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publicity , and particularly so today when cafe society, the chic magazines, and
the popular media have appropriated the arts . Hence it becomes easier for a
salon journalist like Wolfe both to mix up art with chic and to identify with
the tastes of the common man-which turn out to have a lot in common .
It
is also unfortunate that some ofWolfe's vulgar dismissal of American
abstraction should coincide with the tastes ofmore serious critics . Thus Hilton
Kramer , who is certainly not in Wolfe's dance class , but who has his own axe
to
grind against Greenberg , Rosenberg , and the abstract expressionists–
partly because he favors a more naturalistic art-seems to me
to
be too easy on
Wolfe when he concedes some truth in his expose of the art world. For Wolfe
is simply using the obvious connections between the art, money, and fashion
markets to foul up the whole scene . And even when Wolfe discloses the
faddism and modishness of the pop and post-pop show , it is not because he is
agonizing over the loss ofstandards , or because he stands for something purer
or more solid.
It is simply a case of conservative chic taking potshots at radical chic.
w.p.
