Readymades, Monochromes, Etc.

: Nominalism and the Paradox of Modernism

Author(s): J. M. Bernstein
Source: Diacritics, Vol. 32, No. 1, Rethinking Beauty (Spring, 2002), pp. 83-84+86-91+93-100
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1566363 .
Accessed: 26/09/2013 15:05
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

The Johns Hopkins University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to
Diacritics.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 200.145.114.37 on Thu, 26 Sep 2013 15:05:53 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

READYMADES,
ETC.
MONOCHROMES,
NOMINALISMAND THE PARADOX OF
MODERNISM
J. M. BERNSTEIN

If Schopenhauer'sthesis of art as an image of the world once over bears a

kernelof truth,then it does so only insofar as this second world is composed
out of elements that have been transposedout of the empiricalworld in
accord with Jewish descriptionsof the messianic orderas an orderjust like
the habitual order but changed in the slightest degree.
-T. W. Adorno,Aesthetic Theory
Adorno's philosophy as a whole, and his aesthetic theory in particular,is irrevocably
bound to the traditionand achievementsof high modernism.AlthoughAdornohimself
did not recognize AmericanAbstractExpressionas the apotheosisof high modernism
in painting,thatjudgmentnow hardlyseems contentious.'And thatraises a problem:it
is the problemof R. Mutt, again, the problemof the porcelainurinalcalled Fountain,
which was refusedadmittanceto the Society of IndependentArtists'Exhibitionin April
1917 in spite of the Society's proclaimeddemocraticslogan "Nojury, no prizes"-the
work whose life or after-lifebegins with the beautifulphotographof it by Stieglitz set
against the backgroundof MarsdenHartley's The Warriorsand that appearedshortly
thereafterin the new avant-gardejournal The Blind Man. Whatever the immediate
repercussionsof Fountain,therecan be little doubtthatmuchof whatis most vital in art
in the secondhalf of this centuryis unthinkablewithoutit; Duchamp'sreadymadeoffers
an exemplaryalternativeto the traditionof high modernistpaintingthathas continued
to be generative.For a modernistlike Adorno,for whom authenticartis thatwhich best
rises to the demandsandnecessities of artisticmaterials,for whom internalconsistency
andrigorwouldappearto be everything,for whom,finally,aestheticformis the "objective
organizationwithin each artworkof what appears as bindingly eloquent" [AT 143;
emphasismine], Duchamp'sgestureof simply namingor claiming artisticstatusfor an
ordinarybathroomfixturemust be anathema.In this respect,Adorno'saesthetictheory
would seem to be in the same predicament as Clement Greenberg's modernism:
inextricablybound to a traditionthat history has left behind.And while the option of
refuting the claim of Fountain is certainly possible, and should not be too quickly
suppressed(thereis somethingin the claimthatwill foreverbe skepticallyself-defeating),
nonethelesstheredoes appearto be an exemplarinessto Fountainthatexceeds the narrow
provocationof Duchamp's nominalist gesture; something in the readymade,in fact,
seems (arthistorically?aesthetically?conceptually?)irresistible.If so, then modernist
1. For a defense, see my "TheDeath of SensuousParticulars:Adornoand AbstractExpressionism."

diacritics / spring 2002

diacritics32.1:83-100

This content downloaded from 200.145.114.37 on Thu, 26 Sep 2013 15:05:53 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

83

formalismmust eitherfind a way of accommodatingthe readymadewithoutdeparting

from its internallogic or find its claim to our attentionforfeited.
After laying out the bold outlines of Adorno's formalism, the remainderof this
essay will seek to uncover an account of the readymadein the context of what I will
eventuallycall "theparadoxof modernism"in orderto locatein whatway the readymade
can be accommodatedto a defense of Adorno'slate modernism.Forthe purposesof this
argument,I am going to assume that the best overall defense of Duchamp's gesture,
which makes it foundationalfor the understandingof modern art, is that offered by
Thierryde Duve in his KantafterDuchamp.My elaborationof Adorno'slate modernism
will hence proceed, in part,througha chartingof some of the fault lines in de Duve's
Duchamp.My contentionshall be that the generativityof Fountain as readymadenot
only belongs within modernism,but is only intelligible within a wholly modernistand
formalistframeof reference.

Adorno'sFormalismand the MaterialMotive

Adornoopens the section of Aesthetic Theoryentitled "Coherenceand Meaning"with
the drasticsoundingthesisthat"Althoughartworksareneitherconceptualnorjudgmental,
they are logical" [AT 136]. He continues:
In them nothing would be enigmatic if their immanent logicality did not
accommodatediscursive thought,which criteria they nevertheless regularly
disappoint. Theymost resembletheform of a syllogism and its prototypein
empiricalthought.Thatin the temporalarts one momentis said tofollowfrom
anotheris hardlymetaphorical;that one eventis said to be caused by another
at the very least allows the empiricalcausal relationto shimmerthrough.It is
not only in the temporalarts that one momentis to issue from another; the
visual arts have no less a need of logical consistency.[AT 136]
Artworks "gain objectivation" for themselves by virtue of the way in which their
componentsare bound together.In the temporalarts this binding occurs when we feel
that a second momenthad to follow from a previousmoment,thatthe movementfrom
a to b was somehow rightor necessaryor inevitable.And this sense of rigorcan be like
an inferencedrawnfroma premise,or like one event causallynecessitatinga laterevent.
In the visual artsthe demandfor logical consistencyis channeledthroughthe traditional
requirementthatworks be "self-alike,"thatis, that componentpartsof a whole belong
intrinsicallyand not accidentallyto the whole of which they are parts.But it is just this
self-alikeness that underwritesa work's objectivity, since it entails that works lodge
theirclaims on the spectatoronly indirectly;it is the internalrelationof partsto whole,
a work's immanentnecessity which makes it "aninterior"[AT 136] that is its claim to
attention.Whatwould directlyappealto the spectator,by being immediatelyaffecting,
for example, would make a work a machine for producing effects which would be
worthlessthereby-the machineeitherworks or does not, andno judgmentbeyond that
is possible. Good machinesand good artworksare differentanimals.
All this is correctbut for the hyperbole.Art's logicality is not thatof the syllogism
since it is madewithoutconceptorjudgment;andwhatevercausalnexus links events in
a temporalartworkit is not a matterof lawlike necessity. Further,althougheverything
appearsin an artworkas if "itmustbe as it is andcould not be otherwise"[AT 136], this
is not literallythe case. As in dreams,a feeling of coerciveconsistencyis boundup with
an equal sense of contingency.Thereis a sense, then, in which authenticartworksmust

84

This content downloaded from 200.145.114.37 on Thu, 26 Sep 2013 15:05:53 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

be capableof sustainingthe judgmentthattheirpartsdo logically hang togetherwhile

acknowledgingthat had differentchoices been made a different but equally binding
work could have appeared-an event thatis not unusual,at least in paintingwhere the
series is employed to establisha new logicality. But for Adomo this fact is meantto be
expressiveof a featureof artuniqueto it: in artworksthe logical (quasi-conceptual)and
of
the causal arenot finally distinguishable-". .. in artthe archaicundifferentiatedness
logic and causalityhibernates"[AT 137].
ForAdornoit is the historicalseparationof logic and causality that underpinsthe
disenchantmentand rationalizationof modern social formations. Logic apart from
causality is rationalizedreason that exists apartfrom and independentlyof its objects
and materialpresuppositions;hence, autonomouslogic is the logic of exchange value
apartfrom use value, bureaucraticrationalizationapartfrom local practices,the laws of
naturalscience as explanatoryof the items falling underthem, the laws of inference
apartfrom the statementsconnected.It is the totalityof these separationsthatgenerates
what Adorno entitles, somewhat misleadingly, instrumental reason. In its naive
celebration,it is said that autonomouslogic is the "spaceof reasons"in which human
conceptualityoperateswithoutcausal or materialconstraint;hence the space of reasons
is the space of freedom.Conversely,then,once experienceis systematicallydeprivedof
its own "logicality," then all that is left are raw causal episodes, meaningless in
themselves. In proposingthat artworksare logical, consistent,internallycoherent,and
simultaneouslycausal,Adornois contendingthatcentralto whatmakesartworksworthy
of attentionis that they transformthe very forms of empiricalexperience, the reified
duality of logic and cause, in a direction that deprives those forms of their external
coerciveness. If art had nothing to do with causality and logicality, the very bonds
connectingthings in a disenchantedworld, then,by thatvery fact, it would lose contact
with empiricalexperience;alternatively,if in artcausalityandlogicalitywere unchanged,
then art would succumb to the "spell" of disenchantment:"The autonomouslaw of
form of artworksprotests against logicality even though logicality defines form as a
principle.... [O]nly by its double character,which provokespermanentconflict, does
art succeed at escaping the spell by even the slightest degree" [AT 138].
Adorno'scommitmentto formalismis rootedin his understandingof art'slogicality.
Art's connection to the routineobjects of knowledge is a result of its "implicitcritique
of nature-dominating
ratio,whose rigiddeterminationsartsets in movementby modifying
them" [AT 139]. In art empiricalform-space, time, and causality-and logical form
are given a "refractedappearance"[AT 137] thatenables them to relateto theirmaterial
constituentsotherwise.The consequenceof refractionis thatin works linkages are not
conclusions or distinct events; rather, what aesthetic consistency generates is a
"communicationbetween objects"that preserves"the affinityof elements thatremain
unidentified"[AT 138]. "Communication"and "affinity"are among the termsAdorno
employs in orderto insinuatea potentialityfor objects unidentifiedby standard,reified
conceptsto meanapartfromtheirempiricalmeaning.Theyrevealthismeaningotherwise
by standingin relationto one anotherin worksin ways thatareboth compellingandnot
capable of being captured by conceptual means. Above all, then, affinity and
communicationinsinuatethe idea of materialform,of formas emergentfromor implicit
in art'smaterialsubstratum[AT 142]. Artworksareillusory acts of an anthropomorphic
hylomorphism.Adornowill go so far as to say thatartworks"movetowardthe idea of
a languageof things..,. throughthe organizationof theirdisparateelements"[AT 140].
In his elaborationof art'slogicality,Adornohas been approachingthe problemof
aestheticform sideways. The reason for his indirectapproachis evident:Adornois in
no doubtthatartsimply is "identicalwith form"[AT 140];butformtraditionallyis what
ordersa contentor a material.In orderto breakfromthis notionof formwhile remaining

86

This content downloaded from 200.145.114.37 on Thu, 26 Sep 2013 15:05:53 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

formalist,Adornolocates the domainof form apartfromtraditionalformsthemselvesin

the transformationthat empiricallogicality and causality undergowhen they operate
withinworks.Formis the bearerof the differentandmanifoldmodes in which logicality
and causality are intermeshedin works as theirprincipleof order.
... aestheticform is the objective organizationwithin each artworkof what
appears as bindinglyeloquent.It is the nonviolentsynthesisof the diffusethat
neverthelesspreserves it as what it is in its divergences and contradictions,
and for this reasonform is actually an unfoldingof truth.A posited unity,it
constantlysuspendsitselfas such.Essentialto it is thatit interruptsitselfthrough
its otherjust as the essence of its coherence is that it does not cohere. In its
relation to its other-whose foreignness it mollifies and yet maintains-form
is what is anti-barbaricin art; throughform artparticipates in the civilization
that it criticizes by its very existence. [AT 143]
The full ramificationsof this dense passage cannot be unpackedall at once; nor, it is
worthadding,areits lines of argumentaccessible as herepresented.Its full expositionis
all but synonymouswith whatI wantto say in thispaperas a whole. But a smallbeginning
needs to be made. Binding eloquence is the aesthetic corollaryof (the unity of) valid
inferenceand causal connection.Whateverin a work, proportionsof space and surface
or color contrast,providescompelling orderis therebyform. Hence form in modernist
worksneed not be, and at theirmost rigorousis not, differentfrom what is so ordered:a
field of color dividedby a verticalline of a differentcolor generatesform. But the form
so generatedis nothing but the organizationof the content.And if, as in this case, the
form is so minimal, then acknowledgment of the form is had at the same time as
acknowledgmentof the "foreignness"of what is formed-the colors themselves and
theirverticaltearing.ForAdorno,for reasonsthatwill become clearerbelow, modernist
worksdisplaytheirinherencein theirmaterialsby lettingthose materials--colors, paint
on canvas,the roughbrushstroke,the dripof paint-appear in theirown right.To put it
anotherway, the kind of formmodernistworkspossess is in partdictatedby what I will
call art's"materialmotive."Traditionalworks of artarefor the sake of ideas and ideals
that were presumedto exist independentlyof the materialformed. Modernistworks,
Adornocontends,enact a reversalin which form isfor the sake of what is formed.It is
because of this reversal that modernist works must interruptthemselves: although
artworksappearto demonstrate,throughtheirforms,a bindingeloquenceof theirmaterial
substratum,this appearanceof consistency is just that-appearance and semblance,
somethingthatcan occuronly withintherefugeof art,withits dispensationfrompractical
purposiveness.Because the binding eloquence is semblance, and yet for the sake of
what is being made eloquent, artworkscan carry out their task of critically opposing
empiricallogic andcausalityonly by suspendingtheirown accomplishment.To suspend
their own accomplishmentis thus both to acknowledge the relative autonomyof the
materialsand,by this very fact, enactthe reversalwherebyform operatesfor theirsake.
Adorno's insistentformalismis utterlyboundto the materialmotive. The material
motive, like the formalmotive of entrenchingpaintingin its own areaof competence,is
not to be thoughtof as what this or that artistintended,but as a tendencyor tropismin
modernistpracticethatis visible only in its waning.2Or better,only now in the case of
paintingis the materialmotivebeing appropriatelyrecognizedin relationto the otherwise
2. The case may be differentin music.Adorno certainly attributesto both Schoenbergand
Berg a clarityabout the materialmotivethat wouldbe hardto cash outfor paintings done during
the same period.

diacritics / spring 2002

This content downloaded from 200.145.114.37 on Thu, 26 Sep 2013 15:05:53 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

87

impeccableformalistanalysis of modernistpractice.So, for example, in reviewing the

Museum of ModernArt's large JacksonPollock exhibition (1998), Thomas Crow felt
compelledto urgeagainstboththeMuseum'sown conceptionof Pollockandby extension
the optical interpretationpromotedby Greenbergand Michael Fried, an account that
underlinedthe "literalconcreteness,the obduratemateriality"of the canvases:
The dissonant disabling of a representednature made Pollock's canvases
function themselvesas the equivalentof nature,wherethepowers of the artist
to imposeform are strictly limited,wherefinal effects are instead a matterof
inducementand invitation,with the brutefact of the painting having the last
word. [95]3
Crow'snuancedstatementof the "dissonantdisabling"of representednatureon the one
hand and on the other the restriction of Pollock's power to impose form, hence
"inducementand invitation,"recapitulateAdomo's notion of a coherencethatdoes not
cohere as the release of the materialmotive. Gainingclarity aboutthe materialmotive
in Pollock's work remainsurgent,since, in the setting of AbstractExpressionism,his
workincreasinglylooks like an apotheosis,a last emphaticexplorationof the systematic
possibilities of modernistpainting. After Pollock and Rothko and de Kooning and
Newman, after AbstractExpressionism,if painting continues, as it does, say, in the
works of GerhardRichterand RobertRyman,for reasonswe shall come to it no longer
does so as partof a largersystematicundertaking.The latterworks can appearalmost
memorial,an ascetic exercise in remembranceof paintingratherthanthe thingitself.4It
is the exhaustionof paintingthataftera delay of thirtyyearsor more madethe exemplar
of Fountainappear,once again, promising.

AbnormalPainting
De Duve contends that Duchamp's own self-understandinginvites the idea that the
readymade"is a sort of abnormalpainting"[KD 162].5Whatis at issue in this claim is
the idea thatwe must considerthe readymadeas a certain,paradoxicalcontinuationof
modernistpainting,as a responseto the exhaustionof painting,and hence as a way of
sustaining the stakes of painting in the absence of painting. This thought is not too
shocking if we keep in mind thatthe minimalistworks of Donald Judd,RobertMorris,
CarlAndre, and Dan Flavin were explicitly, if inconsistently,intendedas responses to
3. Appearingin the same issue as Crow'sarticle, a reviewby Michael Fried, "OpticalAllusions," concedes that his own optical analysis was somewhatoverstatedin relation to the resilient and unavoidablematerialityof the canvases.
4. This is perhaps not the best way to state the achievementof these artists. In arguingfor
Rymanas the last modernistpainter,Yve-AlainBois states his practice as the attempt "topaint
that he paints that he paints; that he has always wanted,by means of an excess of reflexivity,to
outflankthe tautological reflexiveness[painting about painting] in which modernismhas been
locked. Further,his success is due ... to the fact that everyfailure of his audacious attempt
removeshimfurtherfrom his object, driving him to produce objects that are increasinglyenigmatic and indeterminable"[224-25].
5. De Duve's exact reasoning at this juncture is wholly unpersuasive,depending on two
thoughts: "choiceis the main thing, even in normalpainting" [KD 163, quotingDuchamp],and
the tube of paint, as opposed to makingcolors oneself is a readymade.But even de Duve conceives of the notion of choice here as equivocal, and, howeversignificantthe tube of paint in reforming thepractice ofpainting, it does not therebymakepaintingsaided readymadesor have the
same impacton painting as photography[KD 176].

88

This content downloaded from 200.145.114.37 on Thu, 26 Sep 2013 15:05:53 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

the impasse of painting and a continuationof trends in it (in the paintings of Frank
Stella and BarnettNewman).6What should be puzzling, in the first instance,is not that
certain three-dimensionalworks, readymadesand minimalist ones, are conceived in
relation to painting, but that painting should be so privileged in this story that the
legitimacyand meaning of readymadesand minimalistworks remainparasiticon it.'
Summarizinghorribly,de Duve offers a three-stageaccount of the unfolding of
modem art [KD 377-81]. In stage one, in both premoderntimes and even in modem
autonomousart up to the middle of the nineteenthcentury,"practitionersof a given
discipline... knewbeforehandwhattechnicalandaestheticconstraintstheirproductions
had to meet in orderto be conceptuallyidentifiedas paintings"[KD 378]. Therewere
technicalandaestheticrules of the tradethatconstitutedwhatit was for somethingto be
a paintingandeven whatmade somethinga good painting(althoughboth techniqueand
standardsdevelopedandchanged);these rules were an implicitcontractwith the public.
Withthe onsetof modernism,de Duve argues,thingschanged.Paintersbeganto challenge
the taken-for-grantedcharacterof the previousrules:What conventionscan a painting
dispense with and still be a painting?What conventionscan a paintingdispense with
and still be aestheticallyworthy?Once paintingbecomes reflexive, an interrogationof
whatpaintingis, the unitaryset thathadintegrallyharmonizedsomethingbeinga painting
and somethingbeing beautifulfell apart.Once, then, paintingis no longer founded on
traditionalauthority,paintingstops being a (complex) unified concept and becomes "a
word void of a prioriknowledge aboutthe minimumrules and conventionsits practice
must obey; it is no longer a concept;insteadit has become a propername with which I
baptizethe things that I judge deservedto be so called" [KD 378-79].
Stage three:What is the best way to articulatewhat is going on when artistsbreak
the old rules and propose new ones for something to be a painting?At one level, the
correctanswermust be of the kind: renegotiatingtheir social contractwith the public.
But if this is correct,then it follows thatall modernistartisticpracticeis best construed
as presentingworks of artin orderthatthey be judged as such, that is, modernistartis
shown to the public for "no other purpose than begging approvaland/or provoking
disapproval"[KD 380]. In exhibitingFountain,a work fromwhich all traceof craftand
"everyconventionalalibi"thatmight allow one to identifyit as a paintingor a sculpture
have been withdrawn,Duchampinsistedthatit be "appreciatedfor its qualityas a work
of art,period,"that the judgmentas to the qualityof the work "bearon the very fact of
having to judge whetherstatus [as art] equals quality" [KD 379]. De Duve's double
gesturehere is intriguing:on the one handhe sees Duchampas opening the nominalist
floodgates (confusedly thoughtunderthe idea of art being a propername8)-since no
6. In my "Aporiaof the Sensible: Art, Objecthoodand Anthropomorphism,"
I investigate
one small momentin this story:Michael Fried's attemptto categoriallyseparatethe achievement
of FrankStellafrom minimalism.
7. Needless to say, not everyone would agree to this conjoining of modernistpainting and
the readymade;indeed, most historianstreatDuchampas the authorof a traditionthat becomes
postmodernismand is thus in direct competitionwith (a completed?exhausted?)modernism.De
Duve recruitsDuchampfor modernism;or rather;makesFountainsomethinglike the apotheosis
of modernism,what reveals its true idea. Whateverelse one might want to say about Dada or
Surrealism,de Duve makesa compelling historical case for consideringFountainin relation to
the historyof modernistpainting. For the mostpart, I will be here simplyassumingthe validityof
his historical account.
8. As several reviewershave pointed out, de Duve confuses the plausible Kantianidea that
art, like a judgmentof beauty,does not possess a set of definingconceptualcharacteristicswith
the idea of a logicallypropernamewhich is rigidlytied to the single objectnamed(e.g., Aristotle)
apartfrom any definingdescriptivecharacterization.Even the extensionof this idea with respect
to nouns will not help since there the thesis is everythingthat is the same as "this"item is, say,

diacritics / spring 2002

This content downloaded from 200.145.114.37 on Thu, 26 Sep 2013 15:05:53 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

89

conventionsare essential to somethingbeing a work of art anythingcan be-only, on

the otherhand,to try to half-close the gates again (againstthe institutionaltheoryof art
and Joseph Kosuth's idea of conceptual art) by insisting on the ineliminability of
judgment.The aporiain this double gestureis evident;once anythingcan be proposed
as a work of art, on what basis are we supposedto judge? How is judgmentto gain a
foothold?What could conceivably guide or govern ourjudging? Comparisonwith the
works of the past won't do since, by the example of modernistpaintingitself, we know
some past judgments were premisedon fully disposable conventions.And to say that
time will decide whetherartistandpublic were rightor wrongmoves in an emptycircle.
On de Duve's accountthe role of paintingis fundamentalonly in thatthe dynamic
of modernism whereby new works transgressively attempt to inherit the mantle of
"painting"is generalizedby Duchampfrom paintingto art,hence dissociatingartfrom
the conventions that might be institutedwith respect to a particularpractice(painting,
sculpture,etc.). But this, I wantto argue,atrociouslyflattenspainting,since the key idea
is one of a practicedeveloping throughtransgression;and any such practicewould of
course requirea momentof judgment,since the new rule is won, if it is, throughappeal
to the new radicalcase. This is an importantand worthyidea; but how does it relateto
art?To the model of painting?How did this flatteningof paintingoccur?
In fact, thereare a numberof storieskicking aroundhere, none of which add up to
the actualgeneralizationfrompaintingto artthatde Duve operates.One storyconcerns
Duchamp'sown dawningperceptionthat paintingwas no longer possible. Duchamp's
feeling thatpaintingis impossibleis the subjectiveaccompanimentto the "awarenessof
its objectiveuselessnessin a society wheretheproductionof imageshas beenmechanized
and from which painting has withdrawn,like a relic from an obsolete artisanalpast"
[KD 171]. One response to this dilemma would be to opt for photographyor film as
WalterBenjaminurgedin "TheWorkof Artin theAge of Its TechnicalReproducibility."
But de Duve contends that Duchamp's gesture is for the sake of painting;Duchamp
stops painting in order that painting can survive as an unactualizedpossibility [KD
171-72]. This is not implausible in itself; on the contrary,I suppose that modernist
paintingitself is like this:it paintsthe impossibilityof paintingin orderto hold open the
possibility of painting.Nothing here, however,will enable me to say that as yet. And
even if it could be said, it leaves wholly undeterminedwhy Duchamp,or anyone, might
be nonethelessinvested in paintingin a mannerthat was not blatantlynostalgic for the
artisanalpast.
The next story is owed to Greenberg.As late as 1958, Greenbergcould open his
essay on "'American-Type'Painting"full of optimismaboutits future.Only paintingof
all theartswas still a viableavant-gardeproject.In all the artsthemovementof modernism
is to isolate andexpendthose conventionsnot essentialto it. Said this way, Greenberg's
thoughtis that modernistpracticeadvancesby distinguishingthe merely conventional
fromthe intrinsicallyconventional;the latterbeingjust those conventionsbeyondwhich
a practice cannot go and still be recognizable as a continuationof its negated past.
Conventionsare overhauled"notfor revolutionaryeffect, but in orderto maintainthe
irreplaceabilityand renew the vitality of artin the face of a society bent in principleon
rationalizingeverything"[ATP208]. Literatureandmusic,Greenbergavers,havealready
locatedthose conventionsessentialto themor have nearlydone so. Thingsareotherwise
in painting;it has "turnedout to have a greaternumberof expendableconventions"
embeddedin it, and hence "has a relativelylong way to go before being reducedto its
viable essence" [ATP 208-09]. In "ModernistPainting,"Greenberggoes so far as to
"limitingconditions,"emphaticallyforhim a painting'sflatness,
suggestthatmodemrnism's
gold or water But sameness is the last thing one wantsfor art. For a lucid discussion, see Jason
Gaiger's review, "Artafter Beauty: RetrievingAestheticJudgement."

90

This content downloaded from 200.145.114.37 on Thu, 26 Sep 2013 15:05:53 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

"canbe pushedback indefinitelybefore a picturestops being a pictureandturnsinto an

arbitraryobject"[8, emphasis mine].
It is worth noting that Greenbergfully endorses the thoughtthat the vitalityof an
avant-gardepractice is dependentupon its remainingprogressive,transformingitself
by more fully exploringits conventionalconstitution,riskingmore in reducingitself to
its essential features, which conversely have to be more explicitly observed, more
rigorouslyadheredto, the furtherthe limits arepushedback. Literatureandmusic have
passed the point of dynamic progress. They are exhausted as forms of resistance to
rationalizedsociety. That painting could suffer the same fate is conceded by analogy
with the cases of literatureandmusic.As de Duve narratesthe tale, correctlyI think,the
progressiveanalysis of artunraveledratherrapidlyin the face of the 1959 exhibitionof
FrankStella's black-stripepaintings.These paintings,in their adherenceto the picture
plane, look as if they were designedto illustrateGreenberg'sconceptionof flatness;yet
Greenbergdid not care for them. I imagine him thinkingthe same of these as he did of
Mondrian,thatthey were "almosttoo disciplined,"too traditionalin their"subservience
to the frame"[MP 8].
It is as if, with these paintingsof Stella, paintinghad all of a suddenbroachedits
limiting conditionsas such, as if it no longer had conventionsit could expend, as if the
energyof negationhadbeendepletedat one go. Whatis surprisingis Greenberg'ssurprise.
Imagine a room with threelarge canvases:a late CliffordStill, all black withjust a few
barklike crevices of red, a Newman, and a Rothko. Seeing these together one's
astonishmentwould have the form of near disbelief thatthese paintershad avoided the
monochrome;thoughttogetherandin retrospect,theirartappearsto be an abandonment
to the claims of the monochrome while nonetheless avoiding it, just the slightest
inflection-crevice, zip, soaking paint into the canvas-separating their picturesfrom
the zero point of the monochrome(with the blank canvas forever lurking behind the
monochrome).But we did not have to wait till this point to appreciatethat somewhere
down the roadof the historyof negationsthatcomprisethe advanceof modernistpainting
there stood the iron gate of the monochrome,since almost simultaneouswith the birth
of abstractpaintingwe have the examplesof Malevich'sBlackSquareandRodchenko's
red,yellow, andblue triptych.Is thereanythingin musicor literaturelike themonochrome
in being so identifiablean end (it is, afterall, the telos of the process of negations)and
exhaustedlimit (no furthernegation is left)?
Certainlyit is not implausibleto regardminimalismas a continuationof Newman's
and Stella's asceticismpunchedthrough"fromthe fictive depths... throughthe surface
of the canvasto emergeon the otherside" [Greenberg,TNL 44]-in the form of a threedimensionalobject. Nor is it implausibleto believe that Duchampspied this fate early
on and employed the readymadeas his way of escaping the threateningsterilityof the
monochrome.While thisnarrativehas the correctshape,a centralelementis still missing.
On this accountpaintingis pivotal de facto only; the privilege of paintingis only thatit
was an artpracticewhose modernistdynamicsustainedthe avant-gardetill the moment
it became exhaustedin the monochrome,at which point therewas no way to go on other
than by crashing through into the three-dimensionalityof the minimalist work and
readymade.To be sure, once the breakthroughoccurs there is a shift from painting
(specific practice)to artin the generic.And this is what leads de Duve to exclaim that
what was at stake in these struggles "was the name art" [KD 81]. But by itself that
sounds remarkablyhollow and tautological.What one wants to say is that minimalism
and the readymadeinherit the stakes of art, not its name but what is at stake in the
name.9What is missing in all this, I want to urge, is, again, the materialmotive.
9. Of course, de Duve does think that strugglesfor the name of art are strugglesfor its
stakes, but his nominalismforces him to keep the issue of what those stakes might be indetermi-

diacritics / spring 2002

This content downloaded from 200.145.114.37 on Thu, 26 Sep 2013 15:05:53 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

91

Nonart and Antiart

Adorno imagines that once upon a time, in the age of myth, sign and image were one.
With the "clean separation of science and poetry," there developed a division of
intellectuallabor that extended into the heart of language:"For science the word is a
sign: as sound, image, and word properit is distributedamong the differentarts,and is
not permittedto reconstituteitself by their addition.. ." [HorkheimerandAdorno 17].
The arts, in the plural (music, painting and sculpture, literature),are for Adorno a
repositoryof the elementsof particular,sensuous,embodiedexperiencethatwere found
idle once the abstractsign-first the Platonic universal,later the mathematicalsignbecamelegislativefor empiricalknowledgeandpracticalreasoning.Whenthe artsfinally
become autonomous(from magic, religion, metaphysics,politics), when they begin to
articulatethose conventionsandlimitingconditions,thatlogicality uniqueto them,they
are thus to be understood,in their blasted fragmentariness,as articulatingthe binding
rationality of what belongs uniquely to particular,sensuous, embodied experience.
Almost. Very nearly.Not quite. If one understandsthe arts as having developed under
the pressureof a rationalitythat wished to dispose of what was intrinsicallyparticular,
sensuous, and embodied,then they owe theirvery existence to a historicalcalamity,the
diremptionof the symbol into sign and image, or, returningto our startingpoint, the
ruptureof materialinferenceinto logic andcause, or: "theuntruthattackedby artis not
rationalitybutrationality'srigidoppositionto theparticular"[AT98]. The artsforAdorno
are a broken-offlimb of rationalexperience that is broken,fragmenteditself, each art
inheriting the restrictedexperience of an amputatedorgan--eye or ear or linguistic
sensorium-to preserveit in a space apart,as if in a bottle or box or glass jar.Hence the
conditionof the artsdeveloping theirausterelate logics is theirexcision from everyday
life and practice, their being sequesteredin a domain without point or purpose apart
from rehearsing,to death, these claims of sensuous particularitythat have no place
withinpracticalexperience.But this is to admitthattheirlogicalityhas aboutit something
rivenand abject,not yet logical at all but a quivering-Adorno will say "suffering"-in
its absence.
Said all at once and so directly,this is not, I concede, an obvious way to consider
the arts, althoughthe deep peculiarityof pure painting directedto the eye (no matter
how embodiedthateye) andpuremusic directedto the earis too little commentedupon.
Yet, if we hold it in place as a backgroundhypothesis, a theoreticalheuristic, some of
the difficulties in the preceding analysis might be resolved. To be more precise, if we
disentanglethe variousstrandsof the argumenthere, we are left with a singularfeature
of the storythatneitherde Duve nor Greenbergexplains,namely,why is it the case that
the very dynamicprocess of progress throughnegation that underwritesthe vitality,
rationality,and social significanceofavant-gardeart is progresstowardart's extinction?
Isn't this the enigma of the monochrome,thatit is both end as goal and end as death at
the same time? If anythingdeserves to be called the paradoxof modernismit is this.
Let me begin with the issue of nonartand antiart.On Greenberg'sanalysis, and de
Duve follows him in this, nonartbelongs to the dialectic of modernismin being that
momentin the appearingof a workwhen, in virtueof its particulardisposalof heretofore
assumedconventions,the questionof whetherwhatis confrontingus reallyis a painting
is demanded.If modernistworksintendto makeclaims on the basis of theirown internal
logic alone andnot on the groundof agreedconvention,thenthey can asserttheirclaims
nate and open. Even more strangely,thefinal chapterof Kant after Duchampcan be read as a
workingout of the stakes; butnow these appear as a radicalizedversionof Kant'smoralphilosophy-and hence veryfarfrom painting.

diacritics / spring 2002

This content downloaded from 200.145.114.37 on Thu, 26 Sep 2013 15:05:53 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

93

only by emergingtransgressively,appearingas transgressive.Nonartis the look of the

new, and hence a continuing sign, for as long as it lasts, of avant-gardevitality. For
Adorno, four elements, at least, are absent from this analysis. First, it is the issue of
particularity.If whatis at stakein artis sensuousparticularityas such, thenconventional
understandingitself, of whateversort, threatensthe integrityof artworks.Once we can
fully comprehenda work of art apart from sensuous engagement with it, once our
understandingis capable of exhausting the work, or at least finding nothing in the
experienceof engagingwith it thatremainsresistantto us, excessive andyet demanding,
then the situationis no differentfrom rationalexperience outside art. The particular
disappearsin its understandingor sheerfamiliarity.But this is equivalentto saying that
in orderfor artworksto standas uniquesensuousparticularsthey mustassertthemselves
as unique and particular,as an emphatic "this,"as though they could stand all by
themselves. Withoutsensuous particularitybelonging to the stakes of art,there would
be no need for judgmentto be a permanentfeatureof art.
Secondly, artworksare not unique particulars.They are images or semblances of
uniqueparticulars,sensuousparticularswhose viability dependson theirbeing framed,
jarred,boxed. Modernistworks signal this ambiguityin themselvesthroughcontaining
a momentor mode of appearingthatis intendedto collide with theirlogical appearing.
Drawingon his musicalbackground,Adornoconceivesof this as dissonance.Dissonance
is thecrumblingof form,its dissolution;it is thatmomentin whichtheelementscomposed
in a work returnto their elementality,their abject separateness.So far as I can see,
neitherGreenbergnorde Duve acknowledgestheinnerdisintegrationof modernistworks,
their insistent undoing of themselves as a condition of their appearing.Dissonance,
Adorno states,
is the truthabout harmony.If the ideal of harmonyis takenstrictly,it proves to
be unreachableaccording to its own concept. Its desiderataare satisfied only
whensuch unreachablenessappearsas essence, whichis how it appears in the
late style of importantartists. ... The rebellion against semblance, art's
dissatisfactionwith itself has been an intermittentelementof its claim to truth
from time immemorial. Art, whatever, its material, has always desired
dissonance.... [AT 110]
Harmony is unreachablebecause if the elements composing a work could be truly
integratedwithout remainderthe work would be not semblance, but real, a worldly
thing. Harmonyis only ever the illusion of wholeness. Dissonance, say the obdurate
materialityof a Pollock,dissolvesthe illusionin its very appearing.Hence,themomentary
nonartappearingof a new work, its transgressiveappearing,is underwritten,as it were,
by a nonart moment in the work. To be sure, even dissonance can be "neutralized"
throughhabituationandfamiliarity,andhencecan stopfeeling like a disruptionor collapse
of the work-all too easily if dissonanceis conflatedwith the originalnonartappearance
of an avant-gardework.
Thirdly,this intrinsicnonartmoment in modernistworks is meant to signal "art's
dissatisfactionwithitself."To statethethoughtdirectly:theclaimof sensuousparticularity
will alwaysbe betrayedso long as it can only be registeredin a consistentandsystematic
way in art.If artis the refuge of sensuousparticularity,it is equally its prison cell. This
inflects art'sdissonantmomentinto somethingmore radical:antiart.The idea of antiart
"impliesnothingless thanartmustgo beyondits own conceptin orderto remainfaithful
to thatconcept.The idea of its abolitiondoes it homage by honoringits claim to truth"
[AT 29]. Adorno hears, sees in dissonance a rebellion against art as such, a rebellion
that, with great optimism and nai'vet6,various avant-gardemovements in this century

94

This content downloaded from 200.145.114.37 on Thu, 26 Sep 2013 15:05:53 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

have attempted to put into practice. But this is to concede that such avant-garde
movementsdid understandsomethingaboutmodernism,which goes missing altogether
when the dissonantmomentin high modernistworks is suppressed.As things turnout,
only the aesthetic rigor of dissonant modernism is competent to honor art's antiart
moment-not praxis.Such vindicationof high modernismis, however,nothingto cheer
about.
Fourthly, then, collecting together the previous points, however dynamic the
unfolding of modernistart appears,overhangingthe whole process is something static
and immobile. If artdesires nonart,call it concretion,then each new thing in art, each
new paintingor compositionor sculptureor poem is only a placeholderfor that absent
thing, the sensuous particularitself: "Thenew is the longing for the new, not the new
itself: That is what everythingnew suffersfrom. Whattakes itself to be utopiaremains
the negation of what exists and is obedient to it" [AT 32]. By "new"Adorno tends to
mean something quite categorial,namely, an item that is not reducible to antecedent
conceptual elaborations, since, a fortiori, if an item were graspable by an existing
conceptualityit wouldbe something"old,"alreadyknown,hencenot new.In thisrespect,
the new in Adorno is synonymouswith sensuous particularity.Art is never more than
critique;its novelty is never anythingmorethanreplacingone placeholderfor the absent
new with anotherplaceholder.In continuationof this claim, Adorno states:
Art is no more able than theory to concretize utopia, not even negatively.A
cryptogramof the new is the image of collapse; only by virtueof the absolute
negativityof collapse does art enunciatethe unspeakable:utopia.In this image
of collapse all thestigmataof the repulsiveand loathsomein modem artgather
Throughthe irreconcilable renunciationof the semblance of reconciliation,
art holdsfast to thepromise of reconciliationin the midstof the unreconciled.
[AT32-33]
Utopia is the condition in which the new could be new, hence the condition in which
there could be actual sensuous particularsknown as such. Art does not enable this
conditionto be imaged, even negatively.It can signal its absenceby an exacerbationof
dissonance:an imaging of what is brokenin its utterdestitution.
NothingI have yet saidexplainstheparadoxof modernism(ormakesmuchheadway
on the readymade).But the whole completion/exhaustionissue must now look very
different.Adorno's thought that there is nothing actually new in art is equivalentto
saying that art's exhaustion or immobility is there from the outset, there as soon as
sensuous particularityis placed in a practice apartfrom empirical,worldly,purposive
practices.Toput the same thoughtmoreexorbitantly,the elementsuponwhich artworks,
its materials,are dead stuff. Art does not enliven that dead stuff; that is exactly what it
cannot do, what it remainsimpotentbefore; rather,at best, art preservesand transmits
its materialin its destitutestate.'0ConsiderJacksonPollock's Full FathomFive. Seen
very close up it contains"nailsof varioussizes, a disintegratingcigarette,tops off paint
tubes, a button,thumbtacks,matches, a key, pushpins,pennies. The debrisof everyday
life" [Clark300]. Now step back to normal viewing distance, and all that disappears
"into the slow swirl of water and weed" [Clark300]. Does the step back enliven the
cigaretteor button?No more thanit enlivens the paintout of which the pictureis made.
The obduratematerialityof the paint, Pollock is exclaiming, is the translationof the
button, cigarette, thumbtacks,key, and pennies; or more exactly, paint stuff is the
10. I have learned this thought,in full, from Gregg Horowitz.For its full elaboration and

Life.
defense,see his SustainingLoss:ArtandMournful

diacritics / spring 2002

This content downloaded from 200.145.114.37 on Thu, 26 Sep 2013 15:05:53 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

95

generalizedequivalentof those things, what they are transmutedinto in being reduced

to the two-dimensionalworldof the canvas.Paintingis the exchangevaluewhichrenders
buttons and thumbtackstwo-dimensional.But unlike money, it is also like the key or
the pennies,materialstuff.Whichis why, finally,paintingcan riditself of representation
and remainpainting:the paintstuff standsin for objects by being one of them. Reading
the equivalence in the other directionreveals that the fashioning of the paint material
into the wateryswirl of thatfamiliarpaintingno more makesthe paintstuff alive thanit
does the debris.But then we shouldnot be shocked,since it is a conditionof possibility
of therebeing anythinglike paintingthatvisualexperience,its depthanddemandingness,
be excised, removed,hollowedoutof everydayexperienceandbecome somethingalmost
purelyoptical.The drainingof visual experienceof its habitationin a three-dimensional
world into the refinedprecincts,finally, of easel paintingis the price paid for having a
domainin which the materiallogic of perceptionis preserved.Autonomousartenlivens
its materialsthe way embalmingfluid enlivens a corpse. And this, I want to insist, is
art'sglory.When I said earlierthatmodernistpaintingis always aboutthe impossibility
of painting,thatthe progressof paintingis the sustainingor keeping alive of the idea of
painting,its actuality,by rehearsingor discoveringover andover againits impossibility,
it is this idea of art'sa priorideadnessI had in mind.

Nominalismand Destitute Things

Modernistpaintingis not quite the explorationof the logic of sensuous particularity,
because in artthereare no real sensuousparticulars.Nor is modernistpaintingeven an
exploration of visual experience, since ordinary visual experience occurs in three
dimensions.Rather,modernistpaintingis the sustainingof the idea and claim of such a
logic throughthe wholly conventionalmedium of easel painting. As de Duve rightly
underlines, easel painting is a concrete social and historical product:"Not until the
Renaissance,when a paintingbegan to be seen as an illusionistic window,did it detach
itself fromthe wall, distinguishitself fromthe mural,gain mobility andautonomyfrom
architectureand become 'a plane one or two inches in frontof anotherplane, the wall,
and parallelto it,' as Judd said" [KD 251]. Easel painting-with its load of historical
specificity, including the idea of producingvisual works that, in virtue of their new
detached mobility, can be bought, sold, heaved about from one place to anotherlike
othercommodities-is the bearerof optical experience.Whatenables easel paintingto
accomplishthatend is precisely whatmodernistpaintingreveals.The austerelogicality
of modernistworks is the logic of optical vision that easel painting permits.We can
explorethepossibility,in principle,of a materiallogic of vision only withintheconstraints
set by the nonethelessconventionalstretchedcanvasto whichpigmentis applied.Because
from the outset this visual experience has been reducedto the possibilities of paint on
canvas--denatured,then, from the outset-it is not visual experienceitself butits afterimage, echo, disembodiedidea that we are engaging. And since that engaging has no
otherconstraintsor conditionsthanthoseprovidedby stretchedcanvasandtheplacement
of pigmenton it, thenfromthe outsetthe projectwas doomed.Progressthroughnegation
was potent because, as it step by step revealed a disillusionedrigor within painting's
visuality, it stayed one step aheadof the exhaustionthat lay in wait for it. But because
painting could neither break through and enliven its materials nor rid itself of the
conventionalityof its specific easel-bound,two-dimensionalworld, it could not avoid
eventuallymeetingits conventionalconditionhead on: monochromeandblankcanvas.
And what radiatesfrom that condition is necessarily art's a priori deadness. This, I
presume,explains the paradoxof modemrnism.

96

This content downloaded from 200.145.114.37 on Thu, 26 Sep 2013 15:05:53 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Nominalism is a conditionfor modernismand a threat.The nominalistbent of all

modernistart is its railing againstexistent universals,the old conventions that attempt
to constitutethe meaningof works independentlyof the works themselves. Modernist
works live off their power to negate existing meaning, the old universals, while
nonethelessclaiming meaningfor themselves. In this respectnominalismis but another
expressionfor modernism'sidea of progressthroughnegativity.But nominalismcould
not be that without at the same time possessing an integralidea of its own: that we be
done with detacheduniversalsforever.Underthe idea of "musicalnominalism,"Adorno
urges this thesis in "Versune musiqueinformelle."A work conceived underthe flag of
nominalism must be "completely free of anything irreducibly alien to itself' or
"superimposed";nevertheless,it should "constituteitself in an objectively compelling
way" [272]. And, inevitably,objectivityandbeing compelling will requireuniversals.If
informal music dispenses with "the musically bad universal forms of internal
compositionalcategories-then these universalformswill surfaceagainin the innermost
recesses of the particularevent and set them alight"[273]. Adornoinstancesthe music
of Webern,and contends that there was a missed opportunityfor an extension of this
radicalismaround1910. Whateverthe case in music, the premiseof my argumenthere
is that the project of a painterly nominalism was in fact achieved in Abstract
Expressionism,andthatits enduringanddoleful weight over artin the pasthalf-century
is due to that fact. More precisely, the dual requirementof satisfying the demand for
objectivity while enablingthe universalforms intrinsicto the practiceto surfacein the
innermostrecessesof the workturnsout to be an exhaustingdemand:eitherthe universal
forms become externalagain throughtheir exemplificationin nominalistworks, or, in
the search for purity and in opposition to arbitrariness,the limit of the monochrome
looms.
Integral nominalism is nothing but the idea of rationally compelling sensuous
particularitywithout external conceptuality. And this, I now want to claim, is the
generative idea in the readymade,an idea impliedbut not satisfiedby Fountain.Partof
the permanentdifficulty in dealing with Fountain is that it is truly an indeterminate
case, instantiatingwithequalinsistencea skepticalandan integralnominalistconception
of art, and doing so because both forms of nominalismare effectively operativein the
art history producingit. Fountaincan be indeterminatebetween skepticaland integral
nominalismbecause Duchamp'soriginal insight is indifferentto the two possibilities.
That insight is one I have alreadybroachedmore thanonce, above all in my accountof
Full FathomFive, namely,that paintingis the reductionand preservationof the claim
of sensuousparticularityto the two-dimensionalworldof the stretchedcanvas to which
pigmentis applied.Modernistpaintingthusembedsthreeinescapableideas:(1) painting
is a complex explorationand preservationof visual rationality;(2) paintingis pursued
for the sake of empiricalsensuousparticularity;(3) paintingrestson the, finally,arbitrary
conventionof stretchedcanvasto which pigment(or its equivalent)is applied.Fountain
actualizes all three ideas. The complex art historicalgesturecalled Fountainis exactly
the same gestureas the thumbtacksand pennies and cigarettewithoutpaint or canvas;
but still, the very same gestureand thought.The readymadeis trulyabnormalpainting.
Fountainis able to release (1) and (2) only by underlining(3). And while (3) is
perfectly true, when underlined, made emphatic, it tendentially collapses integral
nominalisminto its skeptical shadow. Insteadof the "slow swirl of water and weed,"
Duchamp simply issues the claim of art. What that claim signals, I am suggesting, is
that althoughthe logic of art is austereand indeed a logic, the historicalcalamity that
fragmentedthe claims of the sensuousparticularobject into the differentiatedpractices
of painting,sculpture,music, et al., entails thateach practicehas at its base an irrational
premise,an arbitraryconventionthatpermitsits logicality to occur.Duchamp'sgesture

diacritics / spring 2002

This content downloaded from 200.145.114.37 on Thu, 26 Sep 2013 15:05:53 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

97

is the recalling and repetitionotherwise of that arbitrariness.But art will appearto be

wholly or only a matterof arbitraryconventionsonly if (3) is cut off from (1) and (2).
So, moreprecisely now,Duchamp'sgestureis the revelationof (2) by meansof (3). But
without (1) or an analogue of (1), we have the claim of artwithoutanythingthat might
supportit. Orrather,Duchampoffersonly a minimumof conventionalityto signal"art":
the urinal'sbeing turned90 degrees onto its back and placed on a black pedestal. But
that level of conventionalityinvites exactly the wrong thought,namely,that any object
can be perceived"aesthetically,"as if the differencebetween art and utility were just a
matterof perceptualattitude."
Thatwrongthought,however,sequestersthe betterone thatappearsas the epigraph
to this paper:artis a second world"composedout of elementsthathave been transposed
out of the empiricalworld in accordwith Jewish descriptionsof messianic orderas an
orderjust like the habitualorderbut changed in the slightest degree"[AT 138]. In the
readymadethe obduratematerialityout of which artworksare composed reappearsas
the lost sensuous particularitself-thumbtacks, keys, pushpins.All the difficulty and
the claim of the readymadehenceturnson how they are"changedin the slightestdegree."
Duchamp's lesson is certainly that the "slightest degree" is going to be an arbitrary
conventionthatrecapitulatesthe historicalcalamitythatmakes artnecessary.Adorno's
additionto thatthought,which remainsequivocalin Fountain,'2 is thatthe inaugurating
convention must be generative,that is, it must be capableof supplyingconditions and
limits thatenable an alternativemateriallogic to appear.Will not, say, a box with a glass
frontor a cell of wire mesh do?
The boxes of Joseph Cornell and the Cells Louise Bourgeois has producedin the
course of this decade I would count as amongstthe uncontestableworks in which the
promiseof Duchamp'sreadymadeis realized.Even a minimalaccountof eitherwould
be immensely complex. In the case of Cornell's boxes it would have to include his
relation to French poetry, his aestheticism, his attachmentto theatre and dance, the
ambivalence between nostalgic symbolism and modernism in his early works, the
recurrenceof images relatedto childhood.In the case of Bourgeoisthe big interpretative
issue would be the relationof the Cells to her sculpture.Nonetheless, I want to suggest
thatboth artistscarrythroughthe promiseof the readymadewithout,finally,concession
to eitherDada or surrealism.'3In both cases a frame,box or cell, offers an inaugurating
convention, the sign of "art,"that makes arta refuge and a trap:boxing preservesand
kills, just as cells are prisons and the lowest level of life. And in both cases what is
chosen to appearin the frame are remnantsand ruins,debris;for Cornellthe ruins are
those of culture itself. For Bourgeois the accumulationof objects is more complex;
sometimes the objects are themselves made, as in Cell (ThreeWhiteMarble Spheres),
sometimesthey areroutineobjectslike beds, chairs,chains,perfumebottles, mirrors.In
either case the scene is one of past violence, sometimes an anonymousone in the lives
of women, sometimes explicitly of dismemberment.In shortthe ruins of a Bourgeois
Cell are those of the female body. But, and this is what I want to insist upon, whatever
the symbolic load a box or a Cell contains,symbolic articulationis always curtailedand

11. For a strongaesthetic readingof Fountain,see Camfield.

12. 1 am here ignoring the questionas to whetheror not this extra thoughtis equivocal in
Duchamp'sworkas a whole. Dependingon how one locates Fountainwithinhis output,one will
come up with differentanswers to the question.
13. 1 am painfully aware that the set of unsupportedclaims thatfollow are to a certain
degree at odds with the critical literatureon both artists. My intention,however is not toflatten
the complexityof theirworks,but ratherto suggest, at admittedlya very high level of abstraction,
what kindof complexityit is.

98

This content downloaded from 200.145.114.37 on Thu, 26 Sep 2013 15:05:53 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

then reignited by the forms of adjacency, contiguity, and juxtaposition that the
inauguratingcondition generates.
Boxes and Cells provide each artistin turn with sets of conventionalconstraints
thatmakethe objectsin thoseenvironmentscommunicatewith one anotherin accordance
with a logic specific to that environment.By the natureof their relatively small size
each box recalls the childlike fascination with the miniature:smallness as chance for
controllingwhatin fact, in reality,one cannotcontrolat all; the miniatureas the wish for
meaning in the overwhelmingly terrifying-protecting what one cannot be protected
from. Because these boxes arenot those of a child, they recallratherthaninstantiatethat
wishfulness; their work of preservationis memorialratherthan imaginary.In the case
of Cornell's late and more austereboxes in particular,in which more mundaneobjects
are used, adjacency,contiguity,juxtapositiongeneratean affinity amongstthe objects
that is perspicuouslyin excess to their literal and symbolic significance.'4Indeed, the
very point of a Cornell box is that it possesses this form of excess, that it sets off a
communicationof its objects that invites interpretationwhile making any discursive
accountingimpossible. Life in the box, so to speak,is the lost life of each object on its
own. Life in the box holds open the unspeakablepromise of each object as forever
broken.
The way in which the differentkinds of objects communicatein the differentCells
is even more remarkable,since by means of adjacency,contiguity, and juxtaposition
each Cell speaks of a differentregion of humanpain, a strangehistoryof pain almost.'5
The large size and constructionof the Cells, wire mesh and glass, immediatelybespeak
rooms and homes; their contents always make the association with home turninto or
recall the human body. I think of the cells as working in a direction almost exactly
opposite to a Cornellbox; insteadof recallinga chance missed, Bourgeoisgives to each
objectits precise weight as sedimentinga historyof violence, eitherviolence committed
or violence suffered.And, what is worst of all, as we walk aroundand investigatethe
scene, become immersedin it, our complicity,in enjoymentand fascination,with this
violence is announced.Indeed both boxes and Cells, by positioningthe spectatorwith
glass panes and wire mesh as outside looking in, transformart-lookinginto voyeurism:
an impeccablerebuttalto the belief thatartenables us to takeup an aestheticattitude.In
placingus as voyeurs,boxes andCells as the inheritanceof the stretchedcanvasunderline
the detachmentof artfrom life, art'sbeing a prioridead.Yet in virtueof box and Cell,
their characteras inauguratingconventions, what appearsin them becomes bindingly
eloquent.I said earlier,andprovocatively,thatautonomousartenlivens its materialsthe
way embalmingfluid enlivens a corpse.Well, does not thatdescriptionfit the abnormal
paintingof a Cornellbox or a Bourgeois Cell? Doubtless neitherboxes nor Cells are as
fecundor constrainingas the stretchedcanvasto which pigmentis applied.And perhaps
it does follow fromthis thatthe eloquencethey enableis less binding.But thatis only to
concede that we are here in the vicinity of abnormalpainting whose inaugurating
conventions are somehow more arbitrarythanpaintingitself.

14. For a nice statementof this see Ades 16.

15. Bourgeois has stated: "The Cells representdifferenttypes of pain: the physical, the
emotionaland thepsychological. .... Each Cell deals withfear Fear is pain. ... Each Cell deals
with thepleasure of the voyeur the thrill of lookingand being lookedat" [qtd. in Bernadac 121].

diacritics / spring 2002

This content downloaded from 200.145.114.37 on Thu, 26 Sep 2013 15:05:53 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

99

WORKSCITED
Ades, Dawn. "TheTranscendentalSurrealismof Joseph Comell."Joseph Cornell. Ed.
KynastonMcShine. New York:Museumof Modem Art, 1980. 15-42.
Adomo, T. W.Aesthetic Theory.Trans.RobertHullot-Kentor.Minneapolis:U of Minnesota P, 1997. [AT]
. "Versune musiqueinformelle."Quasi una Fantasia: Essays on ModernMusic.
Trans.Rodney Livingstone.New York:Verso, 1992. 69-322.
Bemadac, Marie-Laure.Louise Bourgeois. New York:Flammarion,1996.
Bernstein, J. M. "Aporiaof the Sensible: Art, Objecthoodand Anthropomorphism."
InterpretingVisual Culture:Explorationsin the Hermeneuticsof the Visual.Ed.
Ian Heywood and BarrySandywell. New York:Routledge, 1999. 218-37.
"TheDeathof SensuousParticulars:
AdornoandAbstractExpressionism."
Radical
--.
7-18.
75
Philosophy (March/April1996):
Bois, Yve-Alain. "Ryman'sTact."Painting as Model. Cambridge,MA: MIT P, 1990.
215-26.
Camfield,WilliamA. "Marcel'sDuchamp'sFountain:Its HistoryandAesthetics in the
Contextof 1917."MarcelDuchamp:Artistof the Century.Ed. RudolphE. Kuenzli
and FrancisM. Naumann.Cambridge,MA: MIT P, 1990. 64-94.
Clark,T. J. Farewell to an Idea: Episodesfrom a History of Modernism.New Haven:
Yale UP, 1999.
Crow,Thomas. "MovingPictures."ArtforumApril 1999: 95.
de Duve, Thierry.Kantafter Duchamp.Cambridge,MA: MIT P, 1996. [KD]
Fried, Michael. "OpticalAllusions."ArtforumApril 1999: 95.
Gaiger, Jason. "Artafter Beauty: RetrievingAesthetic Judgement."Art History 20.4
(Dec. 1997): 611-16.
Greenberg,Clement."American-TypePainting."Art and Culture.London:Thamesand
Hudson, 1973. 208-29. [ATP]
. "ModernistPainting."ModernArt and Modernism:A CriticalAnthology.Ed.
Francis Frassinaand Charles Harrison.New York:Harper& Row, 1982. 1-11.
[MP]
. "Towardsa Newer Laocoon."PollockandAfter:TheCriticalDebate. Ed. Francis
Frascina.New York:Harper& Row, 1985. 36-46. [TNL]
Horkheimer,Max, and TheodorW. Adomo. Dialectic of Enlightenment.Trans.John
Cumming.London:Allen Lane, 1972.
Horowitz,Gregg.SustainingLoss:Art and MournfulLife. Stanford:StanfordUP, 2001.

100

This content downloaded from 200.145.114.37 on Thu, 26 Sep 2013 15:05:53 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions