Thoughts on Guilbaut

I get what Serge Guilbaut is doing in How New York Stole the Idea of Modern Art. Context and ideology matter. I once took an art history class and it focused on descriptive styles and aesthetic histories devoid of political and ideological concepts. If I remember correctly, we were talking about the Hudson River School of painting and the importance “spiritual depth” in the landscapes. I was wondering instead, what events caused people to paint this way? Why was it so popular? Who bought it? Why do we study it today? If the class instead focused on these questions of cultural history and context, I would be probably be wondering why the landscapes are so expansive? Why are the people in the paintings so small? Why are all the colors muted and soft? I think it’s difficult to willfully separate these two sets of questions into these constant oppositional camps. A work of art inspires curiosity on multiple levels. The form of creation and the material circumstances influencing the form generates greater knowledge.

Guilbaut is absolutely right in emphasizing the importance of the complicated cultural tensions of the 30’s and 40’s that gave rise to the movement of the avant-garde into Arthur Schlesinger’s heroic Vital Center. But the manner in which he arrogantly dismisses all the prior scholarship done on Modern Art and his bravado in declaring that he’ll “shrug off” future critiques of his work makes me cringe. “This has to do with resistance to the idea of dragging art’s ideal values through the mud of politics and ideology. This is an objection that I merely shrug off, for I am convinced that, while such treatment may somewhat dim art’s ethereal luster, this loss will be more than compensated by the gain in reality and truth” (12). The way he frames the debate by caricaturing the other side and the near animosity he has for his opposition is off-putting and makes him less credible, even if his position is unique. I don’t see why aesthetics and politics cannot work hand in hand to gain a broadly textured understanding of Modern Art, or other movements in art history.

Matt Nelson