Clement Greenberg – Inquiry Observation Analysis

July 31, 2019

a specific art

Dance is indeed, as Wass holds, a specific art, but not because of some single element unique to it; rather, it is specific in its functional ensemble, an ensemble that is, inevitably, organized around movement and the application of movement.

the original text:

Painting is indeed, as Greenberg held, a specific art, but not because of some single element unique to it; rather, it is specific in its functional ensemble, an ensemble that is, inevitably, organized around paint and the application of paint.

– Henry Staten, Techne Theory: A New Language for Art

January 19, 2014

The Great Greenbergian Shibboleth

“…consciously or not, interest is posed against the great Greenbergian shibboleth quality. Whereas quality is judged by reference to the standards not only of the old masters but of the great moderns, interest is provoked through the testing of aesthetic categories and the transgressing of set forms. In short, quality is a criterion of normative criticism, an encomium bestowed upon aesthetic refinement; interest is an avant-gardist term, often measured in terms of epistomological disruption. It too can become normative, but it can also license critical inquiry and aesthetic play.”

– Hal Foster, Return of the Real, pg. 46.