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PARTISAN REVIEW
viding it rids itself of the immature illusion, fostered by futurism , expres–
sionism, dada, and surrealism, that art can change the world (as if the world
hasn't been changed) .
In the May issue of
Commentary,
Hilton Kramer,
The New York Times'
tireless Meter Maid of the arts, affiliated himself with the burlesque-house
song-and-dance monologist, Tom Wolfe, in order to blast "the 'advanced'
middle class" that has supported avant-garde art. "About manners and the
volatile ethos ofour cultural life, " gurgles Kramer, "he[Wolfe] knows a great
deal-as much, in my opinion, as anyone now writing;" and to this out–
standing philosopher of culture, Kramer offers his partnership in exposing
"the class that gave to the votaries of the avant-garde their conspicuous and
protracted purchase on our cultural affairs ."
This is the' 'new conservative" line applied to
art.
Kramer wants nothing
less than the' 'reopening ofsome fundamental questions about the relation of
art to the society that produces and exalts it." In the proposed reassessment
"an art that flatters or at least accomodates itself to established power is not
automatically dismissed as contemptible." The double negative of "not
automatically dismissed" is typical of Kramer's rhetorical sneakiness-his
point is that art ought to accomodate itself to power.
The suggestion that the fading antagonism of artists to middle-class
values spells the end of art as a serious pursuit is sufficient to cause the cess–
pools of Kramer's sarcasm to bubble over. "What class is it, I wonder," he
shrieks, "that Rosenberg imagines he writes for in the pages of
The New
Yorker?
The proletariat?" Apparently, Kramer believes that all individuals
belonging to the middle class must necessarily have the same ideas-and the
ass-kissing ideas ofKramer at that . What will the middle class itself do if every
element in it, including artists and critics, follows Kramer's advice and
"accomodates itself to established power"?
The basic difference between art today and twenry years ago lies in the
increasing amalgamation of painting and sculpture into the United States
cultural-educational-entertainment system. Not that the earlier art had
revolutionary social ideals; but it did have the advantage of leading a separate
existence, if only from neglect .
The coming together of art and society affected art in the following
areas:
1)
Changes within the artist.
American postwar art reflected the grandeur of
underground ambitions. Action painting and abstract expressionism were
adventures in self-transcendence. With the rise of the new art audience in the
fifties, art transferred its interest from the myth of self to practice as a profes–
sion designed to satisfy the recently emerged corps of collectors, historian–
critics, and curators. Instead of seeking a language bearing on his existence,
