Art Myths - What You See Is What You See
Leo Segedin   |   September 18, 1990 |   Print this essay

Paper given at Northeastern Illinois University. September 18, 1990

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Problems concerned with determining what is and isn't Fine Art and establishing criteria for making artistic judgments have a long and confusing history. During that history, art historians and connoisseurs, art critics and aestheticians - those people who specialize in such issues - have shifted from rather abstract ideas about Beauty to equally abstract and incongruous ideas about Taste, the Sublime, Representation, Expression, Aesthetic Experience and what by the middle of this century had come to be known as Modernism or Formalism. I believe that all such theoretical approaches have proven to be insufficient. This is not to say that they are necessarily useless. Many of them are very provocative and insightful, but I do not believe that any theory can define art or provide aesthetic criteria. Especially, I believe that such traditional art theories cannot explain the status and value of art objects in the contemporary Artworld. I propose for this paper that these issues can best be approached by conceiving of works of art as mythic objects and the value system of the Fine Arts, particularly as it exists in the art market, as myth.

By myth, I mean unproved, uncritically held, culturally determined beliefs, particularly those about social institutions and values, subjective experiences and the significance of objects. I also include the means used to explain and justify such beliefs. Myths have their own histories, symbols and modes of thought. Important to us in the context of this paper, they determine the kinds of objects and images which may be deemed sacred, valuable or "Fine" as in Fine Art, as well as how we perceive them. They can even create the very qualities we perceive. Myths are experienced as aspects of reality; it is only when seen from the outside (from the contexts of other myths?) that their selectivity, their biases, their dubious assumptions and agendas, in other words, their "unreality" becomes evident and they can be challenged. This is what I propose to do with Fine Arts myths.

I will also argue that Fine Art functions much like a secular religion in our society in that it is based on a belief in an ineffable, spiritual domain of experience which requires authoritative sanctification of certain objects and persons. Fine Art as a secular religion is not a new idea. As far back as the late 18th century, it was virtually institutionalized as a substitute for the Catholic Church in post-Revolutionary France because of its assumed moral and spiritual significance.(l) In England in the 19th century, people like John Ruskin and William Morris saw Fine Art as a quasi-religion which could compensate for the evil effects of industrialization.(2) I believe that the idea is still sufficiently viable to help us understand what is happening in the Artworld today.

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For our purposes, I will depict this Artworld as a small, pluralistic, conflicted churchlike institution in which art myths serve as the doctrines of its faith. In this "church," art objects have a mythic status, an aura, a capacity to transform perception similar to the power that sacred, religious objects - icons, statues of Madonnas and Saints, ritual objects and reliquaries had for Medieval Europeans. The "sacred" objects of this Artworld - the so-called timeless, universal Masterpieces made by Great Artists - give their owners both persons and institutions - an eminence which possession of Holy relics gave to Medieval cathedrals. Faithful believers travel great distances - make pilgrimages - to bask in the auras of these objects, and through this experience, feel intimate with the Creative Geniuses who made them - St. Leonardo, St. Rembrandt, St. Picasso, and now, of course, Sts. Monet, Renoir and Van Gogh.

Such art objects traditionally have been housed in buildings which have the atmosphere of temples and chapels. (In fact, some of them, such as the Louvre, were once actually called Temples of Art.) The Art Institute of Chicago, with the lions, broad staircases and high arches of its facade, the scale of its interior spaces, the pedestals and frames, the uniformed guards, the demeanor and hushed murmurs of the visitors, the words and gestures of the guides gives us the sense that we are in the presence of "sacred" objects. (This is true at least until the advent of blockbuster exhibitions.) Exposure to these objects is supposed to be spiritually uplifting; like religious experience, it is supposed to be good for you, make you a better person, but, like Medieval cathedrals, the success of art museums is determined by the number of pilgrims they attract, as well as the number of prints, postcards, books, T-shirts, scarves and other art souvenirs they sell.

Art museums are now supported by the same kinds of people who used to bequeath their fortunes to their church. Wealthy people now build museums, endow museums with wings and galleries, rather than churches with chapels, to be named after themselves. Intensity of faith is still indicated by the amount of money donated to such institutions. As Tom Wolfe said, using Max Weber's definition of Religion, Art has replaced Religion as a means of indicating a rejection of the world and as a legitimation of wealth.(3)

Works of art are collected by people, not only for the aesthetic pleasures they offer, but also to display high social virtue. Involvement in the arts indicates that art collectors are not crass, mercenary materialists, but have the resources to indulge in more spiritual pursuits. Contemplation of works of art is assumed to be a wholesome antidote for the amorality involved in making a living. According to Wolfe, paintings - "Holy rectangles" as he calls them - have replaced crosses, crucifixes, and stars of David in the parlors of the wealthy.(4)

This same, spiritual significance is apparent in the prestige the Fine Arts appear to be accorded by major government and commercial institutions. Such institutions operate as if their identification with the Fine Arts is as ennobling and uplifting as association with religion used to be. Possession of works of art, support of art institutions, sponsorship of art exhibitions confer high moral status and raises such institutions above vulgar perceptions of profit and power. State and national governments, banks and corporations now have major collections. Banks and corporations sponsor major art exhibitions. Coca-Cola sponsored the China exhibition, Time/Life, the Search for Alexander. It is no coincidence the oil companies became more involved with the arts after the 1973 oil crisis or that Phillip Morris donated $3 million for the Vatican exhibition in 1983 after the intensification of the anti-smoking campaign.(5) (Perhaps they expect their sins to be forgiven or forgotten because they do good deeds.)

Government taxing authorities also behave with special reverence toward the Fine Arts. Art museums, like churches, receive tax benefits not available to institutions involved with entertainment (even music and theater). The Art Institute of Chicago pays no Federal entertainment tax; movie houses, theaters, even Orchestra Hall and the Civic Opera House do. It is on park property and pays nothing for the privilege. It has an operating budget of about $30 million a year of which only 4-6% is contributed by its approximately 1.5 million visitors.(6) Most of the rest is made up of city, state, and Federal grants (tax money), as well as private endowments, much of which is tax deductible. Art works enter this country duty free whereas manufactured objects require high (40%) import duties. Until 1986, artwork received special treatment by the IRS when they were donated to museums or passed on as inheritance. Artists who donated their own works could only deduct the cost of materials. I will show that this was because, traditionally, in the mythology of the Artworld, artists cannot claim for their own products the status of Fine Art objects.

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Ordinary determinants of value are inadequate to explain this status of the Fine Arts. The fantastic prices being paid for paintings during the last several years is another indication that we are dealing with mythic rather than "real" value in the Artworld. A work by Picasso is auctioned for over $50 million, a work by Renoir, for more than $78 million, a work by Van Gogh, for $85.5 million. What can there possibly be in handmade, painted rectangles of canvas stretched on four pieces of wood which can create this kind of value? B2 bombers and Trident submarines are very expensive objects, too, but we can calculate their prices by considering the costs of research and development, labor and materials, manufacture, public relations, inflation, even boondoggles and overcharges, but how do we determine the costs of making a painting? What do these costs have to do with prices? The prices of paintings obviously cannot be calculated that way.

Purely economic factors certainly play a role in establishing these prices. The Fine Arts are probably the last surviving vestige of the free enterprise system. Outside of some minimal restrictions on fraud, there are almost no controls on art sales. The Fine Arts have been outstanding investments. They have returned many times more than similar amounts of money invested in the stock market. Anyone who bought Pollocks and De Koonings in the 1940s and '50s would have realized millions by selling them in 1990. The Renoir which sold for $78.1 million in 1990 was bought by the Whitneys for $165,000 in 1929.(7) Inflation can be a factor, but even if we assume that the dollar is worth only 10% of its 1929 value, the price would have risen to only $1,650,000. At any rate, such prices constitute perhaps 6% of the total art market, and the question remains, Why these particular objects?

Competition between bidders at auctions also raises prices. There is a Romantic, ego enhancing challenge in outbidding a competitor. But some people are willing to steal such objects, not for economic gain - for such objects do not reappear on the art market but just to own them.

Aesthetics also matters, but not so much that we can say that the price of a work of art corresponds directly to its quality. Some works are obviously superior in quality to others, and more often than not, they will get higher prices, but if it were the aesthetic quality of such objects which were the primary factor, then a fine forgery by Van Meegeren in the style of Vermeer would be worth as much as the genuine article. This clearly is not so. Also there are works which are superior to those receiving these high prices, but which sell for a lot less, because these works are more difficult, more subtle, or the artist has a less famous, less Romantic reputation (for example, some of Cezanne's work when compared with Van Gogh's).

I am arguing that, when speaking of the value of a work of art, there is nothing intrinsic to Fine Art objects which can make them worth the amount of money being paid for them or be treated with such veneration. It cannot be a matter of aesthetic quality, of craftsmanship, of rarity or preciousness of materials. Other objects have these characteristics but do not have such value. Why do these high values accrue only to objects made by certain people during certain historical periods? I propose that original works of art have these values, that they are imbued with an aura, with a mythic, spiritlike content, because we believe what we have been told about them. We believe the doctrines - the myths - of the Artworld.

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What we believe we are looking at greatly influences what we see and how we respond to objects. For example, over the last two hundred years, we have come to believe what we have been told by aestheticians about the meaning of art and so we look at works of art as if they were beautiful, or revealing representations of reality, or sublime expressions of artists' feelings, or aesthetic forms which give us aesthetic experiences, or .... We have believed the interpretations of art styles and artists' intentions by art historians and critics. How would we see and respond to the works of artists like Monet, Picasso, Duchamp, Pollack, Stella and others without them? We believe, or expect to believe, that the art objects we see in art museums and art books are "masterpieces which have stood the test of time," which are the highest achievements of civilization, etc. But most important, underlying all such beliefs, or myths, most basic to the value system of the Fine Arts and the aura of art objects is its implicit assumption that a work of art is a unique creation.

What is important in all this is that, as in most religions, the viewer - the faithful believer - is assumed to be a passive receiver of the artwork's message - its "miraculous revelation," according to Denis Donoghue(8) - in an epiphanylike encounter with the artwork, but - although we are told that Art is a universal language or that we should respond personally and imaginatively - as a worshiper, eagerly anticipating an uplifting, spiritual experience, the viewer must perform the appropriate rituals, know the right words and perceive the correct qualities of the work. Only "philistines" will say, "I don't know anything about art, but I know what I like." Acceptance of "discovered" truths about art becomes so internalized that the expected qualities are projected into the work and experienced - actually perceived - as "being there." These experiences are now considered to be the result of taste, sensibility and cultivated appreciation. The work of the "theologians" has become invisible; its cultural origins have been lost. It has become a "reality" of the Artworld. These beliefs - this mythology - about the nature of the artwork have become timeless, universal Truths about the artist's intention and "intrinsic" characteristics of the artwork.

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The most convincing evidence that works of art are imbued with mythic significance is the fact that art objects must be judged authentic and original before they may possess this value and status. In Fine Art mythology, great works of art must come from the hand of an identifiably great artist, or, if it is not possible to establish that, at least have a confirmed place and date in a period style. It helps if the artist is believed to have a unique personality, a profoundly personal, yet universal Vision and gives form to this Vision in the artwork. This resulting style is seen to have a history and development. It must also be related to - following or initiating - the style of other significant art being produced at that time. Every work the great artist makes must fit into a slot in both histories is dated, labeled, categorized, documented and technologically confirmed. In other words, if it is to maintain its significance, its aura, and therefore its value, a work of art must first be declared authentic by established connoisseurial or art historical authorities. It is such authorities who designate which objects obey the Fine Arts canon and which artists belong in the Pantheon of Great Artists.(9)

Not only the characteristics of the art object itself - the brushstrokes, colors, linear qualities, composition, subject matter, etc. - but also everything about the artist's personality, indeed his entire life, becomes important for its significance. Everything the artist may have thought or felt, everything he said or did (even what he ate!), adds to the significance of the work. Thus everything the artist may have owned or used or even touched - his palette, brushes, clothing - his "holy relics" - take on his aura and become collectibles; his house, the town where he lived, the spots where he worked - become shrines and tourist attractions. Everything about the artist must be considered as aspects of a single, unified, "unique Self." A painting by Van Gogh must look like a Van Gogh; everything that Picasso did, or even what his children did, has the aura of Picasso. They have the magic of his touch, his mark.(10)

The art object has the aura of everything which is believed to be true about it. For example, the Mona Lisa is enmeshed in a web of stories and legends - everything that was ever said about Leonardo and the Renaissance, his personality quirks, psychoanalytical interpretations (whether accurate or not), his accomplishments in art and other areas, his relations with other people, his artistic development and contributions to the Renaissance, etc. Questions and stories about Mona herself are part of this myth - Who was she really? Why is she smiling like that? The painting itself has a history which contribute to its mystique - owned by kings, stolen by Napoleon and others. And so forth. Thus the importance of the art historian, not only for establishing the pedigree - the legitimacy - of the "Great Work," but also for supplying the data about the artist's life and times; the aesthetician and art critic for providing its underlying critical rationale; and the psychologist and psychoanalyst, the artist's mentality. They furnish the historical, theoretical and biographical information which gives the work its aura.

In this perhaps rather exaggerated description of Fine Art mythology, the artist, (who until about twenty years ago was assumed to be male, white and classless), is seen as a profound Prober of minds who exposes our innermost thoughts and feelings, while, at the same time, a Prophet and Seer who can anticipate the future (he is ahead of his time). He is also a shaman, a sorcerer, a Godlike creature who can create out of inanimate materials new Life, Realities, dreams and illusions. He can embody in paint and canvas all that he has seen, felt and imagined, so that when we contemplate his work, we can experience what he did. He creates Truth for us and we are transformed when we are exposed to it. He puts his mark, his signature, on a piece of canvas and creates value and significance. He has a "divine gift," a "divine madness," a God-given talent which cannot be taught. The artist is inspired when he works, follows his Muse, or if you prefer, his psychic urges. The artist uses his imagination and creativity. Creativity is a mysterious, magical, nonrational, mental and manual process which gives the art object unique, unanalyzable, untranslatable characteristics far more meaningful than those resulting from mechanical, factory, mass production techniques. In novels and films, and even in some biographies, the artist is seen as an eccentric, alienated, misunderstood Hero, overcoming obstacles such as poverty and lack of recognition during his journey through life and achieving fame and success - his apotheosis ' and canonization - after death. Stories of artists' lives are much like the legends of Mythic Heroes and Saints.(11)

It should now be easy to see why a work of art must be original and authentic if it is to have the significance it does to those people who believe the myths I have just described. When they own an art object from the hand of a Great, Genius artist, working not only in his own personal style, but also in the style of a great artistic period, they own a token, an icon, a powerful substitute for the artist and his times. They own a part of the artist; they own his spirit. Symbolically, vicariously, they are in communion with him. Not only can they "see" him in the artwork; they can also touch and hold him.

Fakes and forgeries just do not have this kind of significance - do not have this aura and thus cannot have the status and economic value of originals. Fakes and forgeries do not have the history of originals. They do not reflect a great artist's personality. They do not realize a great artist's intention. It is this belief in the meaning and importance of authenticity which is the foundation of the art market, the status of the discipline of art history and the art museum. The history of the painting establishes its legitimacy and its place in art museums. Its history serves as a security bond; its presence in a museum is a guarantee of its value. (12)

These same historical assumptions also influence our perception of so-called "Masterpieces." This psychological fact can be quite embarrassing when we consider what experts have said about assumed great paintings. The following is from a popular art textbook, Art and Civilization, by Bernard Meyers, about the painting called "The Man in a Golden Helmet," formerly attributed to Rembrandt:

Rembrandt's ability to evoke spiritual contemplation, to fathom the depths of the soul and its identification with the universe is felt in such a work as the celebrated "Man in a Golden Helmet."(13)
Unfortunately for Professor Meyers, the painting wasn't by Rembrandt. Even though some people continue to believe that the painting is beautiful and profound, when it was de-attributed in 1985, its value fell from $8 million to $377,000. Since the number of assumed authentic artworks attributed to Rembrandt has ranged from 48 to 988,(14) it is apparent that we cannot recognize the originality or the "unique" perceptual qualities of an artwork by its appearance alone.

Thus this need to establish originality and authenticity is significant not only for the historical and economic value of the painting, but also for its perceptual and aesthetic qualities. Originals are assumed to have such qualities which fakes do not have, qualities the "original" loses once it is proved to be a fake. We literally see what we believe is in the artwork, but these qualities are brought to it by our assumption that it is an original and authentic work from the hand of a particular artist. Our perception of the work changes when we change our expectations.

Here are some quotes from Abraham Bredius, the most eminent Dutch art authority, in 1937, in an article in which he describes his experience's on seeing for the first time a painting which he thought was by Vermeer, but which was really a forgery by Van Meegeren,

It is a wonderful moment in the life of an art lover when he finds himself suddenly confronted with a hitherto unknown painting by a great master, untouched, on original canvas, and without any restoration, just as it left the painter's studio! And what a picture! Neither the beautiful signature "I. V. Meer" . . . nor the pointille" on the bread which Christ is blessing, is necessary to convince us that we have here a - I am inclined to say - the masterpiece of Johannes Vermeer of Delft... every inch a Vermeer ... the colors are magnificent ... and characteristic... the yellow - the yellow of the famous Vermeer of Dresden ... In no other picture by the great Master of Delft do we find such sentiment, so nobly expressed through the medium of the highest art.(15)

All of these qualities, along with its aura, disappeared when it was established that the painting was by a second- rate painter named Van Meegeren. (This is exactly what happens when a holy object is declared inauthentic by church authorities or when a believer loses faith.)

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Much of what I have been saying has been concerned with the traditional Artworld, primarily the status and value of the so-called Masterpieces by the Old Masters. During the last several years, many of these ideas have been challenged by art historians such as Michael Baxandall,(16) T. J. Clark,(17) and Svetlana Alpers(18) who have demonstrated the inadequacy of traditional categories of art history. Such ideas have also been challenged recently by aestheticians. At least since the 1950s, art theories have been developed which attempt to desacralize these Fine Arts myths. I am thinking especially of Neo-Marxism, Psychoanalysis, Feminism, Structuralism, and most recently, Post-Modernist ideas about Post-Structuralism, Visual Semiotics and Deconstructionism. Assumptions of originality and uniqueness are assumed to be threatened by photography, mass produced popular imagery, multiple prints such as etchings, sculpture casts made from specifications without the presence of the artist, duplicates made after the death of the artist, etc.(19) (In point of fact, the opposite has happened.)

Events in the Contemporary art world (for example, Minimal Art, Conceptual Art, Performance Art, Site-specific and Installation Art), also can be seen as a demythologizing of the traditional Fine Artworld. An oversimplified summation of these events indicates that, whatever artistic, political or social motive was involved, each component of Fine Art mythology has been either pushed to an extreme or eliminated altogether. First the need for subject matter and three dimensional illusion was challenged, then, progressively, for composition, for traditional art materials, for museums and galleries, for the artist as creator, and finally for the art object itself. Thus, not only assumptions of originality and uniqueness, but also of creativity, permanence, style, representation, aesthetic form, expression and taste no longer appear to be necessary requirements for status in the Fine Arts. Such assumptions have become outmoded myths, discarded beliefs in which the Artworld should no longer have faith. As a result, Contemporary art has lost the illusionary unity of the traditional Fine Art mythology, and has become pluralized, fractionalized, tom between the conflicting claims of the various art theories. Art in this Artworld has become transitory, exhaustible and boring. It is in this sense that we have been told that art history no longer has essential form or substance, no progressive direction - in short, that art history is dead.

In this new Contemporary Artworld, traditional authority has disintegrated. Art historians cannot serve their customary function as legitimizers of Fine Art. Neither can art critics, some of whom were influential enough in the 1950s and '60s not only to establish the reputations of their own choice of artists, but also to affect what artists actually did. Art critics have become academics who write books theorizing about art to be debated in the art literature and at art conferences, but generally ignored by the art market. That legitimizing role has been assumed by curators, auction house people, and collectors. For all practical purposes, the avant-garde has disappeared; it has merged with the "culture industry" with artistic significance determined by the museum and the market.(20) These institutions now have their own "hired hands, company men and women" who work within the institutions to legitimize chosen artists and manipulate the market.(21) The significance of these artists is rationalized by using the mystifying jargon of the traditional art critics and historians and establishing a position for them in the spectrum of available art theories and the styles of art historical myths. Art museum and corporation curators, and now the large collectors themselves, attempt to create art history by selecting what artworks will be exhibited and purchased, and thus be exalted into the high status of the Fine Arts. One result is that the art market will sell almost anything which has a chance of becoming part of the new art history. Collectors like Gerald Elliot buy the new art almost as soon as it becomes available, often selling "older" objects in order to do that.(22) Also museums such as the Guggenheim are "deacquisitioning" traditional "masterpieces" such as works by Chagall and Kandinsky in order to gain funds to purchase the new art, to get in on the ground floor, so to speak, before the prices reach the stratospheric heights of the older works.(23) Jane Addams Allen has called it "a futures market with no reality check. "(24) Everybody with money seems to want to get into the act.

According to Robert Hughes, chief art critic for Time Magazine, in a recent issue of the New Republic,
(The art market) is now run by finance manipulators, fashion victims, and rich ignoramuses. The collector as connoisseur has been squeezed out of it. Connoisseurship is an impediment to its progress - mere dust down which the inflationary march proceeds. Under the market's malignant sway, genuine expertise will soon be entirely redundant: the market's object is to erase all values that might impede anything at all from becoming a masterpiece.(25)
But even if these extreme views are correct, and many people reject them, the basic question still remains, Why must an object be declared a "masterpiece," be endowed with the proper qualities, before it can attain status and value? Why must the object, regardless of how ephemeral it be, regardless of whether it possesses traditional form, materials, content, demonstrates "artistic" skills, exists as documentation or even as idea, still require that it be identified with the name of a recognized artist, that is, regardless of art theory, be original and authentic? Why ultimately does all this status and value phenomena occur only within the institution - the "church" - of the Fine Artworld? Because as any layperson will tell you, anyone can build a pile of rocks on a floor, label it and sign it, but that will not do, because "anyone" does not belong to the "church" of art, has not been accepted by the deacons as a member, is oblivious to the assumptions and issues of the Artworld and does not know and play by its rules. The public has nothing to do with this world except as ticket and token consumers.

In conclusion, therefore, I will still argue that Art myths, in spite of how aggressively they have been challenged and trivialized during the last several years, continue to be believed in as fervently as ever. The Fine Artworld could not exist without them.

NOTES:

1. Pelles, Geraldine. Art, Artists and Society. Englewood, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1963. p.26.

2. Guerard, Albert. Art for Art's Sake. N.Y.: Schocken, 1936. p.298.

3. Wolfe, Tom. "Tithing at the Altar of Art," in The Chicago Tribune, Sec. 2. December 2, 1984.

4. Ibid.

5. Chicago Sun-Times. May 25, 1983.

6. Phone communication with Public Relations, Art Institute of Chicago, September, 1986.

7. Frankfurter, Alfred. "Midas on Parnassus," in Art News Annual, Part 2, November, 1958. p.38.

8. Quoted in Zolberg, Vera. Constructing a Sociology of the Arts. Cambridge: 1990. p.4.

9. Preziosi, Donald. Rethinking Art History. New Haven: -Yale Univ. Press., 1989. p.48.

10. Ibid. pp.26-33.

11. See Kris, Ernst and Kurz, Otto. Legend, Myth and Magic in the Image of the Artist. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press. 1970.

12. Preziosi. op. cit. p.48.

13. Myers, Bernard. Art and Civilization. N.Y.: McGraw Hill, 1967. p.309.

14. Bailey, Anthony. "The Art World," in The New Yorker. March 5, 1990. p.48.

15. Werness, Hope, in Dutton, Denis (ed.). The Forgers's Art. Berkley: University of California, 1983. pp.30-31.

16. See Baxandall, Michael. Painting and Experience in 15th Century Italy. London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1972.

17. See Clark, T. J. Image of the People. Greenwich, Conn.: New York Graphic Society, 1973; The Absolute Bourgeois. Greenwich, Conn.: New York Graphic Society, 1973.

18. See Alpers, Svetlana. The Art of Describing. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1983.

19. Krauss, Rosalind. "The Originality of the Avant-Garde," in Wallis, Brian (ed.). Art after Modernism. Boston: David R. Godine, 1984. pp. 13-29. For an opposing view, see Bass, Jacquelynn, "Reconsidering Walter Benjamin, 'Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction' in Retrospect," in Weisberg, G. P. and Dixon, L. S. (eds.). The Documented Image. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse Univ. Press, 1987. pp. 337-347.

20. Buchloh, Benjamin, "Theories of Art after Minimalism and Pop," in Foster, Hal, Discussions in Contemporary Culture, No. 1, Seattle: Bay -Press, 1987. p.68.

21. Ross, Andrew, in Foster, Hal, ibid. p.85.

22. Adrian, Denis, in The Chicago Sun-Times, May 27, 1990, p.4(E).

23. Plagen, Peter, et. al. "The Big Swap and Shop," in Newsweek, May 21, 1990, p.89.

24. Allen, Jane Addams, "Pluralism and Post Modernism," in The New Art Examiner, January, 1990, p.22.

25. Hughes, Robert, "The Decline of the City of Mahogony," in The New Republic, June 25, 1990, p.35.

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