Stripping art’s material of the past failed to increase art’s freedom toward its object.

Evidence

But if the continuing removal of all remnants of the past from the material of art, which had been welcomed by Adorno in Vers une musique informelle, had not brought about any increase in the freedom of art towards its object, in its strength to break through the `mimetic taboo’, in its capacity to assimilate what was outlawed and forbiddenwhy, then, did he nevertheless maintain that only by taking this line would it be possible to follow the precept that one must be absolutely modern, that one must seek out the new? — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 683

Categorization

• QUESTION: The text itself raises the puzzle: why did Adorno defend a trajectory that yielded no gain in mimetic freedom?
• XREF: Ties to Adorno’s “Vers une musique informelle” and the modernism/avant-garde debates in the Frankfurt School history. — connects to: Abolishing art’s transcendence destroys rather than enables art’s radical potential. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 680; Art’s violation of nature is liberation from an oppressive apparatus — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 836; Post-1960s art rejected the institutional hierarchy of materials and objects — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 2912 (+3 more)
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Abolishing art’s transcendence destroys rather than enables art’s radical potential. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 680; Art’s violation of nature is liberation from an oppressive apparatus — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 836; Post-1960s art rejected the institutional hierarchy of materials and objects — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 2912 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Art is not graspable by pure contemplation apart from its tradition #complicates (0.74) — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia, 246
• Art’s violation of nature is liberation from an oppressive apparatus #complicates (0.72) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 836