Figures of Authority, Ciphers of Regression: Notes on the Return of Representation in

European Painting
Author(s): Benjamin H. D. Buchloh
Reviewed work(s):
Source: October, Vol. 16, Art World Follies (Spring, 1981), pp. 39-68
Published by: The MIT Press
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Figures of Authority,Ciphers of
Regression
Notes on the Returnof Representation
in European Painting*

BENJAMINH. D. BUCHLOH
The crisis consistsprecisely in the fact
that the old is dyingand thenew cannot
be born; in this interregnuma great
varietyof morbidsymptomsappears.
-Antonio Gramsci,Prison Notebooks
How is it that we are nearlyforcedto believe that the returnto traditional
modes of representationin painting around 1915,two yearsaftertheReadymade
and theBlack Square, was a shiftof greathistoricalor aestheticimport?And how
did thisshiftcome to be understoodas an autonomous achievementof themasters,
who were in fact the servantsof an audience cravingfor the restorationof the
visual codes of recognizability,forthe reinstatement
of figuration?If the perceptual conventions of mimetic representation-the visual and spatial ordering
systemsthat had definedpictorial production since the Renaissance and had in
turn been systematicallybroken down since the middle of the nineteenth
was reafcentury-were reestablished,if the credibilityof iconic referentiality
on
the
firmed,and if the hierarchyof figure-ground
relationships
pictureplane
was again presentedas an "ontological" condition,what otherorderingsystems
outside of aestheticdiscourse had to have already been put in place in orderto
imbue the new visual configurationswith historicalauthenticity?In what order
do thesechains of restorativephenomena reallyoccur and how are theylinked?Is
there a simple causal connection, a mechanical reaction, by which growing
*
I wish to thank Jo-Anna Isaak for reading the manuscriptof this essay. I have limitedmy
investigationshereto European phenomena,even thoughI am aware thata comparable movementis
presentlyemergingin NorthAmerica.The reasons forsuch a limitationare best describedby Georg
Lukaics:"We will restrictour observationsto Germany,even thoughwe know thatexpressionismwas
an internationalphenomenon.As much as we understandthatitsrootsare to be foundeverywhere
in
imperialism,we know as well that the uneven developmentin the various countrieshad to generate
various manifestations.Only aftera concretestudyof thedevelopmentofexpressionismhas been made
can we come to an overviewwithoutremainingin theabstract"( "Grasse und Verfalldes Expressionismus" [1934], in Probleme des Realismus, vol. I, Gesammelte Werke,vol. IV, Berlin, 1971,p. 111).

40

OCTOBER

generatestraditionalrepresentapolitical oppression necessarilyand irreversibly

tion?Does the brutal increaseof restrictionsin socio-economicand political life
unavoidably result in the bleak anonymityand passivityof the compulsively
mimeticmodes that we witness,forexample, in European painting of the mid1920sand early 1930s?
It would certainlyappear that the attitudesof the Neue Sachlichkeitand
PitturaMetafisicacleared theway fora finaltakeoverby such outrightauthoritarian stylesof representationas Fascistpainting in Germanyand Italy and socialist
realism in Stalinist Russia. When Georg Lukaics discussed the rise and fall of
expressionism in his "Problems of Realism," he seemed to be aware of the
relationshipof thesephenomena, without,however,clarifyingthe actual system
of interactionbetweenprotofascismand reactionaryartpractices:"The realismof
the Neue Sachlichkeitis so obviously apologetic and leads so clearlyaway from
any poetic reproductionof reality that it can easily merge with the Fascist
legacy."'1Paradoxically,however,both traditionalMarxismand standardliberalism exempt artists from their responsibilities as sociopolitical individuals:
Marxism throughits reflectionmodel, with its historicaldeterminism;liberalism
throughits notion of the artist'sunlimitedand uninhibitedfreedomto produce
and express.Thus both political viewsextendto artiststheprivilegeof assuming
of theideologtheirdeterminatenecessityto produceunconsciousrepresentations
ical world.
But would it not be moreappropriateto conceiveof theseradical shiftsof the
period betweenthe wars,with such decisiveselectionsof productionprocedures,
iconographic references,and perceptual conventions,as calculated? Should we
not assume that everyartistmaking these decisions would be aware of their
and consequences,of thesides theywould be takingin theprocessof
ramifications
aestheticidentificationand ideological representation?
and recapitulation
The question forus now is to what extenttherediscovery
of these modes of figurativerepresentationin present-dayEuropean painting
reflectand dismantle the ideological impact of growing authoritarianism;or to
of thisincreasinglyapparent
whatextenttheysimplyindulge and reap thebenefits
political practice;or, worse yet,to what extenttheycynicallygeneratea cultural
climate of authoritarianismto familiarizeus with the political realitiesto come.
In order to analyze the contemporaryphenomenon, it may be useful to
realize that the collapse of the modernistidiom is not without precedent.The
bankruptcyof capitalisteconomics and politics in the twentiethcenturyhas been
consistentlyanticipated and accompanied by a certain rhythmof aesthetic
manifestations.First thereis the constructionof artisticmovementswith great
potential for the critical dismantling of the dominant ideology. This is then
negated by those movements'own artists,who act to internalizeoppression, at
1.

Lukaics,p. 147.

Figures of Authority,Ciphers of Regression

41

firstin hauntingvisions of incapacitatingand infantilizingmelancholyand then,

at a laterstage, in the outrightadulation of manifestationsof reactionarypower.
In the present excitementover "postmodernism"and the "end of the avantgarde," it should not be forgottenthatthecollapse of themodernistparadigm is as
much a cyclicalphenomenon in thehistoryof twentieth-century
artas is thecrisis
of capitalist economics in twentieth-century
political history:overproduction,
managed unemployment,the need for expanding marketsand profitsand the
resultantwar-mongeringas the secretpromise of a finalsolution forlate capitalism's problems.It seems necessaryto insistupon seeing presentdevelopmentsin
the largercontextof thesehistoricalrepetitions,in theirnature as responseand
reaction to particular conditions that exist outside the confinesof aesthetic
discourse.
If thecurrentdebatedoes not place thesephenomena in historicalcontext,if
it does not see throughtheeagernesswith which we are assuredfromall sides that
the avant-gardehas completed its mission and has been accorded a position of
comfortwithin a pluralism of meanings and aestheticmasquerades, then it will
become complicit in the creation of a climate of desperationand passivity.The
ideology of postmodernismseems to forgetthe subtle and manifestpolitical
oppressionwhich is necessaryto save theexistingpowerstructure.
Only in such a
climateare thesymbolicmodes of concreteanticipationtransformed
into allegorical modes of internalizedretrospection.If one realizes thatmelancholyis at the
origin of the allegorical mode, one should also realize that this melancholy is
enforcedbyprohibitionand repression.What is takenas one of thekeyworksfor
postmodernistaestheticsand thecentralreferenceforany contemporarytheoryof
the returnto allegoryin aestheticproductionand reception,WalterBenjamin's
The Origin of German Tragic Drama, was writtenduring the dawn of rising
fascismin Germany.Its author was well aware of thework's allusion to contemporary artisticand political events,as is confirmedby Benjamin's friendAsja
Lacis:
He said that he did not consider this thesis simply as an academic
with acute
investigationbut that it had verydirectinterrelationships
of
literature.
He
insisted
problems contemporary
explicitlyon thefact
that in his thesis he definedthe dramaturgyof the baroque as an
analogy to expressionismin its quest fora formallanguage. Therefore
I have, so he said, dealt so extensivelywith the artisticproblems of
allegory,emblems,and rituals.2
Or, as George Steinerdescribesit in his introductionto theEnglish edition
of Benjamin's study:

2.

Asja Lacis, Revolutiondrim Beruf,ed. Hildegard Brenner,Munich, 1971,p. 44.

42

OCTOBER

As during the crisesof theThirtyYears' War and its aftermath,

so in
Weimar Germany the extremitiesof political tension and economic
miseryare reflectedin art and criticaldiscussion. Having drawn the
analogy, Benjamin closes with hints towards a recursivetheoryof
culture:eras of decline resembleeach othernot only in theirvices but
also in theirstrangeclimateof rhetoricaland aestheticvehemence....
Thus a studyof thebaroque is no mereantiquarian archivalhobby:it
mirrors,it anticipatesand helps grasp the dark present.3
Repression and Representation
It is generallyagreed that thefirstmajor breakdownof themodernistidiom
in twentieth-century
painting occurs at the beginning of the First World War,
signaled by theend ofcubismand futurismand theabandonmentof criticalideals
bytheveryartistswho had initiatedthosemovements.Facing thedeadlockof their
own academicizationand the actual exhaustion of the historicalsignificanceof
theirwork,Picasso, Derain, Carrd,and Severini-to name but a fewof the most
prominentfigures-were among the firstto call for a returnto the traditional
values of high art. Creating the myth of a new classicism to disguise their
condition, they insisted upon the continuation of easel painting, a mode of
productionthat theyhad shortlybeforepushed to its verylimits,but which now
proved to be a valuable commoditywhich was thereforeto be revalidated.From
thissituationthereoriginatedtheirincapacityor stubbornrefusalto facetheepistemologicalconsequences of theirown work.Alreadyby 1913theirideas had been
developed furtherby youngerartistsworkingin culturalcontextswhich offered
broaderhistorical,social, and political options to dismantlethecultural tenetsof
theEuropean bourgeoisie.This is particularlythecase withDuchamp in America
in Russia. But, even in Paris, such artistsas
and Malevich and the constructivists
FrancisPicabia recognizedtheimminentdemise ofcubism.Upon his returnfrom
his firstjourney to New York in 1913, he wrote, "But, as you know, I have
surpassed this stage of developmentand I do not definemyselfat all as a cubist
anymore.I have come to realize that one cannot always make cubes expressthe
thoughtsof the brain and the feelingsof the psyche."4And in his "Manifestede
l'Ecole Amorphiste,"published in a special issue of Camera Workin 1913he was
even more explicit: "One has said of Picasso thathe studiesobjects in theway a
surgeon dissectsa cadaver. We do not want thesebothersomecadaversanymore
which are called objects."5

3.
George Steiner,"Introduction,"in WalterBenjamin, The Origin of German Tragic Drama,
London, 1977,p. 24.
4.
FrancisPicabia, "Commentje vois New York," in FrancisPicabia, Paris,MusheNational d'Art
Moderne, 1976,p. 66.
5.
Francis Picabia, "Manifestede l'Ecole Amorphiste,"ibid., p. 68.

Figures of Authority,Ciphers of Regression

43

Even in 1923 these polemics continued among various factions of the

Parisian avant-garde.On the occasion of the firstperformanceof Tristan Tzara's
brokeout in theaudience
"Coeur ai Gaz" at the Soiree du Coeur ai Barbe,a fistfight
when one of the artistspresentjumped onto the stage and shouted, "Picasso is
dead on the fieldof battle."6 But even artistswho had been allied with thecubist
movementrealizedby theend of theseconddecade thatit was exhausted,without,
however,necessarilyadvocatinga returnto thepast. Blaise Cendrars,forexample,
" published in 1919,announced theend of
in his text"Pourquoi le cube s'effrite?
the relevanceof thecubistlanguage of form.On theotherhand, in theverysame
year a number of ideological justificationsappeared for the regressionthat had
begun around 1914-15. Among the many documents of the new attitudeof
authoritarianclassicism are a pamphlet by the cubist dealer Ldonce Rosenberg,
Cubisme et Tradition, published in 1920, and Maurice Raynal's "Quelques
intentionsdu cubisme," writtenin 1919 and published in 1924,which stated,"I
continue to believe that knowledge of the Masters,rightunderstandingof their
works,and respectfortraditionmightprovidestrongsupport."7 If properlyread,
this statement,in its attemptto legitimizethe academicizationof an aging and
ailing cubist culture,alreadyreveals the inherentauthoritariantendencyof the
mythof a new classicism.Then as now, the keytermsof thisideological backlash
are theidealizationof theperennialmonumentsof arthistoryand itsmasters,the
attemptto establisha new aestheticorthodoxy,and thedemand forrespectforthe
culturaltradition.It is endemicto thesyndromeofauthoritarianismthatit appeal
to and affirm
the "eternal" or ancient systemsof order (the law of the tribe,the
authorityof history,thepaternalprincipleof themaster,etc.).This unfathomable
past historythen servesas a screen upon which the configurationsof a failed
historicalpresencecan be projected.In 1915,when Picasso signals his returnto a
representationallanguage by portrayingthe cubist poet Max Jacob, recently
convertedto Catholicism,in theguise of a Bretonpeasant,drawnin themannerof
Ingres,we get a firstimpressionof the degreeof eclecticismthatis necessaryto
createthestylisticand historicalpose of classical simplicityand equilibrium,with
its claim to provide access to the origins and essentials of universal human
experience.Subsequentlythishistoricisteclecticismbecomesan artisticprinciple,
and then,as in Jean Cocteau's "Rappel a l'Ordre" of 1926,it is declaredthenew
avant-gardeprogram.
In Picasso's work the number and heterogeneityof stylisticmodes quoted
and appropriatedfromthe fundof arthistoryincreasesin 1917:not only Ingres's
classical portraitsbut, as a resultof Picasso's journey to Italy in thecompany of
6.
See William Rubin, Picasso, New York, Museum of ModernArt,1980,p. 224. The awarenessof
Picasso's declineeventuallydevelopedeven among arthistorianswho had been previouslycommitted
to his work:"Picasso belongs to thepast. ... His downfallis one of themostupsettingproblemsofour
era" (Germain Bazin, quoted in Rubin, p. 277).
Maurice Raynal, "Quelques intentions du cubisme," Bulletin de l'effortmoderne, no. 4
7.
(1924), 4.

44

OCTOBER

Pablo Picasso. Portraitof Max Jacob. 1915.

Cocteau, the iconographyof the Italian commedia dell'arte and the frescoesof
Herculaneum (not to mentionthesculptureof theParthenonfriezeand thewhite
figurevasesat theLouvre,thepeasant drawingsof Millet,thelate nudes ofRenoir,
thepointillismof Seurat,as Blunt,Green,and otherPicasso scholarshave pointed
cubistelements,which
out). And, of course,thereis theself-quotationofsynthetic
lend themselvesso easily to the high sensuousnessof Picasso's decorativestyleof
the earlytwenties.
Again it is Maurice Raynal who naivelyprovidesthe clue to an analysisof
these works when he describesPicasso's 1921 Three Musicians as "ratherlike
magnificentshop windows of cubist inventions and discoveries."8The freefloatingavailabilityof thesecubistelementsand theirinterchangeability
indicate
how the new language of painting-now wrenchedfromits original symbolic
function-has becomereifiedas "style"and thusno longerfulfills
anypurpose but
to referto itselfas an aestheticcommoditywithin a dysfunctionaldiscourse. It
thereforeentersthose categoriesof artisticproduction thatby theirverynature
eitherwork against the impulse to dissolve reificationor are oblivious to that
impulse: the categoriesof decoration,fashion,and objets d'art.
This transformation
of art fromthe practiceof the materialand dialectical
of the conditionsof reification
transgressionof ideology to the staticaffirmation
and theirpsychosexualorigins in repressionhave been describedas thesourceof
a shifttowardsthe allegorical mode by Leo Bersani:
8.

Ibid.

Figures of Authority,Ciphers of Regression

45

It is the extensionof the concreteinto memoryand fantasy.But with

the negation of desire,we have an immobile and immobilizingtypeof
abstraction.Instead of imitating a process of endless substitutions
(desire's ceaseless "travelling" among different
images), abstractionis
now a transcendenceof thedesiringprocessitself.And we move toward
an art of allegory.9
This becomes even more evidentin the iconographyof PitturaMetafisica,
which de Chirico and the formerfuturistCarrd initiated around 1913. The
conversionof the futurists,parallel to that of the cubists, involved not only a
renewed venerationof the cultural traditionof the past-as opposed to their
original ferventantipathyto the past-but also a new iconographyof haunting,
pointlessly assembled quotidian objects painted with meticulous devotion to
representationalconventions.De Chirico describeshis paintings as stages decorated for imminent but unknown and threateningacts, and insists on the
demonsthatare inherentin theobjectsofrepresentation:"The metaphysicalwork
of art seems to be joyous. Yet one has the impressionthatsomethingis going to
happen in thisjoyous world."10De Chirico speaks of the tragedyofjoy, which is
nothing other than the calm beforethe storm,and the canvas now becomes the
stage upon which the futuredisaster can be enacted. As the Italian historian
Umberto Silva pointed out, "De Chirico is the personificationof Croce's Italian
disease: not quite fascismyet,but the fearof its dawn.""'1
As was the case in Picasso's conversion,the futuristsnow fullyrepudiated
their earlier nonrepresentationalmodes and procedures of fragmentationand
pictorial molecularization.They further
rejectedthecollage techniquesbywhich
had
forced
the
simultaneous
they
presence of heterogeneous materials and
within
the
procedures
painted surface,and throughwhich theyhad underlined
theinteractionof aestheticphenomenawith theirsocial and political context.It is
surelyno accident that one of Severini'sfirstpaintings to manifesthis returnto
historyis a work called Maternity,which representsa mothersucklingan infant
in the traditionalpose of the Madonna. Even more conspicuous perhaps is the
case of Carrd, who had been one of the most important futuristsdue to his
developmentof nonmimeticpictorial signs,his systematictransgressionofverbal
and visual codes throughthe insertionof verbal fragmentswithin painting,and
his mechanizationof pictorial productionprocessesand theirjuxtaposition with
pictorializedremnantsof mechanical productionprocesses.Carrd turnedat that
time to representationaldepictions of biblical scenes in the manner of Tuscan
painting.

9.
10.
11.

Leo Bersani,Baudelaire and Freud, Berkeley,1977,p. 98.

Giorgio de Chirico, "Uber die metaphysischeKunst," in WirMetaphysiker,Berlin,n.d., p. 45.
UmbertoSilva, Kunst und Ideologie des Faschismus, Frankfurt,1975,p. 18.

46

Gino Severini.SphericalExpansionofLight
1916.(Right.)
1914.(Left.)Maternity.
(Centrifugal),

OCTOBER

Art,Past and Master

of historyservestheauthoritarTo the verysame extentthattherediscovery

ian purpose of justifyingthe failure of modernism,the atavisticnotion of the
masterartistis reintroducedto continuea cultureorientedto an esotericelite,thus
guaranteeingthatelite'srightto continuedculturaland political leadership.The
language of theartiststhemselves(or rathertheseparticularartists,forthereis an
opposite definitionof artisticproductionand culturesimultaneouslydeveloping
in the Soviet Union) blatantlyreveals the intricateconnectionbetweenaesthetic
masteryand authoritariandomination. Three examples from three different
decades may serveto illustratethis aestheticstance:
Hysteriaand dilettantismare damned to theburial urns. I believethat
everybodyis fed up now with dilettantism:whetherit be in politics,
literature,or painting.-Giorgio de Chirico, 1919.12
12. Giorgio de Chirico, Valori Plastici, Nos. 3-4, Rome, 1919.This phenomenonfindsits earliest
explicit manifestationin de Chirico's declaration "Pictor sum classicus," with which he concludes
emphaticallyhis call for a returnto the law of historyand classic order,a manifestocalled "The
Returnto theCraft"published in Valori Plastici in 1919.Like Carlo Carraiin his "PitturaMetafisica,"
also published in 1919, de Chirico not only requests the returnto the "classic" traditionand the
"masters"of thattradition(Uccello, Giotto, Piero della Francesca),but to the specificnationalityof
thattradition.This is themostobvious of thethreehistoricalfictionsin thatauthoritarianconstructof

Figures of Authority,Ciphers of Regression

47

CarloCarra.PatrioticCelebration.
1914.(Left.)The
ofLoth.1919.(Right.)
Daughters
Socialism has only been inventedforthe mediocreand the weak. Can
you imagine socialism or communismin Love or in Art?One would
a returnto the past, since the nation-stateas a socio-economicand political orderingsystemdid not
exist at the timeof thesemasters'production.
It is onlylogical to findCarrn'sname subsequentlyamong theartistswho signedthe"Manifesto
of Fascist Painting" in 1933which reads as follows:"FascistArtrejectsresearchand experiments....
The styleof Fascist arthas to orientitselftowardsantiquity."
It seemsthatwith increasingauthoritarianismin thepresenttheprojectioninto thepast has to
be removedfurtherand furtheraway-from Renaissance to antiquityin thiscase. More explicitlywe
findthissubstitutionof presenthistoryby mnemosynicfictionsof past historyin an essaybyAlberto
Savinio, published in Valori Plastici in 1921: "Memorygeneratesour thoughtsand our hopes ... we
are foreverthedevotedand faithfulsons of Memory.Memoryis our past; it is also thepast ofall other
men, of all men who have precededus. And since memoryis theorderedrecollectionof our thoughts
and thoseof the others,memoryis our religion: religio."
When the FrencharthistorianJeanClair triesto understandthesephenomena outsideof their
historicaland political context,his terminology,which is supposed to explain thesecontradictions
and save themfora new reactionaryanti-modernist
arthistorywriting,has to employthesame cliches
of authoritarianism,the fatherland,and thepaternalheritage:"[These painters]come to collecttheir
paternalheritage,theydo not even dreamof rejectingit. . . . Neoclassicismis lived as a meditationon
the exile, farfromthe lost fatherlandwhich is also thatof painting,thelost fatherlandof paintings"
(JeanClair, "Metafisicaet Unheimlichkeit,"in Les Realismes 1919-1939,Paris, Mus&eNational d'Art
Moderne,1981,p. 32).

48

OCTOBER

FrancisPicabia.Tabac-Rator Dance ofSaintGuy.

1919-21. (Left.) Printemps. 1942. (Right.)

burstinto laughter-if one werenot threatenedby theconsequences.Francis Picabia, 1927.13

and finally,Picasso's notoriousstatementfrom1935:
There ought to be an absolute dictatorship... a dictatorshipof painters ... a dictatorshipof one painter... to suppressall thosewho have
betrayedus, to suppressthecheaters,to suppressthe tricks,to suppress
mannerisms,to suppress charms, to suppress history,to suppress a
heap of otherthings.'4
13.
"Francis Picabia contreDada ou le Retour aila Raison," in Comoedia, March 14, 1927. p. 1.
"The Returnto Reason" and "The Returnto Order" not only espoused almost identicalprogramsof
authoritarianneoclassicism,but also shared the same supposed enemiesand targetsof attack.Dada
was, of course,one of them,so it seems useful in this contextto recall the attitudesof the literary
neoclassicistT. S. Eliot towardsdada: "Mr. Aldington treatedMr. Joyceas a prophetof chaos and
wailed at the floodof Dadaism which his prescienteyesaw burstingforthat the tap of themagician's
rod. .... A verygreatbook may have a verybad influenceindeed. ... A man of genius is responsibleto
his peers,not to a studio fullofuneducatedand undisciplinedcoxcombs" (T. S. Eliot, "Ulysses,Order
and Myth,"The Dial, vol. LXXV [1923],pp. 480-483).
14.
Pablo Picasso, in conversationwithChristianZervos,in Cahiersd'Art,vol. X, no. 1 (1935), 173.

Figures of Authority, Ciphers of Regression

49

ofa Woman.1920.(Left.)
Christian
Schad.Portrait
Self-Portrait.
1927.(Right.)
Like senile old rulerswho refuseto step down, thestubbornnessand spiteof
the old paintersincreasein directproportionto theinnatesenseof theinvalidity
of theirclaims to save a cultural practicethathad lost its viability.When,in the
earlytwenties,theformerGermandadaistChristianSchad attemptsa definitionof
the Neue Sachlichkeitby portrayingmembersof the Weimar hautemonde and
demimonde in the manner of Renaissance portraits;when, in 1933, Kasimir
Malevich portrayshimselfand his wife in Renaissance costumes;thenobviously
the same mechanismof authoritarianalienation is at work. In a textfrom1926
Schad deliversa completeaccount of the syndrome'smost conspicuous features:
Oh, it is so easy to turnone's back on Raphael. Because it is so difficult
to be a good painter.And only a good painter is able to paint well.
Nobody will ever be a good painter if he is only capable of painting
well. One has to be borna good painter.... Italyopened myeyesabout
my artisticvolition and capacity.... In Italy the art is ancient and
ancient art is oftennewer than the new art.15
15. ChristianSchad, statementin exhibitioncatalogue, Galerie Wiirthle,Vienna, 1927. See also a
nearlyidenticalstatementby the formerexpressionistOtto Dix: "The new elementof paintingforme

50

OCTOBER

KasimirMalevich.BlackCross.1915.(Left.)Self1933.(Right.)
Portrait.
The idealization of the painter'scraft,the hypostasisof a past culturethat
serves as a fictitiousrealm of successfulsolutions and achievementsthat have
of theOtherculture-in this
becomeunattainablein thepresent,theglorification
discussed and put into practiceonce
case Italy-all of these features--currently
modernism.
again-recur through the firstthreedecades of twentieth-century
and
to
its
historical
as
well as to
to
modernism
seek
halt
that
deny
necessity
They
life
an
extreme
formof
of
social
and
the
flux
history
dynamic
through
deny
authoritarianalienation fromthese processes. It is importantto see how these
symptomsare rationalizedby theartistsat the timeof theirappearance,how they
are laterlegitimizedby art historians,and how theyare finallyintegratedinto an
ideologyof culture.
The concepts of "aestheticparadox" and "novelty,"essential featuresof
avant-gardepractice, serve as explanations for these contradictions.Here, for
of formsofexpressionwhich in nuce existalreadyas givensin theworkof
residesin theintensification
old masters"(in Das Objekt ist das Primdre,Berlin, 1927).Compare thiswiththestatementbyGeorge
Grosz, a peer of Schad and Dix: "The returnto French classicistpainting, to Poussin, Ingres,and
followed
Corot, is an insidious fashionof Biedermeier.It seems thatthepolitical reactionis therefore
byan intellectualreaction"(in Das Kunstblatt,1922,as a replyto Paul Westheim'sinquiry"Towards a
New Naturalism?").

Figures of Authority, Ciphers of Regression

51

AlexanderRodchenko. Oval Hanging Construction.

1920. (Left.) Romance (Circus Scene). 1935. (Right.)

example, is ChristopherGreen's justificationfor Cocteau's and Picasso's neoclassicism:

For Cocteau a returnto narrativeclarityand to formin the novel did
not mean a denial of paradox, and in thesameway neitherdid a return
to representationin painting. Indeed it seems possible that it was at
leastpartiallyout of a sense of paradox thatPicasso turnedagainst the
dogma associatedwith Cubism to reviveIngresin
antirepresentational
Cocteau
1915....
suggests that where audacity had become
of theold
convention-as in theParisian avant-garde-theresurrection
modes could createa special kind of novelty:thatlooking backwards
theartistcould evenmoredramaticallylook forward.There is no direct
evidencethatPicasso consciouslyaimed to createsuch a paradox, but
the factremains. .. that by turningback he did achieve noveltyand
that his perversedevelopmentof SyntheticCubism and representational stylesalongside one anotherbetween1917 and 1921 was calculated to throwtheparadox implicitin his progressivemove backwards
into the highestpossible relief.16
16.

ChristopherGreen,Leger and theAvantgarde,London, 1976,p. 218.

52

OCTOBER

The Carnival of Style

The degreeof congruitybetweenCocteau's antimoderniststance(or should
we say clich6 of ahistorical thought?) and the argumentsagainst avant-garde
practice in the art press's currentdiscussion of postmodernismis striking.The
stereotypeof the avant-garde'saudacityhaving become conventionis, of course,
used primarilyby those who want to disguise theirnew conservatismas its own
kind of audacity (Cocteau at the time of "Rappel itl'Ordre" had just turnedto
Catholicism). They deny the factthatconventionalizationitselfis a maneuverto
silence any formof criticalnegation, and theywish to share in the benefitsthat
bourgeois culture bestows on those who support false consciousness as it is
embodied in cultural conventions. With regard to historical eclecticism,the
congruitybetweentheneoclassicistsof the 1920sand thecontemporaryfiguration
is even more astounding. Intellectualacrobaticsare needed to make theideological stance look like an organic historical necessity,as opposed to a construct
determinedby extremesocial and political factors.Whateverwe are to understand
by a "progressivemove backwards" or a "paradox as novelty," and however
Green's observationof Picasso's "perversedevelopment" indicates his limited
awarenessof the contradictionsresultingfromthe art historian'sneed to accommodate a cultural notion of the masterwho necessarilymoves fromachievement
to achievement,it becomes even more evidentthat the art historian'smaneuvers
cannot explain the contradictionswhen we read:
His [Picasso's] work between 1917 and 1921,ranging as it did froma
gay SyntheticCubism to a sober Classicism repeatedlyconfirmedthe
irrelevancefor him of having a style and the relevance for him of
Cocteau's idea of "style."The brightcolor planes of Cubism are right
for the carnival brilliance of the 1918 Arlequin, the sheer figurative
weight of Roman frescopainting and of Ingres' Madame Moitessier
were rightforthemonumentalstabilityofLa Femme assise lisant;the
implication was that any style, old or new, could be adapted to
Picasso's needs, could be made subject to his will."7
Style, the verygem of reifiedart-historicalthinking,the fictionthat there
could be a pictorial mode or a discursive practice that might function
autonomously--traditionallyrejectedby artists-is now applied by the artiststo
imbue these exhausted modes with historical meaning. "All the wasms have
become isms," is a vulgarcontemporaryvariationon thethemeof historicismput
forwardby the self-styledspokesman of postmodernistarchitecture,Charles
Jencks.
Style thenbecomes the ideological equivalent of thecommodity:its universal exchangeability,its freefloating
availability indicating a historical moment
17.

Ibid.

Figures of Authority,Ciphers of Regression

53

of closure and stasis. When the only option left to aestheticdiscourse is the
maintenanceof its own distributionsystemand thecirculationof its commodity
forms,it is not surprisingthatall "audacities have become convention"and that
paintings startlooking like shop windows decoratedwith fragmentsand quotations of history.
None of the manifoldfeaturesof thiseclecticismshould be seen as random;
theyconfirmone another in an intricatenetworkof historicalmeaning, which
fromtheintentionsof theauthorsor theinterests
may,however,be read differently
of theiraudience and the art historianswho constitutetheircultural reception.
This transformation
of the subversivefunctionof aestheticproduction to plain
affirmation
necessarilymanifestsitselfin everydetailofproduction.The discovery
of "history"as a treasuretroveinto which one mightdip fortheappropriationof
abandoned elementsof styleis but one obvious step. The secretattractionof the
iconographyof Italian theaterforPicasso and othersat that time becomes more
comprehensiblein such a perspective.The Harlequins, Pierrots,Bajazzos, and
Pulcinelles invading the work of Picasso, Beckmann,Severini,Derain, and others in the early twenties(and, in the mid-thirties,
even the work of the former
in
Rodchenko
can
be identified
as ciphersof an
constructivist/productivist
Russia)
enforcedregression.They serveas emblemsforthemelancholic infantilismof the
avant-gardeartist who has come to realize his historical failure. The clown
functionsas a social archetypeof the artistas an essentiallypowerless,docile, and
entertainingfigureperforminghis acts of subversion and mockeryfrom an
undialectical fixationon utopian thought.18
18.
When Max Beckmann in the twentiesreferredto himselfas the "alienated clown and the
mysteriousking" he expressedpreciselythe unconscious dilemma of the artist'sfluctuationbetween
authoritarianrule and melancholy,as George Steinerputs it in his introductionto The Origin of
German Tragic Drama: "Prince and Puppet are impelled by thesame frozenviolence" (p. 18). Renato
Poggioli described this dilemma without coming to an adequate understanding: "Aware that
bourgeoissocietylooks at him onlyas a charlatantheartistdeliberatelyand ostentatiouslyassumes the
role of thecomic actor.From thisstemsthemythof the artistas pagliaccio and mountebank.Between
the alternatingextremesof self-criticism
and self-pity,
the artistcomes to see himselfas a comic victim
and sometimesas a tragicvictim,although the latterseems to be predominant" (Renato Poggioli,
"The Artistin the Modern World," in The Spirit of theLetter,Cambridge, 1965,p. 327).
This new icon of theclown is only matchedin frequencyin thepaintingsof thatperiod by the
representationof the manichino, the wooden puppet, the reifiedbody,originatingfromboth shopwindow decorationand fromthe props of the classical artist'sstudio. If the firsticon appears in the
contextof thecarnivaland thecircusas themasqueradesofalienation frompresenthistory,thesecond
we can observeparallel
appears on the stage set of reification.With due historical transformation
phenomena in theiconographyof the "New Painting." As describedin thefollowingexample: "The
comic and the self-effacing
aspects.. . loom verylarge (and verysmall in the work of many recent
artists).Miniaturization,stick figures,dimpled dollies, micro freaksand the humanoid progenyof
Krazy Kat are all part of an everincreasingLilliputian population; the doll house syndromeis very
much with us" (Klaus Kertess,"Figuring It Out," Artforum,November 1980, p. 30). Or, a more
adequate criticalunderstandingof thesephenomena: "In anotherof a long stringof ironic(?) refusals
of virtuosityand 'sensitivity,'
paintershave recentlyadopted a reducedbrutishfiguration(seemingly
chosen froma lexicon of thedrasticallydamaged mentally)whose nihilismstrikesnot at any societyin
particular but at 'civilization'--a familiar desperatemove" (Martha Rosler, unpublished notes on
quotation).

54

OCTOBER

This carnivalof eclecticism,thistheatricalspectacle,thiswindow dressingof

self-quotationbecomes transparentas a masquerade of alienation fromhistory,a
returnof the repressedin cultural costume. It is essential to the functioningof
historicismand its staticview of historythatit assemble thevarious fragmentsof
historicalrecollectionand incantationaccording to the degreeof projection and
identification
thattheseimages of thepast will providefortheneedsof thepresent.
unlike
the modernistcollage, in which various fragmentsand materialsof
Quite
are
laid bare, revealed as fissures,voids, unresolvablecontradictions,
experience
thehistoricistimage pursues
irreconcilableparticularizations,pure heterogeneity,
the opposite aim: thatof synthesis,of theillusorycreationof a unityand totality
This
which conceals its historicaldeterminationand conditionedparticularity.19
in
of
a
unified
mode,
material,
pictorial
representation,
homogeneous
appearance
and style,is treacherous,supplyingas it does aestheticpleasure as falseconsciousness,or vice versa.If themodernistworkprovidestheviewerwithperceptualclues
to all its material, procedural, formal,and ideological qualities as part of its
modernistprogram,which thereforegives the vieweran experienceof increased
presence and autonomy of the self, then the historicistwork pretends to a
successfulresolutionof themodernistdilemmaofaestheticself-negation,
particularization, and restrictionto detail, through absence, leading to the seductive
domination of the viewer by the Other, as Julia Kristeva has described the
experienceof alienation and perversionthatideology imposes on the subject.

19. These "concealed collages" in paintingrepresenta falseunification.FredricJamesondescribes

this analogous attemptat unificationin literature:".. .the mirage of the continuityof personal
identity,the organizingunity of the psyche or the personality,the concept of societyitself,and not
least, the notion of the organic unityof the work of art" (Fables of Aggression,Berkeley,1980,p. 8).
The term"painted collages" was used by Max Ernstin his "Au-dela de la Peinture"in 1936to describe
the painting of Magritteand Dali. Of course Ernstwas not able to providea historicaldifferentiation
betweenthe original collage techniquesand theirimplicationsand the attemptof renewedpainterly
unificationof fragmentation,fissures,and discontinuityof the plastic language. Since then several
authors have describedthe phenomenon of the "painted collage" in the neoclassicistpaintings and
theirpeculiar unreal spatiality,a surfaceand pictorialspace thatseem to be made of glass or ice. See,
for example, Wieland Schmied, "Pittura Metafisicaet Nouvelle Objectivite," in Les Realismes
ofthestaticmelancholicexperiencewhich
1919-1939,p. 22. This is of course thespatial configuration
is fixatedon the authoritarianimages of the alien and the ancient and that recognizesitselfin the
shimmeringsurfaceof classicistpainting that seems to contain life in a shrine.The most haunting
image of this idealized classical beautyis given in Baudelaire's poem "La Beaut'":
Je suis belle, 6 mortels!comme un rovede pierre,
Et mon sein, olu chacun s'est meurtritoura tour,
Est faitpour inspirerau poete un amour
lternel et muet ainsi que la matibre.
Je tr6nedans l'azur comme un sphinx incompris;
J'unis un coeur de neige a la blancheurdes cygnes;
Je hais le mouvementqui deplace les lignes,
Et jamais je ne pleure et jamais je ne ris.

Figures of Authority,Ciphers of Regression

55

The Returnsof theNew

The meaning structureof art seems to
have been undergoing reorganization
while the marketmerelyfalteredbriefly
and then regained its stride. The '70s
may turn out to have been a revanchist
period in which controllinginfluences
within audience and market elites regrouped to reestablishthe stratification
of the audience and its objects, thereby
reasserting,for example, the preeminence of painting as artifactualmeaning
bearerand as tangible investment.
-Martha Rosler, "Lookers, Buyers,
Dealers, Makers:Thoughts on
Audience"
Perceptual and cognitive models and their modes of artisticproduction
functionin a manner similar to the libidinal apparatus thatgenerates,employs,
and receives them. Historically, they lead a life independentof theiroriginal
contextsand develop specificdynamics:theycan be easilyreinvestedwithdifferent
meaningsand adapted to ideological purposes.Once exhaustedand made obsolete
by subsequentmodels, theseproductionmodes can generatethesame nostalgia as
does iconic representationfor an obsolete code. Emptied of their historical
functionand meaning, theydo not disappear but ratherdriftin historyas empty
vesselswaiting to be filledwith reactionaryinterestsin need of culturallegitimation. Like other objects of cultural history,aestheticproduction modes can be
wrenchedfromtheircontextsand functions,to be used to display thewealth and
power of the social group thathas appropriatedthem.
To investtheseobsoletemodes withmeaning and historicalimpactrequires,
however,that theybe presentedas radical and new. The secretawarenessof their
obsolescenceis belied by theobsessionwithwhich theseregressivephenomena are
announced as innovation. "The New Spirit of Painting," "The New Fauves,"
"Naive Nouveau," "I1 Nuove Nuove," "The Italian New Wave" are some of the
labels attachedto recentexhibitionsofretrogradecontemporary
art (as thoughthe
neo
did
not
indicate
the
restoration
of
in
prefix
preexistingforms).It is significant
this regard that the German neoexpressionistswho have recentlyreceivedsuch
wide recognitionin Europe (presumablyto be followedby a similar acclaim in
North America) have been operatingon the fringesof the German artworld for
almost twentyyears.Their "newness" consistspreciselyin theircurrenthistorical
availability,not in any actual innovation of artisticpractice.
The historicalspecificity
of iconographic codes is generallymore apparent
than thatof productionproceduresand materials.It had seemeduntilrecently,for

56

OCTOBER

example, that the representationof saints and clowns, of female nudes and
landscapes, was entirelyproscribedas an authenticexpressionof individual or
collectiveexperience.This proscriptiondid not extend,though,to less conspicuous aspects of pictorial and sculpturalproduction.Excited brushworkand heavy
impasto paint application, high contrast colors and dark contours are still
perceivedas "painterly"and "expressive"twentyyearsafterStella's,Ryman's,and
Richter'sworks demonstratedthat the painted sign is not transparent,but is a
coded structurewhich cannot be an unmediated "expression." Through its
repetitionthe physiognomyof this painterlygestureso "full of spontaneity"
becomes,in any case, an emptymechanics.There is only pure desperationin the
recentlyreiteratedclaim of "energism,"which betraysa secretforebodingof the
instantreificationthat awaits such a naive notion of the liberatingpotential of
apolitical and undialectical aestheticpractices.
But theintentionsof theartistsand theirapologistsremainto be understood,
because contraryto theirclaim to psychicuniversalitytheyin fact"express" only
the needs of a verycircumscribedsocial group. If "expressivity"and "sensuousness" have again become criteriaof aestheticevaluation, if we are once again
confrontedwith depictions of the sublime and the grotesque-complementary
experiential states of modernism'shigh culture products-then that notion of
sublimation which definesthe individual's work as determinedby alienation,
This process is simply describedby Lillian
deprivation,and loss is reaffirmed.
Robinson and Lise Vogel:
Sufferingis portrayedas a personal struggle, experienced by the
individual in isolation. Alienation becomes a heroicdisease forwhich
thereis no social remedy.Irony masks resignationto a situationone
cannot alter or control. The human situation is seen as static,with
certain external forms varying but the eternal anguish remaining.
Everypolitical systemis perceivedto setsome small group intopower,
so that changing the group will not affectour "real" (that is private)
lives.... Thus simply expressed,the elementsof bourgeois ideology
have a clear role in maintainingthestatusquo. Arisingout of a system
that functionsthroughcorporatecompetitionforprofits,the ideas of
the bourgeoisieimplytheultimatepowerlessnessof theindividual,the
futilityof public action and the necessityof despair.20
Modernisthigh culturecanonized aestheticconstructswith the appellation
"sublime" when the artistsin question had proven theircapacity to maintain
utopian thought in spite of the conditions of reification,and when, instead of
activelyattemptingto change those conditions, theysimply shiftedsubversive

Lillian Robinson and Lise Vogel, "Modernismand History,"New LiteraryHistory,vol. III, no.
20.
1, p. 196.

Figures of Authority,Ciphers of Regression

57

intentionsinto theaestheticdomain. The attitudeof individualpowerlessnessand

in the resignation implicit in a return to the
despair is already reaffirmed
traditional tools of the craftof painting and in the cynical acceptance of its
historicallimitationsand its materially,perceptually,and cognitivelyprimitivist
formsof signification.
Such paintings, experiencedby a certainaudience as sensuous, expressive,
and energetic,performand glorifytheritualof instantexcitationand perpetually
postponed gratificationthatis the bourgeois mode of experience.This bourgeois
model of sublimation-which has, of course, been counteredby an avant-garde
traditionof negation,a radical denial of thatmodel's perpetrationsof theextreme
division of labor and specializationof sexual role behavior-findsits appropriate
manifestationin the repeated revitalization of obsolete representationaland
expressivepictorial practices.It is not accidental thatBalthus--champion of the
bourgeois taste for high titillationwith his scopophilic picturesof sleeping or
otherwiseunaware adolescent female nudes-has recentlyreceivedrenewed acclaim and is regardedas one of thepatriarchalfiguresof the "new" figuration.Nor
is it accidental that not one of the German neoexpressionistsor the Italian Arte
Ciphra painters is female.At a time when cultural production in everyfieldis
becoming increasinglyaware of, if not activelycountering,the oppression of
traditional role distinctions based on the constructionof sexual difference,
contemporaryart (or at least that segment of it that is currentlyreceiving
prominentmuseum and marketexposure) returnsto concepts of psychosexual
organization that date fromthe origins of bourgeois characterformation.The
bourgeois concept of the avant-gardeas the domain of heroic male sublimation
functions as the ideological complement and cultural legitimation of social
repression.Laura Mulvey has analyzed this phenomenon in the contextof the
"visual pleasure" of cinematicexperience:
Woman then stands in patriarchal culture as signifierfor the male
other, bound by a symbolic order in which man can live out his
phantasies and obsessions throughlinguistic command by imposing
themon the silent image of woman still tied to her place as bearerof
meaning, not makerof meaning.21
and Max Kozloffputs it explicitlyin the contextof the visual arts:
Furtherscouting might produce more evidence that virilityis often
equated with the probing of space or the masterfulbrushing of a
surface. The metaphor of sculptural extension or battlingwith the
canvas is easily sexualized because it conflatestwo desirable goals
associated with the energy of creation. With Expressionist theory,
German and American, we are never far removed from its special
21.

Laura Mulvey,"Visual Pleasure and NarrativeCinema," Screen,vol. XVI, no. 3 (1975), 7.

58

OCTOBER

aura.... The imageryof modernart,of course,is richwith overtones

of masculine aggressionand depersonalizationof woman.22
The abandonmentofpaintingas sexual metaphorthatoccurredaround 1915
implied not only formaland aestheticchanges but also a critique of traditional
models of sublimation.This is most evidentin Duchamp's interestin androgyny
wish to abolish theproductionmode of theindividual
and in the constructivists'
masterin favorof one orientedto collectiveand utilitarianpractice.In contradistinction,thosepainting practiceswhich operateunder thenaive assumption that
gestural delineation, high contrast color, and heavy impasto are immediate
(unmediated, noncoded) representationsof the artist's desire propagate the
traditionalrole model; and they do so far more effectively
than the painting
practices which systematicallyinvestigatetheir own procedures.The former's
attractionand success,its role and impact withregardto notions of high culture
and the hierarchyof the visual arts, are governedby its complicitywith these
models of psychosexual organization. Carol Duncan has describedhow psychohow theyare concealed and mediated
sexual and ideological conceptsinterrelate,
in earlytwentieth-century
expressionistpainting:
to
their
paintings, the liberation of the artistmeans the
According
domination of others;his freedomrequires theirunfreedom.Far from
contestingthe established social order, the male-femalerelationship
thatthesepaintings imply-the drasticreductionof women to objects
of specialized male interests-embodieson a sexual level thebasic class
relationship of capitalist society. In fact such images are splendid
metaphors for what the wealthy collectorswho eventuallyacquired
them did to those beneath them in the social as well as the sexual
hierarchy.However,if theartistis willing to regardwomen as merelya
means to his own ends, if he exploits them to achieve his boast of
virility,he, in his turn,mustmerchandiseand sell himself-an illusion
of himselfand his intimatelife-on theopen, competitiveavant-garde
market.He mustpromote(or get dealersand criticfriendsto promote)
the value of his special credo, the authenticityof his special vision,
and-most importantly-thegenuinenessof his antibourgeoisantagonism. Ultimately,he must be dependenton and servethepleasure of
thisverybourgeoisworld or enlightenedsegmentsof it thathis artand
lifeseem to contest.23
Inasmuch as this sexual and artisticrole is itself reified,peinture-the
Max Kozloff,"The AuthoritarianPersonalityin Modern Art,"Artforum,vol. XII, no. 8 (May
22.
1974),40.
vol.
Carol Duncan, "Virilityand Domination in EarlyTwentiethCenturyPainting," Artforum,
23.
XII, no. 9 (June 1974),38.

Figures of Authority,Ciphers of Regression

59

fetishizedmode of artisticproduction-can assume the functionof an aesthetic

fortheviewer.Not
equivalent and providea correspondingculturalidentification
both
German
and
Italian
Arte Ciphra
then,
surprisingly,
neoexpressionists
draw
of
the
stock
that
the
twomajor
heavily
styles
predate
painters
upon
painterly
shifts in twentieth-century
art history: fauvism, expressionism,and Pittura
Metafisica before Duchamp and constructivism;surrealist automatism and
abstract expressionism before Rauschenberg and Manzoni-the two essential
instancesin modern art when the production process of painting was radically
questioned for its claim to orgainc unity, aura, and presence,and replaced by
mechanical procedures,and seriality.
heterogeneity,
The contemporaryregressionsof "postmodernist"paintingand architecture
are similar in theiriconic eclecticismto the neoclassicismof Picasso, Carri, and
others.A varietyof productionproceduresand aestheticcategories,as well as the
perceptualconventionsthatgeneratedthem,are now wrestedfromtheiroriginal
historicalcontextsand reassembledinto a spectacleofavailability.They postulate
an experienceofhistoryas privateproperty;theirfunctionis thatof decorum.The
with which theseworksunderscoretheirawarenessof theephemgaudy frivolity
eral functiontheyperformcannot conceal the materialand ideological interests
theyserve;nor can theiraggressivityand bravuradisguise the exhaustion of the
culturalpracticestheytryto maintain.
The worksof thecontemporaryItalians explicitlyrevive,throughquotation,
historicalproductionprocesses,iconographicreferences,
and aestheticcategories.
Their techniquesrange fromfrescopainting (Clemente) to casting sculpturein
bronze (Chia), fromhighly stylizedprimitivistdrawing to gestural abstraction.
Iconographic referencesrange fromrepresentationsof saints (Salvo) to modish
quotations from Russian constructivism(Chia). With equal versatilitythey
orchestratea programof dysfunctionalplastic categories,oftenintegratedinto a
scenario of aestheticsurplus: freestandingfigurativesculpturecombinedwith an
installation of aquatint etchings, architecturalmurals with small-scale easel
paintings,reliefconstructionswith iconic objects.
The German neoexpressionistsare equally protean in theirunearthingof
atavisticproductionmodes, including even primitivisthewn wood polychrome
sculpture,paraphrasing the expressionistparaphraseof "primitive"art (Immendorff).The rediscoveryof ancient teutonicgraphic techniquessuch as woodcuts
and linocuts flourishes(Baselitz,Kiefer),as does theiriconography:thenude, the
still life,the landscape, and what theseartistsconceive of as allegory.
Concomitantwith the fetishizationof painting in the cult of peintureis a
fetishizationof the perceptualexperienceof theworkas auratic.The contrivance
of aura is crucial for theseworks in order that theyfulfilltheirfunctionas the
luxury products of a fictitioushigh culture. In the tangibilityof the auratic,
figuredthroughcraftedsurfacetextures,aura and commoditycoalesce. Only such
syntheticuniqueness can satisfythe contemptthatbourgeois characterholds for
the "vulgarities"of social existence;and only this "aura" can generate"aesthetic

OCTOBER

60

pleasure" in the narcissisticcharacterdisorderthatresultsfromthis contempt.

MeyerSchapiro saw this symbioticrelationshipbetweencertainartistsand their
patronsin 1935: "The artist'sfrequentlyassertedantagonismto organizedsociety
does notbringhim into conflictwithhis patrons,since theysharehis contemptfor
to practical social life."124
thepublic and are indifferent
The aestheticattractionof theseeclecticpainting practicesoriginatesin a
nostalgia forthatmomentin thepast when thepaintingmodes to which theyrefer
had historical authenticity.But the specterof derivativenesshovers over every
contemporaryattempt to resurrectfiguration,representation,and traditional
modes of production. This is not so much because theyactually derive from
particularprecedents,but because theirattemptto reestablishforlornaesthetic
positions immediatelysituatesthemin historicalsecondariness.That is theprice
of instant acclaim achieved by affirmingthe status quo under the guise of
is theconfirinnovation.The primaryfunctionof such-culturalre-presentations
mation of the hieraticsof ideological domination.
24.

MeyerSchapiro, quoted in Kozloff.

Gino Severini.The Two Clowns. 1922.

Figures of Authority,Ciphers of Regression

61

National Identityand Product Protection

...

but the European has been unhoused

for a long time,he is a deracin&,and as

he could in no way face up to it and did
not have the courage to admit it, he
became a parvenu. To be a parvenu
means to maintain thepretenseof being
at home in the world ...
-Otto Freundlich,Bulletin D, 1919
If theraison d'etreof historicistworkis thatof privateproperty,and fashion
thediscoursein which it manifestsand maintainsitself,thenit is only naturalthat
theworkitselfhas thecharacteristics
of thecliche: compulsivelyrepeatedgestures
emptied of meaning and congealed into grotesques. Beyond the obsolete and
stereotypedconception of the artist'srole and character;beyond the fetishized
conventions,procedures,and materialswhich we have analyzed;thesecliches are
most easily recognizedin the artists'call fora returnto national culturewith its
"roots and laws."
Carra's demand for italianitdin the 1920s now recursin both Italian and
German painting as the claim of national cultural identity.But such a claim
cannot hide its economic function as product protectionin the increasingly
competitiveinternationalart market.Its ideological functionhas been definedby
FredricJamesonin anothercontext:
National allegoryshould be understoodas a formalattemptto bridge
theincreasinggap betweentheexistentialdata ofeverydaylifewithina
given nation stateand the structuraltendencyof monopoly capital to
develop on a worldwide,essentiallytransnationalscale .. .25
Justas historyhas been rediscoveredas an inexhaustiblesourceforfictionsof
identityand subjectivityin commercialculture(fashion,advertising,etc.),so the
regressivepracticesof "high" cultural productionprovideluxurygoods directed
at the identityand subjectivityof the managerial class. When Lenin said that
"Nationality and Fatherland are essential formsof the bourgeois system,"he
could hardlyhave anticipatedthat"history"would subsequentlyassume thesame
function. The nostalgia of artistic production for its own past conventions
correspondsto this class's nostalgia forits past processesof individuationat the
timeof its historicalascendancy.
The verysame call for a returnto the fictionsof national and cultural
identityas we observedin theregressiveartof the twentiesis now takingplace in
25.

Jameson,Fables of Aggression,p. 94.

62

OCTOBER

ArteCiphra and neoexpressionism.Frequentreferences

to the late de Chirico and
the painterlymanner of Sironi's work of the twentiesoccur in contemporary
Italian painting,while the currentGerman paintersreferto thepictorialcharacteristicsand productiontechniquesof German expressionism.
The referenceto expressionismin contemporaryWest-Germanart is the
natural move to make at a time when the myth of cultural identityis to be
establishedspecificallyagainst the dominance of Americanart during the entire
period of reconstruction.Since the Second World War, expressionism, the
"German intuition" of early twentieth-century
modern painting, has received
esteem.
It
had
of
lacked
course
this
esteemin thepost-WorldWar I
increasing
just
to
its
eventual
under
fascism. But during the early
prior
suppression
period,
sixtiesskyrocketing
pricesindicatedthatexpressionismhad achieved thestatusof
a national treasure,the best of the pre-Fascistheritageof German culture. As
opposed to the political radicalism of Berlin dada, expressionismpresentedan
avant-gardeposition acceptableto thenewlyreconstituted
upper middleclass,and
it thusbecame thekeyobject forhistoricalstudy,collection,and speculation.The
apolitical humanitarian stance of the expressionistartists,their devotion to
spiritual regeneration,theircritique of technology,and theirromanticizationof
exotic and primal experienceperfectlyaccorded with the desire foran art that
would providespiritualsalvationfromthedaily experienceofalienation resulting
fromthe dynamicreconstructionof postwarcapitalism.
The generationof contemporaryneoexpressionists
-now in theirfortiesreceivedtheireducation during this period fromartistswho had themselvesonly
recentlylearned the lessons of post-surrealistautomatismas representedby art
informeland abstractexpressionism.The first"scandals" of individual achievementof thepresentgenerationoccurredin the earlysixties,when they"dared" to
reintroducefigurative
subjectmatterand highlyexpressivegesturaland chromatic
into
their
Their "courage" consisted,then,preciselyin committing
art.
qualities
themselvesto the emergingmythof Germany's cultural heritageand national
identitythrough the adoption of the artist's traditionalrole and the willful
ignorance or rejection of all the aesthetic,epistemological,and philosophical
developmentsof the firsttwo decades of the century.
Originally-that is, in the early to mid-sixties--someof these artistshad
at the
produced workof considerableinterest.(The earlyactivitiesof Immendorff
DilsseldorfAcademyand his subsequentLIDL happening, and theearlyworkof
the East German "primitivist"painterPenck are cases in point.) But subsequent
to theirdiscoveryby themarketand museums,thesepaintersunderwenta stylistic
streamliningthatresultedin the "movement"of neoexpressionism.The firststep
was thereturnto large-scaleeasel painting.For thatpurpose individualeccentricities of aestheticactivityhad to be sacrificed,as did all referencesto twentiethcenturydevelopmentscontestingthepracticeofpainting.The secondstepwas the
conversionof thevarious idiosyncraticactivitiesof theartistsintoa homogeneous
neoexpressioniststyle.

Figures of Authority,Ciphers of Regression

63

The neoexpressionistsand theirapologists understandablyrejectan exclusive alignment with the German expressionistpatrimony,since theirpainterly
eruditionand ambitionextendsto an assimilationof thepictorialstandardsof the
New York School and theeconomic value setbyit. Anyartthatwantsto supplant
the dominance of Americanart throughthe programmaticreturnto a national
idiom can only be successfulon the marketif it acknowledges the dominant
"foreign" style.Afterall it had been the major problem of postwar European
painting that it neverachieved the "qualitative" level of the New York School
(just as, according to Greenberg,the major problem facingAmericanpainting
beforethewar was attainingthelevel of "quality" of the School of Paris). This is
particularlyevident in the work of the neoexpressionistGeorg Baselitz,whose
canvases' size and scale, drawing,and painterlygestureowe as much to abstract
expressionismas to German expressionism.
The successful institutionalizationof neoexpressionismhas required a
complex and subtle set of maneuversby the marketand museums. For example,
historicalcontinuityhad to be establishedin order to legitimizethe neoexpressionists as heirs to the German cultural heritage.A recentexample of how this
authenticationmay be achieved is a spectacular case of Geschichtsklitterung
(eclectichistoricistconstruct),theFirstStudyfora SculpturebyBaselitz.The large
scale seated figure,hewn out of a wood block,raisingits rightarm in such a way
that hostile critics have called it a Fascist gesture,was recentlyshown at the

Max Beckmann. Perseus Triptych.1941.

64

OCTOBER

WhitechapelGalleryin London. For thisexhibition,it was surroundedby thelate

of Max Beckmann,thusestablishingthehistoricalpedigree,thecontinutryptichs
ityof specificallyGerman art. Thus accreditedwith authenticity,local products
can succeed on the internationalmarket.
A second strategy,
complementingthiscontrivednational continuity,is that
of carefullyplacing the work in the contextof the contemporaryinternational
avant-garde.For example, a reproductionof a painting by the neoprimitivist
Penck appears on the frontispieceof a catalogue fora recentexhibition of the
Italian artistsFabro, Kounellis, Merz,and Paolini at theKunsthalle,Bern-one of
the strongholdsof German neoexpressionism.And more overtly,the catalogue
introductionstatesthemuseumdirector'sproposal to combineworkbythisgroup
of trulysignificantItalian artistswith that of the neoexpressionistswho are
described as their "nordic" counterparts.Thus the intellectual subtletyand
analytic clarityof theseItalian artistsis conferredupon the reactionaryGerman
artists,when the proper German peers of theseItalians are,of course,Darboven,
Palermo, and Richter.
Critical Cliches, ManufacturedVisions
Social reasons for this impotence [of
historicism]:thefantasyof the bourgeois
class ceases to focus on thefutureof the
forcesof productivitywhich it released.
The specificGemiitlichkeitof themiddle
of the centuryresultsfrom this conditionedfadingaway ofsocial fantasy.The
desire to have children is only a weaker
stimulationof potencyin comparison to
the images of the futurethat thissocial
fantasyonce engendered.
-Walter Benjamin, "Zentralpark"
When art emphasizingnational identityattemptsto entertheinternational
distributionsystem,themostworn-outhistoricaland geo-politicalclich6shave to
of such notions as thenordic
be employed.And thus we now see theresurrection
versusthe Mediterranean,the teutonicversustheLatin. A typicalformulationof
the cliched idea of German characterappears in an arthistorian'scommenton a
neoexpressionistpainter's work: "The tendencyof German art to literature,to
profound allegories, and ideological symbolism,[and] to the mysticismand
ecstasyof an exuberantimagination has found expressionhere."26
Justas the art itselfresortsto cliche as the reliable strategyforoperating
26.
SiegfriedGohr, "Remarks on the Paintings of Markus Liipertz," in Markus Liipertz-Stil
Paintings, London, WhitechapelGallery, 1979,n.p.

Figures of Authority,Ciphers of Regression

65

within an obsolete context,so the critics and curatorswho have become the
spokesmen of the "new art" resurrecta critical language of false naivete and
bloated trivialitieswhich formsthe terminologyof thenew subjectivity.The lack
of historicalspecificity
and reflection
upon methodology,thewillful ignoranceof
radical changes in otherfieldsof researchbearingupon aestheticpractice(semiology, psychoanalysis,criticismof ideology) are particularlyrevealing. Take for
example the British art historian and curator Nicholas Serota discussing the
manner in which one of the neoexpressionistpainters
has adopted the seeminglymore traditionalground of the painterof
still life. He has created for himselfa kind of theatrein which the
absurd object, emblems, allegory and metaphor are used to reinterpretuniversalssuch as the creationand awakening of life,the interaction of natural forces,human emotionsand ideologies and the experience of death. For a comparison one has to look back to thetryptichs
of
Beckmann, though Beckmann's use of narrativestructureis quite
different.27
Or, more hyperbolically,Rudi Fuchs, Dutch art historianand directorof one of
Europe's most activemuseums in exhibitingcontemporaryart,claims that
Painting is salvation. It presentsfreedomof thoughtof which it is the
triumphantexpression.... The painter is a guardian angel carrying
thepalette in blessingover theworld. Maybe thepainteris thedarling
of the Gods.28
And the German art historian SiegfriedGohr, in a textpublished by London's
WhitechapelGallery,writes
The relationshipbetweenbeautyand terror,eros and death,thosetime
honored themesof art,are presentedagain by thepainting.Negativity,
death is introducedas a theme.29
The lack of formaland historicalcomplexityin thepainters'worksand the
attendant avoidance of genuine critical analysis of their contrived "visions"
resultsinevitablyin a stereotypicalcriticallanguage. Here forexample, are two
virtuallyidentical statementsby two criticswritingabout different
painters:
The motifs which Georg Baselitz time and again employs in his
paintings are insignificantas content. They are only meaningful
within his pictorial method:as formalpoints of departure.30

27.
28.
29.
30.

Nicholas Serota,Markus Liipertz-StilPaintings.

R. H. Fuchs, Anselrnm
Kiefer,exhibitioncatalogue, Venice Biennale, 1980,p. 62.
Gohr, "Remarks."
R. H. Fuchs, Georg Baselitz-Bilder 1977-1978,Eindhoven, Van Abbemuseum,1979,n.p.

66

OCTOBER

The value of the motifin thesepaintings of Liipertz's lay only in the

way in which he used it as a startingpoint forthe developmentof a
meaningfulactivity.3'
As was the case in the call to orderby regressiveartistsof the twenties,a
growingaggressivityis now becoming apparent in themannerthatthesecliches
of vision and language are propagated. With the demise of liberalism, its
underside-authoritarianism-no longerfeelsinhibited.And it thuscomes to the
fore in the guise of irrationalityand the ideology of individual expression.In
reactionagainst social consciousnessand political awareness,proto-Fascistlibertarianismpreparestheway fortheseizureofstatepower.Withoutquestioning the
reasons forthe failureof enlightenment,the end of modernismand theenforced
silencingof its criticalpotential are takenas excuses forindulging in defeat.
The followingprogrammaticstatements,couched in a pastiche of Deleuze
advocate thereceivedideas of petit
and Guattari,Stirner,and Spengler,fervently
bourgeois anarchismin relation to ArteCiphra:
Arte Ciphra exposes itselfas an art of the most extremesubjectivism.... The disillusionmentis the strongestwith those who even at
the beginning of the seventiesstill believed in an immediatelyimminent collapse of capitalism-generated by criticismand revelation....
Now it is much more importantto develop new formswhich relateto
pure intensity,to the indivisibilityof desire and to the unconscious
fixationsof desire. Desire thereforeassumes a revolutionaryposition.
But as desire itself is always a part of infinitelycomplicated and
ambivalentinterdependences,
its particularfixationsmustcome to bear
in theirtotality,even if theyare partially"regressive,""bourgeois," or
"nonrevolutionary".... The failureofbourgeoisenlightenment-well
understood long ago in political and ideological thought-was not
acknowledgedby this art of the seventies.. ... ArteCiphra attemptsa
formation of the "here and now"...
Its aim is the opposite of
in theimmediacyof the
the
of
the
other
discovery
utopia-it's atopia,
present.32
And here,in the explicitlyproto-Fascistlanguage of an Italian critic:
The new forceof artis born fromthisverytension,turninga relationship of quantity into a relationship of intensity.The work is taken
froma socially underprivilegedposition back to an individual centrality,reestablishingthecreativeneed bymeans ofan image in opposition
to the shapeless fogginessof social needs.33
31.
32.
33.

Gohr, "Remarks."
WolfgangMax Faust, ArteCiphra, exhibitioncatalogue, Cologne, 1979,p. 14.
Achille Bonito Oliva, "The BewilderedImage," Flash Art,nos. 96-97 (April 1980), 35.

Figures of Authority,Ciphers of Regression

67

Rather than face up to its own bankruptcyand the necessityof political

change, this franklyelitistnotion of subjectivityultimatelyopts forthe destruction of the veryhistoricaland culturalrealitythatit claims to possess. The secret
longing fordestructionas a solution to contradictionsthat can only be met in
political, not cultural, terms,manifestsitselfin fantasiesof catastrophy.This
climate of finality-whentheend of a class is mistakenfortheend of theworldgenerates apocalyptic and necrophilic visions, firstin high art, then spread
can be seen as an act of
throughout the culture. Eventually self-destruction
heroism.These tendenciesare again to be foundin thepaintingofneoexpressionism and its accompanyingcriticism:
It representsone of the great tyrannicalgestures in aesthetics: an
emperorburningdown a cityto make way fora new and granderone.
As a theme it belongs of course to a larger topological framework
which dates back to the beginning of time: renewal and purification
through fire .... Fire destroys but it also cleanses."4

and:
Last year... I accompanied Liipertzto theRuhleben crematoriumon
the outskirtsof the city.As we walked slowlydown a wide path to the
modern crematorium . . . a pale of black smoke began to rise slowly

fromthechimneys.Suddenlythesilencewas brokenby thesharpreport

of riflesfiringon theBritishartilleryrangehiddenbehind thecrematorium. The conjunction was typicalof Berlin. Inside the building was
the pair of paintings by Liipertz. . . . They have a quality of universal

truth.35

The historical"authenticity"of theseworks is contained,then,in the very

retardationand regressionwhich theyenact: the continuing domination of the
obsolete. In the patheticfarceof theirrepetition-compulsion,
we can still recognize the tragicfailureof theoriginal formsof theprotestof expressionism.In the
mockeryand mimicryof contemporaryneoexpressionismwe see the afterimage
of that anarchic and subversive,but ultimatelyapolitical radicalism that was
doomed to failure,to be appropriated by the veryforcesthat it had set out to
oppose. It is Lukacs, once again, who has describedthis mechanism:
Mythologizing the problems allows one to avoid looking at the
phenomena which are criticizedas being part of capitalism, or to
rendercapitalism in such a spurious,distorted,and mystified
formthat
the critique does not generatea confrontationof the problems but a
parasitic complacencywith the system;by inversion,even an affirma34.
35.

Fuchs, Anselm Kiefer, p. 57.

Scrota, Markus Liipertz.

OCTOBER

68

tion coming from the "soul" can be derivedfromthis critique....

Without doubt, expressionism is only one of the many bourgeois
ideological currentseventually leading to fascism, and its role as
ideological preparationis not anymoreor less importantthancurrents
of the imperialistepoch, inasmuch as theyexpressdecadentparasitic
features,including all the fakerevolutionaryand oppositional forces.
... This schism is deeply inherentin the characterof anti-bourgeois
ofcontentnot only
expressionismand thisabstractingimpoverishment
indicatesthe tendencyof expressionism;it is fromthe verybeginning
its central,insurmountablestylisticproblem,because its extraordinary
povertyof contentmarksa blatantcontradictionof the pretenseof its
performance,of the hybridsubjectivepathos of its representation.36
The mock avant-gardeof contemporaryEuropean painters now benefits
fromtheignoranceand arroganceof a racketof culturalparvenuswho perceiveit
the politics of a rigid conservatismthroughcultural
as theirmission to reaffirm
legitimation.

36.

Lukacs, "Gr6sse und Verfalldes Expressionismus,"p. 116.