Contemporary Art Criticism and the Legacy of Clement Greenberg: Or, How Artwriting Earned Its Good Name
2002; University of Illinois Press; Volume: 36; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
10.2307/3301564
ISSN1543-7809
Autores Tópico(s)French Literature and Poetry
ResumoThere is little doubt that Clement Greenberg is the most influential art critic of the twentieth century. And although his colossal reputation was achieved decades ago, his death in 1994 produced a spate of intellectual eulogies that demonstrated his continued powerful presence in the contemporary artworld.1 Combined with Florence Rubenfield's biography of the critic, the publication of his letters and late seminars, and the hefty review literature that has ensued, the last five years have witnessed a revival in interest in Greenberg and have shed new light on why the critic exerted the influence he did during his lifetime as well as why his art criticism continues to dominate critical discourse, despite his penchant for attracting as many detractors as admirers and his attachment to a passe modernism.2 The present essay uses these books to explore Greenberg's legacy: Thierry de Duve's thoughtful rereading of the art critic, entitled Clement Greenberg Between the Lines, Amy Newman's fascinating oral history of Artforum, entitled Challenging Art: Artforum 1962-1974, and finally, the publication of Michael Fried's influential but anachronistic art criticism, entitled Art and Objecthood.3 This essay sketches out the reasons for Greenberg's influence and the relationship between his reception as a critic and the emergence of art criticism as a discipline, a phenomenon that corresponds, as Newman observes, with the early history of Artforum. But it is much more than mere correspondence. This essay also suggests, without diminishing the integrity of his critical voice, that Greenberg's influence was not due to the superiority of his eye, his critical intelligence, or the otherwise inherent quality of his art criticism. And perhaps this is the historical irony of Greenberg's reputation. For an art critic who put such considerable weight on the experience and judgment of the art object itself, Greenberg's influence in contemporary artworld discourses is due to the historical vagaries and accidents of psychology, sociology, institutional and professional behavior, and other messy
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