Review of Books

Theorizing the cares about the materiality of 1969 essay “ Limites Critiques,"
that history becomes painfully as well as in the works of many
Avant-Garde obvious when he repeatedly re-
fers to "a piece of vvoven bas­
artists of the period.
Bürger's vvholesale dismissal
ket” that Picasso included in his of contemporary production is
A belated translation of Peter Bürger’s painting (presumably a reference
to the piece of printed oil-cloth in
particularly ironic in light of the
fact that his study is a program-
matic attempt to integrate the
“Theory of the Avant-Garde” prompts the most famous of ali of Picas-
so’s Cubist collages, Stili Life history of avant-garde practice
reflection on the critical foundations with Chair Caning, 1912). Or
vvhen he refers to the typical
into academic discourse, and si-
multaneously to öpen up that
of esthetic theory in the late ’60s. “ neo-avant-garde" artist vvho, im-
itating Duchamp, places a
discourse to become a critical
hermeneutics. As such, the es­
“ stove-pipe” in the museum (he say is the product of a struggle
might be referring to either Rau- vvithin the field of German literary
schenberg or Tinguely, neither of and art history of the mid to late
vvhom, hovvever, employ “ stove- ’60s, vvhen as part of the general
BY BENJAıMIN BUCHLOH pipes"). Or when he says that process of politicization, stu-
Duchamp's readymades “ un- dents in the humanities became
Theory of the Avant-Garde, by ory of the Avant-Garde in 99 mask the art market vvhere the increasingly avvare of the enor-
Peter Bürger, translation by Mi- pages, more and more drastic signature means more than the mous omissions of historical ma-
chael Shaw, foreword by Jochen faults appear. These can be attri- quality of the work." (This iast terial from the general academic
Schulte-Sasse, Minneapolis, Uni- buted less to the fact that the statement exemplifies the high- curriculum (in part a continuation
versity of Minnesota Press, 1984; book was vvritten ten years ago, handedness vvith vvhich Bürger of the German fascists’ blackout
135pp., $25 cloth, $10.95paper. and more to the fact that any looks at vvork by artists vvhose of avant-garde production). Stu-
theorization of avant-garde prac- practices he claims to theorize.) dents of Bürger's generation be-
The English translation of Peter tice from 1915 to ’25 (plus a few Bürger's Central idea that the gan to question the inherent hü­
Bürger’s short but concise and additional snide comments on "historical” avant-gardes of the manist authoritarianism of the
ımportant Theory of the Avant- the “ neo-avant-garde" after early 20th century must be differ- discipline as vvell as its definition
Garde reaches the reader ten 1945) must force the vast differ- entiated from both their modern- as Geistesgeschichte and its re-
years after its original publication ences and contradictions of that ist predecessors in the 19th cen­ striction of inquiry to the ac-
in Germany. The first study of practice into the unifying frame- tury and their "neo-avant-garde" knovvledged masterpieces of the
the subject since Renato Pog- work of theoretical categories, followers after 1945, is sound cultural history of a single nation.
gıoli's hopelessly atheoretical and is therefore doomed to failure. and vvill serve as an obligatory Bürger’s generation also became
and historically insufficient Theo­ One vvishes that Bürger had model for anyone vvorking in the avvare of the problems—if not
ry of the Avant-Garde (1962), expressed some avvareness of history of modernism. However, the outright failure—of the meth-
Bürger’s essay—since that is how patently absürd it is to re- he has made up his mind from odology that both art and literary
what the book should be called, duce the history of avant-garde the start about the interest and history had inherited from the
rather than a “ theory"—might practices in 20th-century art to validity of the neo-avant-garde; in 19th century, and that had been
generate excitement for this rea- one overriding concern—the dis- his theory, the art of the post- passed on from generation to
son alone. Since this revievv is mantling of the false autonomy 1945 period is measured against generation of its students vvith
vvritten with particular concern of the institution of art—vvhich the authority of the historical only minör adjustments. They
for the viability of Bürger’s argu- he sees as the driving force of avant-garde and found insuffi­ discovered—often in opposition
ment in the context of contem- Dada (Berlin, Zürich and New cient and dismissable: “ The Neo- to their teachers—the "other"
porary (meaning 20th-century in York), Russian Constructivism avant-garde which stages for a history of the 20th-century avant-
general) visual arts production, it I and Soviet Productivism, and second time the avant-gardiste garde (especially Berlin Dada,
must be said at the beginning French Surrealism. Does Bürger break with tradition becomes a French Surrealism and Soviet
that frustration is mixed with the seriously believe that it was John manifestation that is devoid of Constructivism and Productiv­
excitement, for although Bürger Heartfield's primary concern in sense and that permits the posit- ism), as vvell as theories of ar-
is a literary historian of consider- 1939 to “ destroy art as an insti­ ing of any meaning vvhatsoever." tistic production that had been
able competence and standing tution set off from the praxis of This kind of hyperopic reading developed outside the academic
ın the fields of French and com- life"? Or, to take the opposite of the art of the present testifies apparatus (such as Walter Ben-
parative literatüre (a majör study case, vvould Dalı and Picabia— only to the traditional contempt jamin's epochal The Origin of
of French Surrealism preceded Surrealists who flirted vvith fas- of the academic critic for artists German Tragic Drama)—theories
this work), his knovvledge of the cism at the same time—have vvho continue to produce after which turned out to be more im-
history and theory of the avant- cared about this proposal? İf the­ criticism has declared either the portant for the development of a
garde in the visual arts at times orization of this entire period is climax or the death of the kind of new literary criticism than most
seems limited, if not naive. at ali possible—and Bürger him- art it favors. Had Bürger's con­ of the discipline's ovvn paper ti-
The essay’s conciseness and self voices doubts near the end tempt for contemporary art prac­ gers.
togically argued proposals, as of his essay when he quotes tice not limited his Vision so se- Reading Bürger's essay a de-
veli as the range of its refer- Adorno's statement that the de- verely, he might have discovered cade after its initial publication
snces (even if mostly essayistic), gree of irrationality in late capital- that artists in the late ’60s vvere offers a vvelcome opportunity to
nake it a slightly belated, but ist society no longer allows for engaged in a parallel analysis of reflect upon both the relevance
stili valuable contribution to the theorization— it vvould require a the institution of art and the insti- and the limitations of the critical
current debate on modernism. much closer and more thorough tutionalization of esthetic dis- foundations of esthetic theory in
Hovvever, as one scrutinizes reading of art history and its con- course. İn fact, Bürger's majör the late ’60s. As Bürger himself
nore closely Bürger's rather am- structs and texts. hypothesis had already been ful- clearly States, his theory is
oitious attempt to deveiop a The­ Just how much Bürger really ly developed in Daniel Buren’s based on Marx's critique of ideo-
NCVEM8ER 1984 19
 logy. He argues that, unlike is the intention of the avant-gard- that Adorno's theory (like that of maintain not only logically, but
Marx, who discussed the social iste artist, who hopes that such Lukâcs) vvas essentially part of historically as vvell. A multitude
function of religiorî in detail, vvithdravval of meaning will direct modernism (i.e., the doctrine of of conflicting and mutually exclu-
Marxist estheticians like Adorno, the reader’s attention to the fact art as an autonomous institution) sive esthetic practices have
Benjamin and Lukâcs never ad- that the conduct of one's life is and must therefore be histori- coexisted since the origins of the
dressed the function of art, but questionable and that it is nec- cized. Bürger’s vignettes on avant-garde (vvhether one lo-
accepted the 19th-century bour- essary to change it. Shock is Adorno's notion of the “ Nevv” cates these vvith David, Courbet
geois definition of art as essen- aimed for as a stimulus to and on the Lukâcs-Adorno dis- or, as Bürger does, after Cub-
tially dysfunctional in a society change one's conduct of life; it is pute provide a competent and ism). At the same time that
regulated by cause-and-effect the means to break through aes- clear primary introduction for Heartfield and Lissitzky vvere en-
explanations, exchange value thetic immanence and to usher readers vvho are not familiar vvith gaged in the most radical and
and profit orientation, Only in in a change in the recipient's life this material. They vvill, hovvever, consequential assault on the in­
Marcuse's vvritings does Bürger praxis.” search in vain for a thoroughly stitution of art during the late
discover an attempt to clarify the This interpretation of shock as researched, hisiorically substan- '20s and '30s, Vlaminck and van
social function of art as providing esthetic strategy is derived from tiated case against Adorno's es­ Dongen—former members of the
an affirmative “ justification of the VValter Benjamin's vvritings on thetics (such as that made, for Fauve avant-garde—vvere selling
established form of existence.” vvhat Paris then thought to be
Hovvever, this ’60s notion of the best contemporary painting,
art as ideology—as applied by but vvhat vvas in fact the most
Marcuse, Bürger, and the majori- menial art ever to leave the stu-
ty of the social historians of Had B ürger’s cotıtempt fo r contemporary art dios of the “ avant-garde."
art—is profoundly deficient. The assault on the false isola-
When esthetic knovvledge is as- practice not limited his vision so severely tion of art and on the ideology of
signed to the realm of ideology, its autonomy by the “ original”
the critical subject (the aca-
he might have discovered that artists in avant-garde cannot be aban-
demic, the historian) produces- the late y60s were engaged in a parallel doned simply because it vvas
knowledge that supposedly aborted. İt seems more viable to
looks into the esthetic abyss analysis o f the institution o f art and the define avant-garde practice as a
from a position of scientific ob- continually renevved struggle
jectivity. Surely this was never institutionalization o f esthetic discourse. över the definition of cultural
the assumption in either Ador- meaning, the discovery and rep-
no's or Benjamin's vvritings; and resentation of nevv audiences,
it is on this basis that Bürger and the development of nevv
argues that their work is limited strategies to counteract and de­
to the conditions of modernism the subject in his Baudelaire example, in Thomas Crovv's re­ velop resistance against the ten-
itself. study (and his essay on Surreal­ cent essay "Modernism and dency of the ideological appara­
As has been argued in more ism). Hovvever, like the tvvo cru- Mass Culture"). tuses of the culture industry to
recent theoretical reflections on cial chapters in Bürger's study Bürger's least convincing argu- occupy and to control ali prac­
the relationship of esthetic prac- devoted to Benjamin’s theory of ment, hovvever, is the one that tices and ali spaces of represen-
tice and ideology, the concept of allegory and his strategies of vvill probably make his essay tation.
ideology employed in Bürger's montage, it has been subjected popular vvith a large number of Bürger's vievv of scholarly, the­
essay suffers from both an un- to oversimplification and a loss practitioners and recipients of oretical and critical vvork on con­
derestimation of the power of of specificity. But even vvithin the contemporary art. Here is his temporary esthetic practice is a
ideology to constitute subjectivi- limited framevvork of Bürger's "postmodernist” conclusion (a consequence of the esthetic
ty and an overestimation of the methodology, it should have variety of "postmodernism” that anomie that he advocates, The
subsumption of art by ideology. been obvious hovv problematic it has already been adequately critic and historian become the
Both Althusser's now-standard is to excerpt one—admittedly criticized in the current debate): apologetic accountants of post-
1969 essay ‘ideology and Ideo- Central—concept from Benja­ "The meaning of the break in the histoire, caretakers inside the
logical State Apparatuses" and min's thinking in 1924 and to history of art that the historical ideological apparatus of art and
Julia Kristeva’s notion that es­ make it the basis for a theory of avant-garde movements pro- its institutions: "This has conse-
thetic practice performs a "semi- avant-garde production, vvhen in voked does not consist in the quences for the scholarly deal-
otic rupture" in the totality of fact in 1934 (in the essay "The destruction of art as an institu­ ings vvith vvorks of art: the nor-
ideology (see, for example, her Author as Producer") Benjamin tion, but in the destruction of the mative examination is replaced
La Rövolution du langage poâti- developed an entirely different possibility of positing esthetic by a functional analysis, the ob-
que, 1974) provide a theory of theory of the nonorganic vvork of norms as valid ones." ject of vvhose investigation vvould
ideology and subjectivity that al- art, one vvhose strategy of mon­ The conclusion that, because be the social effect (function) of
lows for a more complex view of tage is derived from the author's the one practice that set out to a vvork, vvhich is the result of the
the relationship betvveen the to­ experience of the vvork of the dismantle the institution of art in coming together of stimuli inside
tality of ideological discourses Soviet avant-garde and possibly bourgeois society failed to do so, the vvork and a sociologically de-
and institutions vvithin which the that of John Heartfield. Of ali practices become equally val­ finable public vvithin an already
subject—including the historian course, Bürger does not mention id, is not logically compelling at existing institutional frame."
and critic—is constituted, as well the radical changes in montage ali. One has only to consider the This characterization of the
as the actual interference. esthetics in the 1915-25 period, argument in terms of other ideo­ critic and the historian as admin-
against ideology that esthetic or the fact that vvithin Dada-mon- logical struggles to reveal its ab- istrators affirms a State of ac-
practice can produce. tage esthetics itself, oppositional surdity (e.g., since most strug­ quiescence to the given that re-
Bürger's ideas are close to the modes vvrestled vvith each other gles for self-determination in Lat­ minds us of the historicism and
humanistic centralism of the dis- (see the Schvvitters-Huelsenbeck in American countries are positivism of the late 19th cen-
cipline against which he set out polemic). aborted, colonialist and imperi- tury, vvhen esthetics' supposedly
to develop a critical hermeneu- The second majör text upon alist policies are historically just scientific foundations vvere rein-
tics. This objection applies to vvhich Bürger dravvs heavily is as valid as the politics of libera- forced. Roman Jakobson's fa-
Bürger’s account not only of pro- Theodor Adorno's Aesthetic The­ tion). Stili, it is not surprising that mous request to absolve art from
duction, but of reception as well. ory (fortunately—and finally— the kind of esthetic passivism the prosecutions of the Sciences
When discussing Surrealism and novv available in English). While Bürger advocated as early as and to develop instead a Science
the theory of shock, he argues Bürger certainly succeeds in 1972 has in the meantime be­ of art remains valid, if not urgent,
that the artist's "refusal to pro­ conveying a sense of the emi- come the core of a vulgarized in the face of the theorization of
vide meaning is experienced as nence of Adorno's esthetic notion of postmodernism. the avant-garde that Bürger sub-
shock by the recipient. And this thought, he fails to convince us Bürger's case is impossible to mits. □
NOVEMBER 1984 21