Art progresses by ‘you can’t do it like that’ not ‘you can’t do that’

Evidence

But what was it that made the difference in any particular case? Precisely the difference between this and a perfect mimesis of reification that was Adorno’s reason for regarding Beckett and Celan so highly. His evaluation of these two figures might have shown him that art does not progress according to the formula You can't do that any more' but instead according to the formula You can’t do it like that any more’. If the discussion of progress in art was not to be reduced in advance to a demand for art to become mute, cold and indifferent, and ultimately self-eradicating, then the possibility of progress must be seen in a broader sense, more hesitantly, with more openness to the qualities of everything in art that was capable of holding its own under current conditions. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2732

Categorization

• SEED: The two formulas for artistic progress offer a crisp critical heuristic — usable for an essay on how innovation is misread by advocates of radical rupture.