The End of Art

Rating:
Summary: Accurate , Perceptive and Literate
Review: Donald Kuspit submits an astute assessment of the current state of contemporary cognitive expression which many people erroneously call "art". He has accurately identified that most of today's contemporary "art" is preoccupied with joyless ideological and intellectual concepts which fail to provide an aesthetic experience. He clearly describes how the product of the intellect clearly differs from expressions that emanate from the depths of ones subconscious mind, ones psyche or one's soul. Mr. Kuspit thoroughly examines, in what is sometimes a difficult read (for that which is clearly non-trivial subject matter), the origins of post-art, the departure from an aesthetic orientation and why so much of today's work is simply the banal placed on a pedestal by those who have taken their identity from the crowd. While some of this book may be difficult to comprehend initially, or all in one reading, it is not simply a restatement of conventional understanding about the subject. There is much original thought backed up by very thorough construction of its thesis. While it must have been extremely tempting, I don't believe Mr. Kuspit ever used the word "junk", one time. This book is very much a level above common discourse on this subject and deserving of consideration by those who wish to consider what constitutes a truly aesthetic experience.

Rating:
Summary: Accurate , Perceptive and Literate
Review: Donald Kuspit submits an astute assessment of the current state of contemporary cognitive expression which many people erroneously call "art". He has accurately identified that most of today's contemporary "art" is preoccupied with joyless ideological and intellectual concepts which fail to provide an aesthetic experience. He clearly describes how the product of the intellect clearly differs from expressions that emanate from the depths of ones subconscious mind, ones psyche or one's soul. Mr. Kuspit thoroughly examines, in what is sometimes a difficult read (for that which is clearly non-trivial subject matter), the origins of post-art, the departure from an aesthetic orientation and why so much of today's work is simply the banal placed on a pedestal by those who have taken their identity from the crowd. While some of this book may be difficult to comprehend initially, or all in one reading, it is not simply a restatement of conventional understanding about the subject. There is much original thought backed up by very thorough construction of its thesis. While it must have been extremely tempting, I don't believe Mr. Kuspit ever used the word "junk", one time. This book is very much a level above common discourse on this subject and deserving of consideration by those who wish to consider what constitutes a truly aesthetic experience.

Rating:
Summary: Touched a nerve
Review: Gripping as a car accident. The margins on this thin little book are too small to accommodate my objections.
Donald Kuspit seems to have received an oedipal punishment, no doubt from playing with his Freud too much. Having been struck blind, he shows no sign of having ever seen an artwork first-hand, only by proxy or seeing-eye dog. Denying his own condition, he assumed art to be mortally injured and in a quixotic move to put it out of its misery, manages to shoot his seeing eye dog, his foot, and any credibility he had left to hell.
Kuspit is the most pitiable of invalids, guilty of what he accuses Duchamp of: incapable of creation, thus bent on destruction. Trained as a Freudian Psychoanalyst, he is invested in reinforcing the stereotype of artists as starving and insane when he ought to be examining his own obsolescence. This book is the backlash against postmodernism's supposed "relativism" that Stanley Fish predicted would happen after 9/11 when intellectuals were being fingered for society's moral decay. This is right-wing fundamentalist propaganda, fueled by fears of not comprehending art discourse, as opposed to a work of meta-criticism. The equation of Van Gough as Christ figure is obscene.
While I appreciate his praise of Vincent Desidario as a painter with hope for the future, he does so for all the wrong reasons. Kuspit apparently has no allowance for artists to have fun. His assessment of Damien Hirst may ring true, there is one subject begging for an analyst, but the tirade against Duchamp is as absurd as renaming "French fries" "Freedom Fries". Hopefully the term Postart will be just as short lived.
This book made me physically ill to finish. I had to take time outs. If you have never read Kuspit, you can probably just read a sample page and call it a day. On the other hand, if you want something to rage against, here's your man. Plus the cover is really disturbing too, on top of a pile of books, in peripheral vision.