The Triumph of Modernism: The Art World, 1987-2005Widely acknowledged as the most authoritative art critic of his generation, Hilton Kramer advanced his comments and judgments largely in the form of essays and short pieces. Thus this first collection of his work to appear in twenty years is a signal event for the art world and for criticism generally. The Triumph of Modernism not only traces the vicissitudes of the art scene but diagnoses the state of modernism and its vital legacy in the postmodern world. Mr. Kramer bracingly updates his incisive critique of the artists, critics, institutions, and movements that have formed the basis for modern art. Appearing for the first time in greatly expanded form is his consideration of the foundations of modern abstract painting and the future of abstraction. The aesthetic intelligence that Mr. Kramer brings to bear on certain tired assumptions about modernism--many of them derived from methodologies and politics that have little to do with art--helps rescue the artwork itself and its appreciation from the very institutions, such as the art museum and the academy, that purport to foster it. Always clear-eyed and vastly illuminating, Hilton Kramer's art criticism remains among the very finest written in the past hundred years. Readers of The Triumph of Modernism will be treated to an exhilarating experience. |
Contents
Kandinsky and the Birth of Abstraction | 5 |
My Long Search Is Over | 13 |
Art Revolution and Kazimir Malevich | 29 |
Copyright | |
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abstract art Abstract Expressionist abstract painting academic achievement aesthetic American art Andy Warhol architecture art history art museum art scene art world artist avant-garde Barr Barr's Bauhaus believe Bonnard bourgeois Braque called career catalogue century Clement Greenberg collection color contemporary Courbet course created critical Cubism culture curators decade Doesburg drawings Duchamp Eakins early essay exhibition Fairfield Porter Gallery Gauguin German Greenberg Hartley ideas intellectual interest Jackson Pollock Johnson Kandinsky Kandinsky's kind Kirk Varnedoe landscape late Léger Malevich Marcel Duchamp Marxist Matisse Matisse's matter means Modern Art modernist modernist art MOMA MOMA's Mondrian movement Museum of Modern mystical nature never objects occult painter Paris photographs Picasso pictorial political Pollock Professor Alpers Professor Clark radical remained Rembrandt's retrospective role Rothko Russian avant-garde sculpture social spiritual Stijl style Tate Modern theosophy thing thought Tilted Arc tion tradition utopian Warhol writes wrote York School