| | | | | | Whereas counterculture assaulted the leading principles of art from the outside, postmodernism has undermined them from the inside. I do not intend here to provide a full-fledged account of the postmodern movement, for this has been done very successfully elsewhere. 57 Rather, I will focus on those ideas that have most impacted the welfare of artists and filmmakers. But before we proceed with the current trend, we need to reacquaint ourselves with the foundation and ethos of modernism, the art movement that came under attack. | | | | | | | | | At the beginning of the century, the situation for artists was without historical precedent. Believing they could escape neither the ravages of the industrial revolution nor the dominance of art by the market place, artists carved up special places where serious and controversial art could still be exhibited: galleries, museums, concert halls, art cinemas, etc. These modern sanctuaries were established to protect art from the general commodification of life. Emerging from the creative will of dissident artists, beautiful and unique works could be appreciated there by the public, without the coarse pressure of buying and selling found everywhere else in society. Modern art was thus strongly romantic and affirmative in its nature: individual creators standing against the low standards pushed by the flourishing mass culture. | | | | | | | | | In achieving these goals, however, modern art alienated itself from popular support. Its texts became highly formal, theoretical in nature, often abstract or dissonant, and a great deal of time, education, and effort were required before their complex formal structures could generate a gratification of some sort for those willing to engage them. Artists came to be resented by many as pretentious parasites who had little to offer to common folk. As Adorno put it: "While people resign themselves to the unintelligibility of theorems of modern physics, trusting that they are rational just the same, they tend to brand the unintelligibility of modern art as some schizoid whim."58 Why can't I just look at this painting and understand what it shows, just like I see and recognize the things around me? Why all these sounds in this music? Why this complexity, this difficulty in this book? Why be so hermetic? What's wrong with plain speaking? | | | | | | | | | Modern art's liberation then, as Horkheimer and Adorno were quick to point out, turned out to be a costly one. "The purity of [this] art," they wrote, "which hypostasized itself as a world of freedom in con- | | | | |
