“Only by completely abjuring sensibility can we, so it is thought, be safe from its aberrations; and the ridicule that often acts as a salutary chastener of the enthusiast is equally unsparing in its desecration of the noblest feeling.”

— Schiller [1]

This is Schiller noticing a pseudo-critical trend that persists today: cultural chastity. It’s a logical reaction to conformity of taste, but nonetheless lame regarding the articulation and development of new feelings. Or perhaps more accurate, it’s nothing. It has nothing to say and no idea that can transform dead culture into living form. It is just as nihilistic as the basic affirmation of culture as it is. Nihilistic trainspotting.

And how much stronger the cultural status quo is today! So the issue of chastity continues to rear its nihilist head.  

Let’s not be chaste! Critics should strive for immanent dialectical critique, which has itself become desecrated. I can only imagine how many status quo readers will comment here that it’s not ‘relevant’ anymore; as in relevant to the status quo and conformed taste. And that is exactly the point.

New art criticism in the era of pseudo-culture wars, AI, Trump, pandemics, and the petrification of contemporary art has no interest in affirming things as they are, being chaste, dignified, or culturally sophisticated. Laments for how things were or should be are insufficient. And yet this chastity is an integral facet of the cultural status quo that presupposes that its mere existence means it is not nothing. In fact it very often is nothing. Not because there isn’t a germ that could unfold into something, or at least not nothing, but because this germ isn’t nourished. Here it helps to clarify this seeming distaste for the present culture that often appears as chaste. 

I think of ‘contemporary art’ as being defined and bounded by institutionalism and academicism, as opposed to a mere ‘all art made in the present is contemporary’, which is perhaps how it should be. Even those who aren’t part of the exclusive club recognize those snobbish bounds and don’t dare cross them, happy to leave the club alone because it’s not very compelling anyway. There are plenty of movies and TV shows to watch. But when professional artists, musicians, and so forth deride cultural interests that are not in line with current trends, they are simply saying it's important to validate those who have ‘paid their dues’ in the world of expertise. As if expertise has ever done anything for life! Institutionalism lodges itself like a parasite in particular artists and the ideologies that motivate their practice. It becomes internalized but not exorcised. Efforts and critical thought go towards reinforcing the fragile membrane of a bubble. 

Contemporary artists are often attracted to the parasite itself. While art experience—and the things they create—transcend this, there is a lot of culture being produced that identifies with the parasite and not what the parasite is feeding off of. Criticism might play a role in diagnosis. Conversely it might be the mechanism that feeds the parasite!

When I look back at my own criticism, wondering if I’ve been a crank or chastener, the answer is no. No. This even extends to the ‘vitriolic’ criticism of social practice, even though it might appear otherwise. If people were upset by it, it’s because diagnosis hurts. When a flame is held to a parasitic insect lodged in the skin, the parasite writhes in agony through exposure.

Or perhaps dialectics is finding a way forward by using the parasite for nobler purposes? (à la Marvel’s Venom!). With all this in mind, there’s a need to continue roundtabling what criticism is and should be doing. But this would have to rely on first principles, not dead-dog beating. //

[1] Friedrich Schiller, Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man (1795), in Essays, Walter Hinderer and Daniel Dahlstrom, eds. (Continuum, 2005).