i'm reading donald kuspit's new book "the end of art. i like kuspit a lot. i've read a couple of his books before this one.

you know that scene from the woody allen movie where he tries to pick up the girl who's staring at the painting on the wall in the museum? allen goes up to her and says, "what does it say to you?", and the girl replies with something like, "it speaks to me of the incredible blackness of the universe; of the void and man's insignificance in it." "whaddya doing friday night," allen asks. "committing suicide," the girl says.

that's a pretty good description of the art world--artists and critics--today. it is so dark and gloomy.

i don't mean by that art's subject matter. historically art's themes often have been about suffering and pain--the crucifiction, war, etc.--because art is so empathic and empathy means to experience what someone else is feeling and we often want others to feel the pain that we feel or see.

rather, what i mean is that art--artists and critics--is so negative and takes itself so seriously. "the end of art." how much more negative, how much more seriously can you take yourself as to proclaim that? "art after the end of art," by arthur danto and "art after the end of art and after," by joseph kosuth are two more very well-regarded books on art theory.

the end of art. really? is it that bad? kuspit is critical, bitterly so, of post-modern art. from what i can tell the post-modernists deserve to be flayed. but are frank stella, allan kaprow, cindy sherman and damien hirst, et al charlatans, who have always been charlatans? really, that's what kuspit says. have they succeeded in fooling most of the cognescenti most of the time?

from my job experience and belief system i can accept that there are people who are born charlatans. and those who are born saints; those who are born criminals, and those who are born leaders. but in my experience and belief system such people are exceedingly rare. most of us are a combination of all of those personalities, good and evil.

so it's hard for me to believe that all of those prominent contemporary artists, or "artists," had a charlatan personality type and decided that of all the snake oil that they could get by with selling that it was art that they chose.

i tend to think that they and the other post-modernists are as well-meaning and serious about trying to do good art as donald kuspit is trying to do good art criticism. their art is apparently not his art and my art may not be your art but to be so dismissive of an entire movement and of so many artists seems fishy.

for a very long time now art has been seen as searching for itself. there is no accepted way of doing art. the most fundamental issues about the field are open for debate: what is art, what is good art, how do we judge art. all of those questions are on the table and have been for 40-50 years.

it's very disconcerting. i have argued here previously that i do not think the art world is in "crisis", that just as it always has been, it is now the future of what society and other serious fields, like physics and philosophy, will become, that is decentralized, without a dominant "paradigm" to answer a priori those fundamental questions for us before we even start, but that's the hokum "theory" of a diletantte and sometimes however you answer or want to address those fundamental questions you just need to step back. and enjoy. enjoy art, and life. look at what's being made today under the guise of art and try it.

it seems to me that the bitter criticism in art today, and the categoricals used by kuspit and others are a mask for all this uncertainty.





anytime someone or something is characterized in terms a synonym for which would be "demonization," alarm bells go off in my head.

donald kuspit is critical, bitterly so, of the



it is not the dark subject matter