Twenty-first-century culture produced nothing radically new enough to displace prior icons.

Evidence

Culture has been central to the narrative of the last twenty-five years—but merely as entertainment, commerce, and politics. In reliving the first quarter of the century in these pages, we can feel what’s missing—there is a conspicuous blank space where art and creativity used to be. For all the energy invested in culture today, little has emerged that feels new at a symbolic level. Certainly, nothing radical enough to fully outmode the past. Audrey Hepburn, Miles Davis, and Joan Didion remain iconic because no one has emerged who can compete with their cool. — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 843

Categorization

• XREF: This states Marx’s core ‘blankness’ thesis concisely — useful for constructing the counter-case that a signature exists but is misidentified. — connects to: The twenty-first century has failed to produce a culture of its own — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 2285