(Con)temporary Discomfort: the Plight of the Public

Robert Morris, Untitled Installation in the Green Gallery, New York, 1964

Cy Twombly, Four Seasons: Autumn, 1993-5

"...[M]y notion of the public is functional. The word 'public' for me does not designate any particular people; it refers to a role played by people, or to a role into which people are thrust or forced by a give experience. And only those who are beyond experience should be exempt of belonging to the public. As to the 'plight'--here I mean simply the shock of discomfort, or the bewilderment or the anger or the boredom which some people always feel, and all people sometimes people, when confronted with an unfamiliar new style."
--Leo Steinberg, "Contemporary Art and the Plight of its Public"

"The onlooker who says his child could paint a Newman may be right, but Newman would have to be there to tell the child exactly what to do." --Clement Greenberg, "After Abstract Expressionism"


These two quotes might not seem directly related at first, but to me they sum up exactly the reasons why contemporary art will always be the most fascinating period of art history. Not necessarily because the content of post-modernism is somehow always better, but because of the precise relation between us as viewers and the art is different than with any other field. The shock, boredom, bewilderment of the first encounter with the new is precisely what gives it that special, differentiating quality. In Leo Steinberg's essay he talks about his first encounter with Jasper John's work, and how he was initially struck with the particular kind of bewilderment he describes as belonging to the public. What could it have possibly been like to see Johns' work or Rauschenberg's for the first time after years of abstract expressionism dominating the American art market? Similar to what it might have been like to see Matisse's Joy of Life for the first time after impressionism, his argument goes. What I loved about Steinberg's essay is that it gives a definition to the fascination I've had with contemporary art since I was first introduced to it in Anne Wagner's new media course as an undergraduate. I have had a number of conversations with people about why studying contemporary art is so different than modern or really any other period. They are almost like two different disciplines. This is not to say I haven't valued all the effort I've put into studying modern art lately--on the contrary, it is extremely necessary and useful in order to fully grasp the significance of contemporary changes and trends. But when the historical context of a work is your own historical context as well, the difference is huge. This is what I believe to be the cause of the plight of Steinberg's public. But like Steinbeg, I also believe this plight to be something positive. "Contemporary art is constantly inviting us to applaud the destruction of values which we still cherish, while the positive cause, for the sake of which the sacrifices are made, is rarely made clear. So that the sacrifices appear as acts of demolition, or of dismantling, without any motive--just as Courbet's work appeared to Baudelaire to be simply a revolutionary gesture for its own sake." I would modify this sentence slightly by saying that it applies to [GOOD] contemporary art. What could be better than seeing your values slashed to pieces by an art object, only to slowly come to terms with why those values need to be modified in order to move forward? We see this time and time again. I could think of dozens of examples that would further support Steinberg's argument. Michael Fried's Art and Objecthood essay for example, in which he dismisses minimalist art work as theatrical. That essay could be a case study of an art critic experiencing precisely what Steinberg discusses. Fried is the public, and minimalist art is the cause of his plight. The viewer described by Greenberg is another example of a public according to Steinberg. The distrust of contemporary art that frequently gets translated as "my kid could do that,"--that phrase contemporary (and even Modern) art enthusiasts must constantly battle--is another form of the public's plight in Steinbergian terms. How do you respond to that question? I usually start with "Well, that's how you know it must be good. Because despite that fact, here it is, on the Museum wall. It must have some serious historical and conceptual weight to end up here instead of on your refrigerator door."