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erotism criptic în care sælæøluieøte o dorinflæ indescifrabilæ, izvor al tuturor
potenflialitæflilor umane. Cu aceøti doi mari artiøti, sculptura clasicæ îøi încheie
goana spre eliminarea tuturor asperitæflilor decorative, în cæutarea
austeritæflii ca intensificare øi apoteozæ a esenflei; dar øi ca antitezæ a supraîncærcærii
baroce sau a fadelor referinfle greceøti, a avatarurilor academiste
ce næzuiau sæ mascheze un gol înspæimîntætor. Mai apoi, se vor suda
øine de cale feratæ, fierærie recuperatæ, se vor comprima carcase de automobile
aruncate în cimitir; se vor reconstrui obiecte din deøeuri casnice,
din resturi militare, din materiale aruncate în læzile de gunoi, pe plajele
poluate, în parcuri uitate, pe drumuri forestiere etc. Aventura va sfîrøi astfel
în vitrinele muzeelor, cu o cutie de conservæ a cærei etichetæ desemneazæ
conflinutul operei øi ceea ce poate face artistul în devenirea
modernitæflii tîrzii. Rahatul artistului, de Piero Manzoni, e emblema vremurilor
noastre, ce væd triumful Occidentului nesæflios, al unei Europe pline
de pofte, îmbuibatæ cu de toate øi defecîndu-øi preaplinul asupra restului
lumii pentru a face bani din excrementele sale. Duchamp e adus astfel
la niøte limite pe care n-a îndræznit nici el sæ øi le închipuie. Gurul din
Philadelphia a deschis drumul prin ready-made, aøa încît nu mai ræmînea
decît de exploatat filonul la scara posibilitæflilor infinite ale societæflii industriale.
Øtia el oare în ce mæsuræ negînditul din arta lui exprima gîndirea
secolului, care leagæ munca, producflia, consumul øi deøeurile acestora
în valoarea-monedæ?
De la Renaøtere øi referinfla greacæ, generafliile succesive de artiøti øi-au
ræspuns, ca într-un ecou, øi s-au chemat unele pe altele. Operele extreme
øi artiøtii pe care i-am citat apar, aøadar, ca formele øi figurile emblematice
ale unei frontiere ce marcheazæ sfîrøitul unei epoci øi zorii alteia, noi. Aceste
opere aratæ, în intenfliile øi în felul lor de a dezvælui, ruptura dintre arta
modernæ (ce-øi gæseøte împlinirea în criza reprezentærii obiectului) øi dispariflia
oricærui canon estetic; dintre sfîrøitul avangardelor øi promiscuitatea
actualæ a lui „totul e posibil“; dintre inovaflia ca revoltæ øi noutatea cu orice
prefl ca plecæciune în fafla conformismului; dintre artistul-demiurg øi artistul-mare
preot al cultului noutæflii; dintre creaflia ca tragedie øi lucrarea frivolæ
– dar cît de rentabilæ – a publicitæflii.
Putem stabili o paralelæ între evoluflia politicii øi cea a artei, færæ a face totuøi
din asta un simplu joc de oglinzi. Unii, asemenea lui Lyotard, înfleleg øi
definesc acest sfîrøit de veac ca „sfîrøit al marilor discursuri“: sfîrøit al marilor
utopii moderne care, de la anabaptism la revoluflia boløevicæ, cea fascistæ
ori nazistæ, i-au împins mereu pe oameni sæ facæ din Pæmînt un iad în
numele fericirii viitoare, dar în care, printre ruine, oraøe øi sate pustiite øi
nenumærate græmezi de cadavre, s-au înælflat uneori, ca printr-o minune
dumnezeiascæ, splendide bijuterii ale imaginafliei umane. Sfîrøitul utopiilor
øi cel al avangardelor merg mînæ în mînæ, ultimele precedîndu-le cu puflin
pe primele. A væzut cineva vreo Guernica inspiratæ de nesfîrøitele ræzboaie
de dupæ cea de-a doua conflagraflie mondialæ? Într-un trist happening, iatæ-ne
mulflumifli prin expunerea fotografiilor de la My Lai în fafla pînzei lui
Picasso, la Metropolitan Museum! 8 Dupæ ultimele dansuri macabre europene
ale secolului al XX-lea, lagærele sale de concentrare, mijloacele sale
de ucidere la scaræ industrialæ – lucruri de neconceput pentru o civilizaflie
(fie ea din Est sau din Vest) care pretindea cæ întemeiazæ progresul tehnic
øi social pe folosirea rafliunii practice, supuse transcendenflei imperativului
categoric etic, în domeniul rafliunii pure –, unii gînditori descifreazæ sensurile
vremurilor noastre ca pe o epocæ a sfîrøitului oricærei metafizici øi, mai
welded together, automobile carcases from the scrap yard shall be compressed;
objects shall be recovered from domestic garbage, from military residues, from
materials thrown to the trashcans, on the polluted beaches, in neglected parks,
on sand roads, etc. The adventure will thus reach the museum display cases,
with the label of a can as the work and what can the artist do in the becoming
of late modernity. Artist’s shit, by Piero Manzoni, is an emblem of our times witnesing
the triumph of the insatiable West, of a greedy Europe, stuffed with
everything and defecating its excess on the rest of the world in order to make
money out of excrements. Duchamp reaches levels which he himself wouldn’t
have dreamt of. The Philadelphia guru opened the way, so the only thing left
was to exploit this lode at the scale of the infinite possibilities provided by the
industrial society. Was he aware of the measure in which the unthought in his
art was expressing the thought of the century which ties and transforms labour,
production, consumption and their waste into the money-value?
From the Renaissance and the Greek reference, the successive generations of
artists answered their predecessors like an echo and called one other. The special
works and the artists cited occur thus as emblematic forms and figures
of a frontier marking the end of an era and the dawn of a new one; in their
intentions and manner of revealing themselves, these works reveal the break
occurred between modern art (which finds its completion in the crisis of the representation
of the objects) and the extinction of any aesthetic canon, between
the end of the avant-gardes and the present promiscuity of the formula “everything’s
possible”, between the innovation of the revolt and the novelty at any
price as a bow to conformism, between the demiurge-artist and the artist as
a great priest of the cult of novelty, between creation as tragedy and the frivolous
– but how profitable – work of advertising.
We can draw a parallel between the evolution of politics and that of art, without
creating a play of mirrors. Some people, like Lyotard, understand and define
this end of the century as the “end of the great narratives”, the end of the great
modern utopias which, from Anabaptism to the Bolshevik, fascist and Nazi revolutions
have always lead people to turn Earth into hell in the name of future happiness
but where, among ruins, wiped out cities and villages and countless piles
of dead bodies, splendid jewels of human imagination have sometimes rose as
if through a godly miracle. The end of utopias and that of the avant-gardes go
together, as the latter slightly preceded the former. Has anyone seen a Guernica
inspired by the endless wars after the Second World War? In a sad happening,
here we are content to see the My Lai photos facing Picasso’s painting at the
Metropolitan Museum! 8 After the last European macabre dances of our century,
the concentration camps, the killing methods at industrial scale – unconceivable
things for a civilization (be it Eastern or Western) claiming to found social and
technical progress on the use of practical reason (subjected to the transcendence
of the categorical imperative, the pendant of pure reason) – some thinkers decipher
the meaning of our times as the era of the end of any metaphysics and,
more generally, of philosophy. Tired by so many wars, exhausted by so many disasters
and miseries, Western man threw himself in the vertigo of the new consumerism
tornado and ended by relinquishing the ethical values imposed by the
classical concept of progress, which implied the moral education, the meticulous
striving, a balance between the technical functional, the financial and commercial
utilitarianism and Beauty as non-utilitarian universal value.
Contemporary mass democracy, realised under the sign of the society of consumption
– something the ventriloquists of the liberal thinking call the end
of history – puts together and equals social ethics and the frantic search of the
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