- Art in America NOVEMBER 1984 A Paris for the 21st Century? Helene Lipstadt 104 Aan examination of the Mintertand governments four major achectural projects in Pai, An Appeal for Empathy Donald B. Kuspit 114 Challenging conventional nsions of syle, German Expressionist Sculpture concurrently exploits @varey of manners. Desperate Pleasures Robert Storr 124 Eric Fisch paintings knowingly elicit he viewer's voyeuristic pamiipaion in hanged emoxioal vents Heizer’s Extracts Frances Colpitt 132 Michael Heizer's new indoor sculpture suesitctly summarizes aspect of his ealcr outdoor work Anna Whistler the Venerable Phoebe Lloyd 138 “Though ste is tamed inher sons famous portrait other. the mother of James MeNell Whistler in fic ceguated much of he ais’ ie DEPARTMENTS Review of Books 19 Report from London Jobn McEwen 29 Aroworld 208 REVIEW OF EXHIBITIONS New York, London, Southampton, NX. Fort Worth, Los Angeles 353, ISSUES & COMMENTARY Psychoanalytic Criticism: Some Intimate Questions Jane Gallop 9 Goren Ene Faas Old Man Boar Old Wan's Dog 1982, ol on canvas, 84 inches square: colection Charles ‘an Dorm Santen See article on pate 124 Euttor: Elizabeth C. Baker Nancy Marmer/ Seior Editors: Ted Mooney, Craig Owens, Hak Foster ( Assocate Eitor: Gina Grant | Assistant Manapin dito: Robert Fisher Ei ) Designer: Katharine C. Wodell / Diectory Manage: Aimy Slaton / Cons ‘Jamey Gambrel, Donald B. Kespit, Lucy Lippard, Strah McFadden, Linds Nocblin, Carter Rathi, Walter Rol ‘Corresponding Editors Chieapo, Frans Schlee:Sen Francisco, Peer Selz Washington DC. David Geadel, Germany, David Galloway Publisher: Pavl Shanley Director of Adverisin: Susan B, Anthony / Advertising Sles: Deborah J. Gardner, Karen Nidselhi, Roth athsald/ Advertsing Services: Lora Friedman, Cathy McKay / rt Services & Art Schools Sales: Richard Coyne / Production; Mary Jontry / Procucion Asia: Beth A. Késlan Ctculation DrecerStaan,Batna sistant Circulation Manager: Bilen Bruzeias / Promotion Director: James Anderson Marketing Services Duesior Cathy Morgan / Credit Manager: Steven Kautiman / Artin America 488 Madison Ave, NLY.C, 10022 Tes (212) 688-6563 ‘Director fr Intermaional Developme ohn H, Lisvld, J. Adminstative Ait: Grant France. Te. (1) 3952655 Hows Contributing Ector: Pradence er / Ar in America, 39 Qua des Grands Austins, 75006 Pans, Gin'snaer"Gusroun Stree Togcone athena #49858 Tom aS OF MDBACTS sso anew sel ond Wo ve a aes POSTMASTER Sa Sas oo Sa iwc ton oe GD icre operat vant cris oven 8£ j i Theorizing the Avant-Garde A belated translation “Theory of the Avant of Peter Biirger’s -Garde”’ prompts reflection on the critical foundations of esthetic theory in the late ‘60s. BY BENJAMIN BUCHLOH Theory of the Avant-Garde, by Peter Birger, transiaton by Mi ‘hae! Shaw, foreword by Jochen Schulte-Sasse, Minneapolis, Uni versity of Minnesota Prees, 1984, 135 pp. $25 cloth, $10.95 paper. The English translation of Peter Burger's. short but concise and important Theory of the Avant Garde teaches. Ihe reader ten yeas after its orginal publication in Germany. The fust study of tne subject since Renato Pog: goW’e hopelessly alheoretical 4nd historically insuficient Theo- ty of the Avant-Garde (1962), Burger's essay—since that is wal the Book should be called, rather than a "theory"—might {generate excitement for this rea Son alone, Since this review is wniten with. particular concern for the viabilty of Buige’s argu: rmant in the context of contem porary (meaning 20th-century in general) visual arts production, if ‘must be said at the Degrning That frustration is mxed with the ‘excitement, for although Burger 'S a literary historian of consider able competence and standing in the llelds of French and com- parative fierature (a major study ot French Surrealism preceded This work), his knowledge of the history and theory of the avant garde in the visual arts at tines Seems imited, i rot naive. ‘The essay's conciseness and logically argued proposals, as wel ag the range of is teter- noes (even if mostly essayistic), wae it a siightly Delated, but stil valusble contribution to the current debate on modeccism. However, as one scrutinizes nore closely Burgers rather am situs attempt to develop a The: ory of the Avant-Garde in 99 ages, more and more drastic faults appear These can be alti buted less to the fact that the ‘book was written ten years ago, ‘and more to the fact that any theorization of avant-garde prac: tice from 1818 to 25 (plus a few additional snide comments on the “neo-avant-garde" after 1945) must force the vast aitter fences and contradictions of that Practice into the unifying frame wok of theoretical categories, {andis therelote doomed to failure One wishes that Birger rack expressed some awareness of how patently absurd it is to er duce’ the history of avantgarde practices in 20thicentury art to fone overriding concem—the dis manting of the false autonomy of the institution of art—which he sees as the driving force of Daca (Bern, Zurich and New York), “Russian Sanstructivism and) Soviet Productwvism, and French Surrealism. Does Bu'ger seriously believe that itwas John Heartfeld's primary concern in 1959 to “destroy art as an inst tution set off from the praxis of Of, to take the cnposite case, would Dali and Picabia— Surrealists. who tied with fas ism at the same time—have cared about this proposal? I the: ‘ofization of this entre perod ‘at all possible—and Burger nim. ssolf voices doubts near the end of his essay when ne quotes ‘Adoino's statement that the de- (fee of irationality in late capitak ISt society no longer aliows for theorizalion—it woud require a much closer and mare through eating of art history and its car stiuets and texts Just how much Burger realty cares about the materiality of that histoy becomes. paituly obvious when he repeatedly ve fers to "a prece of waven bas ket" that Peasso included in his painting (presumably a reference fo the pece of panied oi-cioth in the most famous of al! of Acas: so" Cubist calages, Stil Life ‘wh Ghar Caring, 1912), OF wien he refers 10) the typical “neo avant garde” artist who, jiaing Duchamp, places a Stove pine" In the museum (he right Be rotering to ener Rau: Ssenenerg of Tinguely, nether of vwhom, however, employ "stove pipes"). Or whon ho says that Bucname’s “teadymades “un: mask the art market where the Signature means more than the ‘ually of the work.” (Thi. lat Statement exemplifies the hig handedness with which BUrger looks at ware by aftisis whose practices ne chims to teorze) urge’s conta! idea that the ~isioneal” avantgardes of the ety 20tn century must be die fentatec from bath thee moder Ist predecessors inthe 19th con tury and ther "neo avantgarde" folewers after 1945, Te sound and wil serve as. an, obigatoy ‘medel for anyone working is the Fistory of svadernism, However, hha has made up his mans fort the start about the interest and vaidiy of ne neoavantgarde: in Fis theory, the art_of the. post 1945 pertod is measured against the. authority of the. hsioncal avantgarde and found. insu ‘Sent and dismsable: "The Neo: ‘avantgarde which siages for 2 second time the avant gardste break wit rion Becomes @ faniestation that is. devo of Sense and that permits the post ingot any moaring whalsoever “his kin of hyperopic reading of the art of tho present tesibes fonly'to. the traciional contempt df Ihe academe erie for artists who continue to. produce alter titiism has. declared ether the ‘max othe death ofthe kind of ait favors Hed Burger's com temp! fer contemporary aft prac tice not nied ing vision 8D se verly, ne might have agcovered that aitisis in the late ‘6Ds were engaged in 4 parallel analysis of {he nsttution état and the int {ulonalzation of esthetic ds course. In fact, Burger's major hypothesis nad‘alveady been tl 1y developed in Daniel Suren's Review of Books 1969 essay “Limites Cntigues, 1 well as in the works of many arlsts of the periog Burger's wholesale aismissal ‘of contemporary production is particularly iron ight of the fact that his study is a prograrn matic attempt 10 integrate the history of avant-garde’ practice Into academic discourse, and si- ‘multaneously to open up that discourse 1 become a critical hermeneutics. As such, the es: say is the product of a struggle within the eld of German iterary and art hislory of the mid 10 late ‘60s, when a8 par of the general process of poiticization, stu- dents in the humanities became increasingly aware of the eno: ‘mous omissions of historical ma teal from the general academic Ccurticulum (in part a continuation of the Gorman fascists’ blackout of avant-garde produstion}. Stu: Gents of Burger's generation be gan ' question the inherent hu: manist ~authortarariem of the discipline as wel as ils definition {as Geistesgeschichte and is re: stiction of inqury to the acy knowledged masterpieces of the cultura history ofa single nation Burger's generation also became aware of the probiems—f- not the outright falure—of ine meth odology that both aft and iterary Fistory ad inhented from the 19th century, and tat had been passed on trom generation to Generation of ite students with Only “minor adjustments. They discovered—atian in opposition to their teachars-the. “other history of the 20In-century avant garde. (especially Berlin’ Dada, French Sureaism and Soviet Constructivism and Productive ‘sm, 38 well ag theones of ar listic production thet Ned been developed outside the academic apparatus (euen as Weller Ber: Jamn's epoctal_ The Origin of German Tragic Drama)—theories which turned out to be more im: Prtant for he development of a few aterary cnticism than most of the discipline's own paper t- gers. Reading Birger’s essay a de- cade after its inital pobication foffers @ walcame opportunity 10 rellect upon both the relevance {and the limitations of the critical foundations of esthetic theory in the late '60sAS Burger himself clearly” states, ns theory. is ‘based on Man's cntique ot ideo:logy. He argues that, nike Mar. who ciscusset the social function "of rigor a delal, Marxist esinetcans ike. Aaorn0, Benjamin and Lukdcs nbver 24 Gressed the function of ait, Dut accepted the 1Sth-century bour {ge018 defniton of art as essen aly’ dysfunctional in society regulated by cayse-andetect explanations. exchange value and. profit orientation. Only in Marcuse’s wilings does Burger discover an attempt to cary the social tunetion of art as providing an afirmative "justfcation of the established form otexsience However, this ‘608. notion of art a8 ideoiogy—a8 applied by Marcuse, BU:ger, and the maior ty of the soci histonans of ait—is "proloundly " delicient When esthetic knowledge ' a signed fo the reaim of ideology the ciiteal subject (the aca emis, the historian) produces knowledge that supposedly looks into the esthetic abyss {tom a position of scent. ob lectiviy. Surely this was never the assumption in either Acor no's oF Benjamin's wings. and it's on this basis Tat Birger argues that thei work's ied to the conditions of modernism isel AS has been argued in more recent theoretical taectons on the relationship of esthetic prac: tee and ideology, the concept of ideology employed in Burger's ‘essay auters trom bath an un erestimation of the power of ‘Geology to constitu subject {y and an overestimation of the subsumption of att Dy ideology. Both Athusse"s nowslancard 1969 essay’ 1Geology and 1de0- logical State Apparatuses” and ‘ula _Krsteva's. notion that es ihetie practice performs a "sem lie rupture” nthe. toaliy of ‘dectogy (s00, for example, her La Révoluton dt langage poet que. 1974) prove 2 theory of ‘Geology and subjectivity that a: lows for a mote complex view of tte relalonshp between the to laity. of ideological discourses and inattions wahin which the subect—ncluding_ the historian {and erlie-'e constituted. as wel as the acual interference aganst ideology that esthetic practice can procuce Burger's ideas ae case to the humanistic centralise of the is ipline against which he set out {© develop 9 ciitcal hermoneu- tics. This objection apples to Burger's account not only of pro duction, Gut ef teception as wel When iseussing Surrealism and the theory of sPock, he argues that the artist's “relusal to pro: vide meaning 's expenenced as Shock by the recipient And this is the intention of the avant gard- iste artist, who hopes that such ‘withdrawal of mearing will direct the readers attention to the fact that the conduct of one’s life is ‘questionable and tna it is nec essary 10 change i. Shock is ‘amed for as a stimulus to change one's conduct of life itis the means to break through aes: thetic immanence and 10 usher in a change in the recipient's ile praxs.” This interpretation of shock 9s ‘esthetic strategy is derived from Waller Benjamin's wilings on that Adorno's theory (ike that of Lukas) was essential part of modemism (.0, the doctrine of art as an autonomous institution) and must. therefore be histor ced. Burger's vignettes on ‘Adorno’s neton of “the Now” land on the Lukdcs-Adorno is- ute provide a competent and ‘lear “primary introduction for feaders who are not familar with this material. They wil, however, search in vain for a thoroughly researched, historcally substan: Viated case against Adorno's es: thetics (such as that made, for Had Biarger’s contempt for contemporary art practice not limited his vision so severely he might have discovered that artists in the late ’60s were engaged in a parallel analysis of the institution of art and the institulionalization of esthetic discourse. the subject nn Beudelare Sludy (and hs essay on Surat ism However ike the wo cr Gal chaplrs in BUIgersstedy Govoted to Benjamins theory of Siegory and ha svateges. of ‘montage, il hes been subjected {0 ovesimplicaton and 2 Tose Ol spectety. Bul even witha the fimitedtamework of “Bbrger’s methodology, it shoud have been obwaus Now problematic Iolo. excorplone-—edmitedly Gentra~coneept fom Bena min's thinking 1824. spd to rrake i the basis fa theory of aani.garde production, when 0 fact in 1834" the essay "The Author a Producer). Benjamin Sevelosed an enirely ferent theory ofthe nonarganie work of art one whose sategy of mon tage derived fom the authors fxperence of the work of he Sovel avan-galde ond possibly that of ohn Hearted. OF course ig does tt mention radical Changes in.montage nineties in the 1918-25 pera Sr the fact that within Dada-mon: foge esthetics tel oppositional modes wrested wth each ater {see the SchwitersHelsorbeck poker) The second major text upon wen Burger draws easy is “Theodor Aomnes Aesthetic The 277 (ofurately~end aly — Sow Svaable In English). While Borger certain eueceeds in eenveying a sense of the erm. rence et” Ademo's esthetic trough, fe fale To convince us example, in Thomas Crow's re: cent essay "Modemism and Mass Culture’). Birger's least convincing argu: ment, however, i$ the one that will probably make his essay popular with’ a large number of practitioners and recipients. of ‘contemporary art. Here is. his “postmodernist” ‘conclusion (a variety of “postmodemism” that has already been adequately cfticized in the current debate) ‘The mearing of the break in the history of art that the historical avantgarde movements pro- voKed does nol consist in the destruction of art as an institu: tion, but in the destruction of the possibly of posing estetc The conclusion that, because the one practice that Set out to dismantle the institution of art in bourgeois society faled to do so, all practices become equally val 'd, Ig nol logically compelling at all One has only to consider the argument in terns of other :deo- logical struggles to reveal its ab- surdity (e.g, since most stug- les for Selt-determination in Lat- in American countries ate aborted, coonialst and imper: alist poicies are historically just as valé as the politics of liber tion). Stil, it is not surprising that the kind! of esthetic. passivism Biger advocated as early as 1972 has in the meantime be come the core of a vulgarized notion of postmodernism. Burger's case is impossible to ‘maintain not ony logically. but historically as well. A multitude of conficting and mutually exclu ‘sive esthetic practices nave coexisted since the origins of the avantgarde (whether one. lo- ales these with David, Courbet fr, as Burger does, alter Cub: ism). At the same. time that Heartfeld and Lissitzky were en- {gaged in the most radical and Consequential assault on the in Stiution of art during the Tate '208 and “308, Vieminck and van Dongen—former members of the Fauve avantgarde—were soling what Pars then thought to be the best contemporary painting, ‘but what was in fact the mosi ‘menial art ever to leave the stu: ios of the “avant garde." ‘The assault on the false isola- tion of art ard on the ideology of its autonomy by the “original” avantgarde cannot be aban: Goned simply because it was aborted. It seems more viable to Celine avant-garde practice as a continually renewed stiuggle over the’ defrition of cultural ‘meaning, the discovery and rep: resentation of new audiences, ‘and. the development of new Strategies to counteract and de- velop fesistance against the ten- dency of the ideological appara: fuses of the culture industry to ccupy and to control all prac: tices and all spaces of represen- tation, Burger's view of scholarly, the coretical and critics! work on con: Temporary esthetic practice is a consequence of the esthetic anomie that he advocates. The crite and histonan become the ‘apologetic accountants of post isiore, caretakers inside the ‘eological apparatus of art and iis insiiutions. "This has conse- ‘quences for the scholarly deal ings with works of art: the nor ‘mative examination is. replaced ‘oy a functional analysis, the ob: Jeet of whose investigation would be the social effect (function) of ‘a work, which is the result of the ‘coming together of stimuli inside the work and a sociologically de- finable public within an already existing institutional rame, ‘This characterization of “the ctitic and the histotian as admin: ‘slrators atfims a. state of ac: ‘quiescence to the gwen that te ‘minds us of the histerciom and positivism of the late 19Ih cen: tury, when esthetics’ supposedly scientific. foundations were rein: forces, Roman Jakobson's, fa ‘mous request to absolve art trom the prosecutions of the sciences and to develop instead 4 science (of art remains vald, if not urgent, in the face of the theorizaton of the avant-garde that Burger sub- mits a