Adequate modernist criticism must read the economy both in and from the artwork

Evidence

A comparative sociology of modernism and its cultures — a sociology which like Weber’s remained committed to measuring the extraordinary impact of capitalism on hitherto traditional cultures, the social and psychic damage done to now irrevocable older forms of human life and perception — would alone offer an adequate framework for rethinking “modernism” today, provided it worked both sides of the street and dug its tunnel from both directions; one must, in other words, not only deduce modernism from modernization, but also scan the sedimented traces of modernization within the aesthetic work itself. — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 663

Categorization

• XREF: Directly serves the reader’s key idea that aesthetic form is the economy’s way of appearing — the bidirectional analytic demanded. — connects to: Modernist art criticizes capitalism by mirroring commodity form rather than denying it — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism: A Marxist…, 230; Modernist writers and artists modeled creative work on machine rationality. — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An…, 240; The critic’s critique of commodified art must begin as self-critique. — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 788 (+1 more)