{"id":1073,"date":"2026-07-19T07:38:41","date_gmt":"2026-07-19T07:38:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/?p=1073"},"modified":"2026-07-19T07:38:41","modified_gmt":"2026-07-19T07:38:41","slug":"art-and-the-pathology-of-our-age","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/?p=1073","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Art\u2019 and the Pathology of our Age"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

What is it about the word \u201cart\u201d?<\/p>\n

Pronounce it, and the IQ of susceptible folk is instantly halved. (I\u2019ve seen cases where it is diminished by 87 percent.)<\/p>\n

Read more Trump Is Righting Latin America<\/a><\/p>\n

Normally sensible people who do not, as a rule, appreciate being made fools of stand idly by as someone tells them that a\u00a0video of some charlatan<\/span>\u00a0climbing naked up a scaffolding while applying Vaseline to sensitive parts of his body is \u201cthe most important American artist of his generation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead of throwing something soft and rotting at such mountebanks, they nod solemnly and reach for their wallets. They are only too eager, when a stiffy arrives from the Museum of Modern Art or some similar establishment, to don the soup and fish and buzz round to the super-exclusive evening event where scores of beautiful people line up to sip the shampoo (David Niven\u2019s word for champagne) and admire a tank full of formaldehyde and a dead tiger shark<\/span>.<\/p>\n

What is it about the word \u201cart\u201d that endows it with this mind- and character-wrecking property?<\/p>\n

Why does it induce incontinent gibbering, not to mention mind-boggling extravagance, among normally hard-headed souls?<\/p>\n

A full answer would take us deep into the pathology of our time.<\/p>\n

It has something to do with what I\u2019ve called\u00a0elsewhere<\/span>\u00a0the institutionalization of the avant-garde, the contradictory project whereby the tics and outr\u00e9 attitudes of the avant-garde go mainstream. The half-comic, half-contemptible result is that ordinary bourgeois adults find themselves in the embarrassing position of celebrating the juvenile, anti-bourgeois antics of people who detest them.<\/p>\n

Our misuse of the word \u201cart\u201d also has something to do with\u00a0our age\u2019s tendency to look to art for spiritual satisfactions<\/span>\u00a0traditionally afforded by religion.\u00a0\u201cAfter one has abandoned a belief in God,\u201d Wallace Stevens observed, \u201cpoetry is that essence which takes its place as life\u2019s redemption.\u201d<\/p>\n

That, anyway, is the idea, though exactly what sort of \u201credemption\u201d may be had from much that goes by the name of \u201cart\u201d today is another question. Consider the case of Millie Brown, the \u201cEnglish performance artist\u00a0known for her work involving vomiting<\/span>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more What Phyllis Schlafly Understood About Family, Culture, and Civilization<\/a><\/p>\n

Yes, that\u2019s right. This deep thinker drinks tinted milk and then regurgitates it over a canvas. That\u2019s her claim to immortality.\u00a0The Daily Mail<\/i>\u00a0in 2013\u00a0compared<\/span> Millie Brown to Jackson Pollock. People\u2014not art people\u2014used to say contemptuously that their child of five could paint something indistinguishable from a Jackson Pollock painting. Perhaps so. Ms. Brown has gone a step further: Her creations are indistinguishable from the \u201ccreations\u201d of one-year-olds, whose \u201ccanvases\u201d are the products not of their hands but of other organs.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the most risible\u2014or is it the saddest?\u2014part of this whole charade is the pretense that there is something novel about what Millie Brown has on offer. \u201cI have an inherent desire to push my own boundaries within my art,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

But we\u2019ve been there; we\u2019ve done that. In 1961, Piero Manzoni<\/span>\u00a0produced 90 tin cans of his own excrement. Examples of this limited edition work occupy a proud place in several museums, including the Tate in London. (One tin sold for more than $200,000 at auction.)<\/p>\n

And then there was the student at the Ontario College of Art and Design who, in 1996, pushed his own boundaries with an \u201cartwork\u201d that consisted of him vomiting on paintings by others, a Piet Mondrian in New York and a Raoul Dufy at a museum in Ontario.<\/p>\n

The truth is that, rhetoric to the contrary notwithstanding, there is nothing new or \u201cchallenging\u201d about the \u201cartists\u201d who populate the trendy precincts of contemporary art. All their \u201cshocking\u201d moves were long ago pioneered by Marcel Duchamp and his fellow Dadaists. Indeed, Marcel Duchamp mapped out both large domains of the pseudo-avant-garde. When Duchamp took objects from everyday life\u2014a bottle rack, a snow shovel\u2014and impishly exhibited them as works of art, he pioneered the entire genre of art-as-banality. When he exhibited a urinal as a sculpture, he twitted the more delicate sensibilities of an earlier age with exactly the same sort of naughty schoolboy outrage that (to take but one example)\u00a0Tracey Emin<\/span>\u2019s sordid exhibitionism recycled, lo, these many years later.<\/p>\n

What our latter-day Dadaists have accomplished is simply the domestication and routinization of the avant-garde. They preserve the gestures but lack the spirit. They pretend to be \u201cchallenging\u201d or \u201ctransgressing\u201d conventional boundaries, but all such boundaries were long ago erased. Far from guying conventional taste, today\u2019s self-styled avant-garde are today\u2019s conventional taste. The only thing these \u201cartists\u201d challenge is our patience. It is a melancholy, not to say tiresome, spectacle. What it says about our culture is partly depressing, partly anger-inducing. The really breathtaking feature of the thing is that these \u201cartists\u201d actually seem to believe they are brave aesthetic and existential pioneers. It\u2019s contemptible, yes, but also quite sad. Curiously, this is something that Duchamp himself recognized when his impish gestures became celebrated by the art world. \u201cI threw the bottle rack and the urinal into their faces as a challenge,\u201d Duchamp noted contemptuously, \u201cand now they admire them for their aesthetic beauty.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Title IX\u2019s Failed Experiment: Why Accommodating Sex Differences Beats Engineered Parity<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What is it about the word \u201cart\u201d? Pronounce it, and the IQ of susceptible folk is instantly halved. (I\u2019ve seen cases where it is diminished by 87 percent.)\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1072,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured-article"],"yoast_head":"\n\u2018Art\u2019 and the Pathology of our Age - Urban Economy news<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/?p=1073\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"\u2018Art\u2019 and the Pathology of our Age - Urban Economy news\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"What is it about the word \u201cart\u201d? Pronounce it, and the IQ of susceptible folk is instantly halved. (I\u2019ve seen cases where it is diminished by 87 percent.)\u2026\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/?p=1073\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Urban Economy news\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-07-19T07:38:41+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/urbaneconomynews.com\\\/?p=1073#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/urbaneconomynews.com\\\/?p=1073\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/urbaneconomynews.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/be7753cb687f443815cc81e8407f68ad\"},\"headline\":\"\u2018Art\u2019 and the Pathology of our Age\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-07-19T07:38:41+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/urbaneconomynews.com\\\/?p=1073\"},\"wordCount\":893,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/urbaneconomynews.com\\\/?p=1073#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/urbaneconomynews.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/07\\\/2a407d214045e5d443c834e585fadeee.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Featured Article\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/urbaneconomynews.com\\\/?p=1073#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/urbaneconomynews.com\\\/?p=1073\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/urbaneconomynews.com\\\/?p=1073\",\"name\":\"\u2018Art\u2019 and the Pathology of our Age - Urban Economy news\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/urbaneconomynews.com\\\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/urbaneconomynews.com\\\/?p=1073#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/urbaneconomynews.com\\\/?p=1073#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/urbaneconomynews.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/07\\\/2a407d214045e5d443c834e585fadeee.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-07-19T07:38:41+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/urbaneconomynews.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/be7753cb687f443815cc81e8407f68ad\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/urbaneconomynews.com\\\/?p=1073#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/urbaneconomynews.com\\\/?p=1073\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/urbaneconomynews.com\\\/?p=1073#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/urbaneconomynews.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/07\\\/2a407d214045e5d443c834e585fadeee.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/urbaneconomynews.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/07\\\/2a407d214045e5d443c834e585fadeee.jpg\",\"width\":2560,\"height\":1440},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/urbaneconomynews.com\\\/?p=1073#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\\\/\\\/urbaneconomynews.com\\\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"\u2018Art\u2019 and the Pathology of our Age\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/urbaneconomynews.com\\\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/urbaneconomynews.com\\\/\",\"name\":\"Urban Economy news\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\\\/\\\/urbaneconomynews.com\\\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/urbaneconomynews.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/be7753cb687f443815cc81e8407f68ad\",\"name\":\"admin\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/50b1ad2e498f523425ee0a8cc5180a210646db1622662a3d56cc405d3e0c346a?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/50b1ad2e498f523425ee0a8cc5180a210646db1622662a3d56cc405d3e0c346a?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/50b1ad2e498f523425ee0a8cc5180a210646db1622662a3d56cc405d3e0c346a?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"admin\"},\"sameAs\":[\"http:\\\/\\\/urbaneconomynews.com\"],\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/urbaneconomynews.com\\\/?author=1\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"\u2018Art\u2019 and the Pathology of our Age - Urban Economy news","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/?p=1073","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"\u2018Art\u2019 and the Pathology of our Age - Urban Economy news","og_description":"What is it about the word \u201cart\u201d? Pronounce it, and the IQ of susceptible folk is instantly halved. (I\u2019ve seen cases where it is diminished by 87 percent.)\u2026","og_url":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/?p=1073","og_site_name":"Urban Economy news","article_published_time":"2026-07-19T07:38:41+00:00","author":"admin","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"admin","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/?p=1073#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/?p=1073"},"author":{"name":"admin","@id":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/#\/schema\/person\/be7753cb687f443815cc81e8407f68ad"},"headline":"\u2018Art\u2019 and the Pathology of our Age","datePublished":"2026-07-19T07:38:41+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/?p=1073"},"wordCount":893,"commentCount":0,"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/?p=1073#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/2a407d214045e5d443c834e585fadeee.jpg","articleSection":["Featured Article"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/?p=1073#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/?p=1073","url":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/?p=1073","name":"\u2018Art\u2019 and the Pathology of our Age - Urban Economy news","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/?p=1073#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/?p=1073#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/2a407d214045e5d443c834e585fadeee.jpg","datePublished":"2026-07-19T07:38:41+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/#\/schema\/person\/be7753cb687f443815cc81e8407f68ad"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/?p=1073#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/?p=1073"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/?p=1073#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/2a407d214045e5d443c834e585fadeee.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/2a407d214045e5d443c834e585fadeee.jpg","width":2560,"height":1440},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/?p=1073#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"\u2018Art\u2019 and the Pathology of our Age"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/","name":"Urban Economy news","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/#\/schema\/person\/be7753cb687f443815cc81e8407f68ad","name":"admin","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/50b1ad2e498f523425ee0a8cc5180a210646db1622662a3d56cc405d3e0c346a?s=96&d=mm&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/50b1ad2e498f523425ee0a8cc5180a210646db1622662a3d56cc405d3e0c346a?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/50b1ad2e498f523425ee0a8cc5180a210646db1622662a3d56cc405d3e0c346a?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"admin"},"sameAs":["http:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com"],"url":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/?author=1"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1073\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}