Aesthetic tastes of Stalin and Hitler(Abstract Expressionist Problem)

[br...@wralaw.com]

Mostly a case has been made that since Hitler or Stalin may have banned
Abstract ARt and not Representation that ABstract art is somehow anti-
totalitarianism -right?

If you tell a gange of skinheads that they do better than Blacks on IQ
tests they'll say hell yeah!(-IQ must be the measure of absolute good)
But if you tell them that JEws do better than whites, they will go oh
shit... But eventually rationalization will tell them that they are
just right and jews are too smart and blacks too stupid just like
Goldie locks! What is at the real heart of nearly all totalitarianism,
racism, is post-hoc(after the fact) rationalization. A removal of
objective standards provided by some one with an agenda when those
standards aren't in his own favor.

So the agenda of Abstract Art isn't totalitarianism or nonskillism or
whatever (each agenda is ultimately totalitarian and must be dropped at
some point or else evolution ends)... But the litmus test of post-hoc
rationalization has reared its ugly head repeatedly in the agenda of
modernism, especially in pitting ala prima Abstract against completo
Representation. However the goal(and hence totalitarian agenda) of
each form is entirely different, and for each subset of styles
different ad infinitum so a comparison minus agenda renders confusion.
So we as artists have to remember that in doing different things we are
actually engaging in different agendas. Perhaps the most insidious
agenda of Modernism has been to engage in artistic opinion entirely
through criticism and not art.

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