The article was first published in 2004, based on a 2003 lecture in New York City.
“For a long time critics of modern and postmodern art have relied on the “Isn’t that disgusting” strategy. By that I mean the strategy of pointing out that given works of art are ugly, trivial, or in bad taste, that ‘a five-year-old could have made them,’ and so on. And they have mostly left it at that. The points have often been true, but they have also been tiresome and unconvincing—and the art world has been entirely unmoved.
“Of course, the major works of the twentieth-century art world are ugly. Of course, many are offensive. …”
Read the full piece here.
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