Modernist art criticizes capitalism by mirroring commodity form rather than denying it
Evidence
Thirdly, it is at least arguable that Modernist art expresses a protest against the capitalist society which it is, in complex ways, related. The most extreme version of this claim is made, of course, by Adorno: … The modernity of art lies in its mimetic relation to a petrified and alienated reality. This, and not the denial of that reality, is what makes art speak. One consequence is that modern art does not tolerate anything that smacks of innocuous compromise. Baude laire … neither reproduced replication nor railed against it. Instead, he protested against it indirectly through experience of its archetypes, using artistic form as a medium of such an experience. It is this that enables him to rise to a level of art high above late-romantic sentimentalism. His strength as a writer lies in the ability to syncopate the overwhelming objectivity of the commodi ty-form, which absorbs into itself all human residues, with the objectivity of the work as such, which is prior to the living subject. Here the absolute work of art merges with the absolute commodity. — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism, 230
Categorization
- XREF: Adorno’s claim of art’s mimetic relation to petrified reality is the central Marxist aesthetic thesis Callinicos is weighing against Jameson; connects to the reader’s Jameson reading project directly. — connects to: Modern art openly admits it is a commodity rather than hiding its market status — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 118; Capitalist commodification displaces the aesthetic value of art — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism: A Critique of…, 69; Adequate modernist criticism must read the economy both in and from the artwork — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 663 (+9 more)
- DEFINE: Defines Adorno’s specific mechanism for how Modernist art protests capitalism — through mimetic correspondence to the commodity form, not through explicit denial.
Broader Connections
- Capitalist commodification displaces the aesthetic value of art
#corroborates(0.85) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 69 - Adequate modernist criticism must read the economy both in and from the artwork
#expands(0.82) — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 663 - Capital reabsorbed modernism’s cult of the new as commodity novelty
#complicates(0.78) — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry, 62 - Modernism emerged from a specific industrial-capitalist conjuncture that postwar capitalism destroyed
#qualifies(0.75) — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism, 562