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+ (presences of art)
øi deci a artistului e determinatæ prin cota acestuia, altfel spus prin valoarea
de schimb stabilitæ de marile societæfli ce organizeazæ cele mai importante
licitaflii; nu mai existæ decît o singuræ legitimitate, a pieflei, care garanteazæ
øi desfæøoaræ autoritatea supremæ – banii. Preflurile inimaginabile atinse de
lucrærile unor artiøti în viaflæ precum Jasper Jones – proporflional superioare
preflurilor marilor opere clasice – nu exprimæ o „valoare esteticæ“, ci organizeazæ
adeværul noului „spirit al lumii“, banul, care dispune tuturor, indivizilor
sau popoarelor, locul pe care aceøtia îl ocupæ în societate øi pe planetæ.
Øi astfel, artiøtii øi operele lor au devenit, prin generalizarea spectacolului,
obiecte de schimb integrate domeniului mærfii. Fluxurile monetare ce
traverseazæ lumea de la un capæt la altul cuprind deopotrivæ formele,
obiectele, actele estetice øi le învestesc cu valoare „artisticæ“, inaugurînd
sacralizarea unei noi transcendenfle. Fie cæ e vorba de o culturæ ce se oferæ
sub forma obiectelor, fie sub cea a conserværii acesteia, sub formæ de cîntece
øi, la modul general, de timp liber, nu existæ niciun loc, niciun moment
care sæ nu semnifice, sub acoperirea artei, cucerirea de spaflii neocupate
încæ de cætre acelaøi transcendent trinitar al mærfii-obiectelor-banilor.
Pentru ca avangardele sæ se poatæ desfæøura, a fost nevoie ca demiurgia
artistului, odatæ desfæcute legæturile ce fæceau din el artizanul înzestrat al
unei tradiflii, sæ se loveascæ de o ortodoxie esteticæ instituitæ ca valoare formalæ
øi semanticæ unicæ de cætre clasele øi institufliile conducætoare, ce dominau
producflia culturalæ a societæflii. Cæ acest academism s-a prezentat,
cîndva, ca bunæ-cuviinflæ burghezæ sau, mai apoi, ca apærare a rolului primordial
al „proletariatului“ sau al „rasei“ – fiecare dintre ele denunflînd, în
felul sæu, degenerarea artei moderne –, a fost vorba mereu de impunerea
unor tehnici verificate de multæ vreme øi de glorificarea unui nou subiect
al istoriei ca obiect central al reprezentærii – eroul naflional al unei istorii
ajunse la apogeu; virtuflile sociale închinate poporului „suveran“; în fine,
muncitorul (sau flæranul colectivist), demiurg al progresului industrial ori
soldatul pornit sæ cucereascæ „spafliul vital“. Cenzura îøi fæcea treaba în folosul
unui realism idealizat (liberal, socialist sau naflional-socialist), conøtient
de oroarea cotidianului, øi care nu se sætura sæ-øi proclame concepfliile ca
încununare a Frumosului, Binelui øi Adeværului. Era vorba, în fapt, doar
de niøte versiuni degradate ale idea platoniciene, oferite vociferærilor culturii
de masæ, de reabilitarea unui nou conformism idealist, ilustrînd ceea
ce spiritul vremii socotea ca fiind Virtuflile, Eroii naflionali sau internaflionali,
ba chiar noile Muze ale modernitæflii. Noutatea modernitæflii tehnice
îmbræca haina unei estetici ce radicalizeazæ academismul secolului al
XIX-lea, împotriva cæruia se ridicaseræ premodernii: Manet, cu referinflele
lui la modelele vechi, instalate de-acum în dorinfla timpului prezent
(Dejunul pe iarbæ); impresioniøtii, cu halucinafliile lor de luminæ în cîrciumile
de mahala, cu obrajii împurpurafli ai fetiøcanelor uøor accesibile; Van Gogh,
cu ai sæi Secerætori 9 trudind într-o luminæ aurie, deja ameninflatæ de miasmele
urbanizærii ce înainta nestævilitæ; în sfîrøit, Gauguin, ridicînd în slævi,
færæ moralism, biete flærænci bretone øi chinul muncii lor zilnice sau sfidînd
aroganfla colonialæ prin celebrarea polinezienilor.
Avangardele au moøtenit øi au desfæøurat acest simfl al lipsei de respect,
al blasfemiei øi al iconoclasmului, ajungînd însæ, la capætul cîtorva decenii,
sæ epuizeze aria posibilitæflilor de revoltæ. Iatæ de ce sfîrøitul avangardelor
øi apariflia lui „totul e posibil“ manifestæ o adeværatæ crizæ a artei contemporane
– poate chiar moartea ei –, cel puflin în formele pe care ni le-a læsat
Renaøterea øi evoluflia ei pînæ la sfîrøitul anilor ’40. Avangardele øi-au
about a culture offering itself in the form of objects or about its preservation,
there is no place, no moment not to signify, within the realm of art, the same
Trinitarian transcendent of commodity-objects-money.
In order for the avant-gardes to unfold, once the ties making the artist the artisan
of a tradition broke, the demiurgic character of the artist was determined
to hit the walls of an aesthetic orthodoxy established with a unique formal and
semantic value by the leading classes and institutions which dominated the cultural
production in society. That this academism sometime presented itself as
bourgeois decency or as a defence of the prevalent value of the “proletariat”
or the “race” – each of these denouncing in its own way the modern art degeneration
– it was always about imposing some techniques verified long time ago
and about glorifying a new subject of history as central point of representation –
the national hero of a history on the crest: the social virtues of the “sovereign”
people, the worker (or the collectivist peasant), the demiurge of the industrial
progress of the soldier sent to conquer vital space. Censorship did its work for
the benefit of an idealised realism (liberal, socialist or national-socialist), aware
of the everyday horror which couldn’t get enough of proclaiming its conceptions
as a crowning of Beauty, Good and Truth. All these were in fact degenerated
versions of Platonic Ideas offered to the vociferations of mass culture, about the
rehabilitation of a new idealistic conformism picturing what the spirit of the time
considered to be virtues; national or international heroes, muses of modernity.
The novelty of technical modernity came up as an aesthetic which radicalises the
academism of the past century, against which the post-modern had risen: Manet,
with his frequent references to the old models, installed in the desire of present
time (Breakfast on the Grass), the impressionists, with their hallucinations of
light in the slum pubs, with the purpled chicks of the easy young women, Van
Gogh, with his Harvesters 9 working in a golden light, already threatened by the
miasmas of the urbanization proceeding unhindered, finally, Gauguin, praising,
against the moral of his time, the poor Breton peasant women and the ordeal of
their everyday work, defying the colonial arrogance by celebrating Polynesians.
The avant-gardes have inherited and developed this sense of disrespectfulness
and iconoclasm, ending up, after a couple of decades, to exhaust the area of
revolt possibilities. That’s why the end of the avant-gardes and the occurrence
of “everything’s possible” reflects a genuine crisis in contemporary art – maybe
even its death – at least in the forms inherited from the Renaissance until the
end of the ’40s. The avant-gardes signed their own death sentence exactly
through their central will to be a part of the denial of limits, enounced in the
famous formula of Apollinaire: “Be modern!” What we have here is a manner
of adapting modern arts to the notion of progress, of subordinating them to
a program, of marking a way for them, more exactly, of a series of parallel ways
leading towards the same limitless horizon. Art is put in the service of permanent
innovation, either by the deliberate mutations of forms (capturing foreign
Western traditional forms) – the discovery of “primitive” arts, as a solution for
problems related to the representation of the objects –, by using some explicitly
non-aesthetic objects, of industrial products or wastes, finally mixing techniques,
materials, instruments, activities. Or, in the golden time of the avantgardes,
between 1905 and 1950, all constructions and deconstructions have
been attempted and accomplished, and all the iconoclasms, too. Within five
decades, from cubists to Malevich, from Duchamp to Klein, from Moholy-Nagy
to Tinguely, from Calder to Manzoni, modern art completes and exhausts its
possibilities. Many of the future artists simply carry on, repeat, on a small
or a large scale, more luscious or more austerely, the labels traced by these
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