The 1962 stock-market crash triggered Abstract Expressionism’s collapse

Evidence

These features marked painting out in advance as likely to be the privileged site for a transition to the postmodern. The last major school of the modern, abstract expressionism, had been the first to hit a zenith of current success. But what the market gave, it took away. As Greenberg noted: ‘In the spring of 1962 there came the sudden collapse, market-wise and publicity-wise, of Abstract Expressionism as a collective manifestation’ — a débâcle ‘touched off by the long stock-market decline of the winter and spring of 1962, which had nothing to do with art intrinsically’. Six months later, New York saw the triumph of Pop Art in the fall. — Perry Anderson, The Origins of Postmodernity, 243

Categorization

• CANDY: A crisp anecdote: a Wall Street dip, unrelated to art, toppled an artistic movement and launched Pop in six months.
• XREF: connects to: Modernism emerged from a specific industrial-capitalist conjuncture that postwar capitalism destroyed — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism: A Marxist…, 562; Modernism’s decline stems from political defeats rather than economic change — Perry Anderson, The Origins of Postmodernity, 216; Neoclassical agent theory collapsed when selves became infinitely plastic. — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 327

Broader Connections

• Modernism emerged from a specific industrial-capitalist conjuncture that postwar capitalism destroyed #corroborates (0.82) — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism, 562
• Modernism’s decline stems from political defeats rather than economic change #contradicts (0.80) — Perry Anderson, The Origins of Postmodernity, 216