The End of Art

by Donald B. Kuspit

Donald Kuspit argues here that art is over because it has lost its aesthetic import. Art has been replaced by "postart," a term invented by Alan Kaprow, as a new visual category that elevates the banal over the enigmatic, the scatological over the sacred, cleverness over creativity. Tracing the demise of aesthetic experience to the works and theory of Marcel Duchamp and Barnett Newman, Kuspit argues that devaluation is inseparable from the entropic character of modern art, and that anti-aesthetic postmodern art is in its final state. In contrast to modern art, which expressed the universal human unconscious, postmodern art degenerates into an expression of narrow ideological interests. In reaction to the emptiness and stagnancy of postart, Kuspit signals the aesthetic and human future that lies with the old masters. The End of Art points the way to the future for the visual arts. Donald Kuspit is Professor of Art History at SUNY Stony Brook. A winner of the Frank Jewett Mather Award for Distinction in Art Criticism, Professor Kuspit is a Contributing Editor at Artforum, Sculpture and New Art Examiner. His most recent book is The Cult of the Avant-Garde (Cambridge, 1994).

Genres: Art, Philosophy, Theory, Nonfiction, Art History

224 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2004

About the author

Donald Kuspit is an American art critic, poet, and Distinguished Professor Emeritus of art history and philosophy at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and former professor of art history at the School of Visual Arts. Kuspit is one of America's most distinguished art critics.

Reviews

[Matt · Rating 1 out of 5]

I wasn't sure if I should give this book one star or five.

I greatly enjoyed Kuspit's utterly fascist standpoints on the avant-garde as well as the regression to absurd 19th century justifications for abstract painting in a world where it seems completely outdated and thoroughly irrelevant. His sweeping over-generalizations addressed towards artists like Duchamp (whose work Kuspit clearly cannot wrap his head around) had me rolling on the floor.

Something tells me that he meant for this book to be taken seriously though.

[Curtis Anthony Bozif · Rating 4 out of 5]

I learned that Kuspit's kind of craby and Duchamp was probably gay or impotent.

[Deniz Cem Önduygu · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a fine book, on the condition that it's put in a time-machine and sent back to the 1910s.

I consider myself oldschool because I still favor Mondrian and the American Abstract but I really had to struggle mightily against Kuspit's narrow-mindedness in order to finish the book. Although I agree with him on some of his conclusions about post-art, I am mostly terrified about how he gets there.

His almost religious enthusiasm, charming at first, gets very tiring towards the end of the book. All the mystical and repetitive talk of spirituality, transcendence, feelings, inner reality and the like starts to ring like a bad sermon after a while. It seems he has serious trouble with any intellectual/rational approach to art. His Freudian attack on a brilliant guy like Duchamp was bad enough, and he completely lost me when he reduced all modern art (including Mondrian and Malevich) to a "cult of the unconscious".

[Cristina Manuela · Rating 3 out of 5]

Muy interesante hasta que el hombre es pesao' como sopa de chumbo.

[James Podhorodecki · Rating 5 out of 5]

7 stars if I could. Brilliant.

[Ania Kołodziejczyk · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mam wrażenie że ta książka mogłaby być o połowę krótsza i wyszłoby jej to na korzyść, mocne 2½

[River · Rating 1 out of 5]

I wish I could give it negative five

[Hulya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Günümüz postmodern sanatının anlaşılması için kaynak kitap olarak okunabilir. Duchamp ve dolayısıyla dadaistlerle başlayan sanattan umudu kesme, sanatı teori ve kavramlardan ibaret görme, sanatın kutsallığını reddetme ve sanatın yapılış amacını unutma bugünkü postsanatın temellerini atmıştır. Bunun sonucunda sanat günlük yaşantının bir aynası olmaktan öte geçemeyerek kitlelerin oyuncağı haline gelmiş ve en sonunda da iyice aşağılanarak paranın hizmetine verilmiştir. Sanat herkesin anlayabileceği kadar günlük olmuş ve her günlük şey gibi sığ kalıp dakikalar sonrasında unutulur hale gelmiştir. İşte kitap bu entropiyi anlatıyor. Popüler dünyaya bakış açınızı sorgulatacak bir kitap. Sanat şemsiyesi altında popüler dünyaya eleştirel bir bakış...