Empty Frames

In this week’s Takimag column, the critical doctor takes yet another justified shot at modern “art”—this time using an egregious example from Denmark.

It then occurred to me that the episode suggests a way forward for Western art. Just as farmers in conditions of oversupply receive subsidies not to produce, to let their fields lie fallow or to destroy whatever they produce, so artists should be paid not to produce anything, thereby raising very slightly the average worth of human artifacts.

2 thoughts on “Empty Frames

  1. Samuel H Anderson

    When I read Theodore Darlymple’s essays about the tragic state of modern art and architecture I immediately think he is repulsed by all moderns, both post and present alike. I don’t think I am amiss to infer that he believes that “all” post modern endeavors are a waste of time and money at the very least. But it is more likely that he thinks that all deconstructionist efforts are just outright bad for culture and society altogether. If this is the case (I have no way of verifying this other than to have Mr. Dalrymple confirm it himself) there is a kind of “fundamentalist” philosophy afoot here. Which I know for certain, from reading many of his essays, that he is contradicting himself pursuing this sort of absolutist-ism. In fact, not too many essays past he took Emmanuel Kant to task for his categorical imperative (absolutist) angle about telling lies. Marcel Duchamp’s chess pieces might give Mr. Dalrymple reason to rethink his position on this topic, just a little, at least enough to move out of the FCA (fundamentalist camp of art).

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