Black and White and Gray Oh My!

I spent the better part of the last two years researching and writing about modernism, particularly as it unfolded in the provinces of late nineteenth-, early twentieth-century Germany (I will, in advance, apologize if Germany becomes my go-to example!). In particular, the observation of late-nineteenth-century Austrian writer Hugo von Hofmannsthal concerning the dual quality of modernism has reverberated with me: “Today,” he explained, “two things seem to be modern: the analysis of life and the flight from life.” As von Hofmannsthal suggests, the very nature of artistic modernism was a contradiction: it condemned modernity even as it furthered modernity. Artistic modernism, of course, abhorred the upheaval characteristic of modern life and aimed to remedy the social and political ailments of modernity via reflective, novel artistic productions. This advancing, sanguine quality of modernism, however, fastened the art movement to modernity itself, and rather than negate modern progress, artistic modernism sought to first dissect, then enlighten, and finally reconstitute modernity in artworks. Furthermore, modernists reorganized tradition for modern use, thereby rending tradition as not merely evocative but actually existing.
In the chapter “Museums: Theory, Practice, and Illusion” in Art and its Publics, author Danielle Rice appears to put a similar spin on contemporary issues, especially in relation to museums, by negating the primacy of any one “Zeitgeist” and questioning the creation of an one-size fits-all category for popular culture (90). She explains that to paint a museum black or white (elitist or conformist, high culture or popular culture) is to deny the institution’s propensity to exhibit shades of gray. Instead, Rice optimistically suggests that museums have the ability to appropriate elements of popular culture and to aptly integrate them into the more “traditional” museum culture. In October, the Tate Modern in London will open the “Pop Life: Art in a Material World.” The curators (Jack Bankowsky, Alison M. Gingeras, and Catherine Wood), in recent art forum article (http://artforum.com/inprint/issue=200907&id=23504), explained the exhibits intent to “make the case that to cross the line between commerce and culture is nothing less than to ‘engage with modern life on its own terms.’” For example, by commercializing themselves or their art, artists were not necessarily “selling-out” but rather exploiting and rearranging the structure to suit their own agendas and feed their works, just as the early modernist artists used aspects of modernity as material for reflection, progression, and illumination. Today’s curators are obviously grappling with how to keep their museums popular without being considered “popular.” A really interesting website I came across while searching for ideas for this blog’s content was from the NY ART Beat: Info and Opinion on NY Art and Design called “Young Curators on the Art of New Ideas” (http://www.nyartbeat.com/nyablog/2009/08/young-curators-on-the-art-of-new-ideas/). Karen Archey, one such youngling, shared her idée fixe of “Low Museum.” Her aim is to unravel the curatorial profession by examining the production and function of a curator, especially in terms of contemporary art and in light of popular culture. What seems a superfluous mission becomes (at least to a hopeful curator-in-training) highly necessary in light of such people as Mordy the Blogger (http://popculturecurator.blogspot.com/). Mordy, among weekly listings of music he deems noteworthy, has decided to label himself “Pop Culture Curator,” because he hopes to “forward a vision of Pop Culture, a way for thinking about pieces of music/art/etc.” This statement, of course, precedes the über-pedantic word “list'ize” in the following sentence. “Curator”?!