PARTISAN REVIEW
215
"Dada holds war and peace in its toga but prefers to have a
cherry brandy flip," Hiilsenbeck wrote in a passage that perfectly
evokes the fashionable nihilism of the twenties. Even pop art had a
little of the fun-loving aspect of Dada. But the irony had grown cold,
cruel, and finally vicious by the time today's super-realists began to
paint the horrors of the American tinsel and neon nightmare in
photographic
trompe l'oeil.
The shopping centers and luncheonettes
are vacant, devoid of any human presence. The motorcycles gleam
with vicious coldness, the precise mechanical style in which they are
painted an analogue of total depersonalization. There is no more
mocking irony, only cynical passive acceptance. There are no ex–
pressionist distortions to spell out a point of view; the artist is re–
duced to mute witnessing of a horror that is the more nightmarish
for its reality.
The attitude is not of protest but of infantile passivity, and even
those acts of protest which continue are couched in infantile terms.
Thus the late Italian neo-Dadaist Manzoni exhibits
his
own canned
feces in the gallery. Blood and filth are smeared over performers in
ritualistic happenings. Galleries are filled with heaps of junk, garbage,
and dirt as the artist resorts to more and more infantile strategies to
attract the attention of the unloving uninterested parent. Infantile
feelings of omnipotence are expressed in earth works - grandiose
projects to change the world - giant sandpiles financed by a bored
public. Eventually every kind of pathology is hailed as art: Exhibi–
tionism (Vito Acconci masturbating in public) ; Autism (the "living
sculpture" of Gilbert and George impersonating singing automata);
Narcissism (Lucas Samaras using double exposure Polaroids to create
the image of sodomizing himself); Necrophilia (Paul Thek's life-size
replica of himself entombed); all are common fare. Alienation be–
comes a favored subject. The body itself is conceived of as a foreign
object. Bruce Nauman paints his testicles black and Wolfgang Stoer–
kle animates his penis in rhythmic patterns on videotape. Images of
castration and dismemberment are everywhere, from Jim Dine's head–
less bathrobes (one with ax attached) to Jasper Johns's scattered parts
of the human anatomy to Robert Morris's brain covered with dollar
bills to Ed Kienholz's recent tableau 5
Car Stud,
depicting castration
of a black by four whites. The Images of masochism, self-mutilation,
