Tower of Sleep

The problem modernism always had with kitsch is that it is not remarkable to be a fan – and fans are what popular culture creates. Today, it is unremarkable to be on Facebook; most people participate in the new culture the digital era creates. At the same time, Facebook is not merely the contemporary version of an older form. Facebook, like the internet, is genuinely new, in the way that collage and television once were. This suggests is that nowadays it is more notable to be on Facebook than it is to have an interest in modernism and contemporary art. In the popularity of Lady Gaga and Facebook and Starbucks, we find the cultural formats of the modern era’s irrelevance. Viewed from the perspective of Grand Prairie, Alberta, this becomes clear to me. Not the literal phenomenon of modernism’s end but rather the loss of its importance as a way to understand our culture.

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Rosemary Heather | Meat Dress Manifesto: On the contemporary irrelevance of contemporary art

I was going to post a link last night to this discussion in the Brooklyn Rail between Yves Alain-Bois and Rosalind Krauss about the latter’s new book, but I wanted to say something about how Rosalind Krauss’ persistent attachment to modernist terms of value is perplexing and problematic, even if what she has to say is still worth reading. I eventually gave up trying to write a coherent statement to that effect and saved the post as a draft. But hey, Rosemary Heather is doing my work for me here, in an essay that Rosalind Krauss would almost certainly not approve of.