Open Access
Subscription Access
Open Access
Subscription Access
Art, Production, and the Myth of Progress: Understanding Critical Questions by Nietzsche, Camus, and Kuspit
Subscribe/Renew Journal
In 1951, Albert Camus asked two heretical questions that challenged key modernist assumptions. Had production replaced creativity? Was the avant garde analogous to totalitarianism? Decades later, the American art critic and theoretician Donald Kuspit would ask similar questions about postmodernism in "The End of Art." Both Camus and Kuspit turned to Friedrich Nietzsche as the consummate advocate of an artistic life beyond fashion and "change for the sake of change." Furthermore, Nietzsche had questioned the core modernist belief in progress as a meaningful social and artistic goal. This paper will analyze whether or not the questions that Niestzsche, Camus, and Kuspit posed remain relevant in the second decade of the twenty-first century as the arts confront the rise of a global civilization built upon commercial values.
Keywords
Aesthetics, Avant Garde, Innovation.
Subscription
Login to verify subscription
User
Font Size
Information
- Camus, Albert. L'homme revolte. Paris: Gallimard, 2011.
- Camus, Albert. The Myth of Sisyphus. Translated by Justin O'Brien. New York: Vintage International, 1991.
- Duchamp, Marcel, interview by James Johnson Sweeney. "Regions which are not ruled by time and space...." A Conversation with Marcel Duchamp. NBC. January 1956.
- Duchamp, Marcel. "The Creative Act." In The Writings of Marcel Duchamp, by Marcel Duchamp, edited by Michel Sanouillet and Elmer Peterson. New York: Da Capo Press, 1989.
- Duchamp, Marcel. "The Great Trouble with Art in This Country." In The Writings of Marcel Duchamp, by Marcel Duchamp, edited by Michel Sanouillet and Elmer Peterson. New York: Da Capo Press, 1989.
- Kuspit, Donald. The End of Art. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
- Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. "The Communist Manifesto." In Karl Marx: Selected Writings, by Karl Marx, edited by Lawrence H. Simon. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1994.
- Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. Humanism and Terror, the Communist Problem. Translated by John O'Neill. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 2000.
- Nietzsche, Friedrich. Human, All Too Human. Edited by Marion Faber. Translated by Marion Faber and Stephen Lehmann. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1996.
- Nietzsche, Friedrich. "The Birth of Tragedy." In The Birth of Tragedy and Other Writings, edited by Raymond Geuss and Ronald Speirs, translated by Ronald Speirs. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
- Nietzsche, Friedrich. "The Dionysiac World View." In The Birth of Tragedy and Other Writings, by Friedrich Nietzsche, edited by Raymond Geuss and Ronald Speirs, translated by Ronald Speirs. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
- Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Gay Science. Translated by Walter Kauffmann. New York: Vintage Books, 1974.
- Nietzsche, Friedrich. Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Translated by R.J. Hollingdale. Middlesex: Penguin Books Ltd, 1975.
- Onfray, Michel. L'ordre libertaire: La vie philosophique d'Albert Camus. Paris: Editions J'ai Lu, 2012.
- Perl, Jed. New Art City. New York: Vintage Books, 2007.
- Sontag, Susan. "Against Interpretation." In Against Interpretation and Other Essays, by Susan Sontag. New York: Picador, 1966.
- Sontag, Susan. "Notes on "Camp"." In Against Interpretation and Other Essays, by Susan Sontag. New York: Picador, 1966.
- Tomkins, Calvin. "Marcel Duchamp." In The Bride and the Bachelors: Five Masters of the Avant Garde, by Calvin Tomkins. Middlesex: Penguin Books Ltd, 1980.
- Tomkins. Marcel Duchamp: A Biography. New York: Henry Holt and Company, Inc, 1998.
- Zaretsky, Robert. Albert Camus: Elements of a Life. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2010.
Abstract Views: 141
PDF Views: 0