The public simply would not understand the language. In point of fact, that is precisely what happened to the Soviet avant-garde which was deemed inarticulate. Second, Greenberg considered the avant-garde to be inherently critical and unsuited for governmental manipulation. 'It is for this reason that the avant-garde is outlawed, and not so much because a superior culture is inherently a more critical culture,' he stated.
Greenberg was certainly prophetic in recognizing that kitsch would become an international language, taking over indigenous folk cultures; but he was wrong in assuming that avant-garde artists would succumb to actually making kitsch. It is one of the ironies of art history that the kitsch-producing government commissions allowed financially marginal artists to become professional artists who would later become the center of the avant-garde. What Greenberg could not foresee was that, after World War II, a consumer society would be kicked into high gear, producing a generation of artists who grew up with kitsch or popular culture.
Greenberg may have repudiated his rather simplistic definition of 'kitsch,' but his attitude that the public could not tell the difference between Tin Pan Alley and T. S. Eliot remained. Convinced of the serious mission that avant-garde art had to stand apart from society in order to critique it, the critic could not look upon Pop Art as 'art.' This generation, called Pop artists (popular culture) used kitsch as raw material for their art and converted images from kitsch sources into artistic icons. Trapped by a self-imposed vocabulary of form and formalism, he simply did not have the concepts that would have allowed him to marvel—however cynically—at how kitsch became elevated to 'high art.' But Greenberg's essay remains viable and perceptive in his analysis of the gulf between the elite and the general public. The following words could have been written today:
Avant-garde And Kitsch Pdf
Most often this resentment toward culture is to be found where the dissatisfaction with society is a reactionary dissatisfaction which expresses itself in revivalism and puritanism, and latest of all, in fascism. Here revolvers and torches begin to be mentioned in the same breath as culture. In the name of godliness or the blood's health, in the name of simple ways and solid virtues, the statue-smashing commences.
Clement Greenberg Avant Garde And Kitsch 1939 Pdf Free
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