At a crossroads: Peter Plagens on the ‘postartist’ | Peter Plagens
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0268/is_6_43/ai_n11852071/print
“It’s no surprise that ‘postmodern artists are caricatures of artists,’ Kuspit goes on to say. ‘Disillusioned about art, they still have illusions about themselves–about what art can do for them (not what they can do for art), namely, make them rich and famous, or at least newsworthy if not exactly noteworthy.’ And out of his discontent, Kuspit comes up with an idea encapsulated in a term that, for me, is the best gloss on the whole current situation: the ‘postartist.’ The majority of art promulgated by serious galleries and contemporary museums in major cities no longer has much to do with aesthetics. Contemporary art has abandoned its function as the visual wing of the house of poetry and morphed into a fecklessly ‘transgressive’ subdivision of the entertainment industry. It’s now commercial pop culture writ esoteric, whiny and small. What Hughes long ago labeled ‘the shock of the new’ quickly became ‘the academy of the new’ (literally, in MFA programs), which has in turn updated itself into ‘the industry of the new.’ At the same time, artists have cunningly made themselves critic-proof.”