The Augean Stables of Modern Time: Is New Art Emerging?

The paradox: modernism worshipped the individual but somehow forgot the human, and step by step degenerated into soldiery. To a large extent, it was the modernist philosophy that created the conditions for the “ideal” social systems of Stalin and Hitler’s to appear. It also led to the two world wars.

No surprise that after these two “unsuccessful attempts to commit suicide”, as Kurt Vonnegut called them, society tried to reject this world view and its values.

“…mother say do go in That direction and please do the greatest deed of all time and say I say mother but it’s already been done and she say well what else is there for you to do and I say I don't know mother, but I’m not going in That direction – I’m going in that direction and she say ok but where will you be and I say I don't know mother but I’m not Tom Joad and she say all right then I am not your mother…” Bob Dylan, Tarantula

The destruction force of the two world wars caused such a strong shock, that the post-war society sought, above all, to refuse modernism ideological myths and its rhetoric, pathetic, pathos. Titan-individual, demiurge-individual, heroism and sacrifices for a better tomorrow now seemed imposed ideas that couldn’t and hadn’t led to anything but war. But though the necessity to disengage from the myths of the époque gone by was obvious, there was no clear vision of direction or means of development. Trouble and anxiety replaced the withered idea of a better future.

In that context, irony and self-irony were nearly the sole refuge as they help to refrain from pathos when it comes to fears and neurotic reactions. This is like letting out a hysterical laughter after a strong stress has released its grip.

On the other hand, post-war society hastened to assign the equally-demiurge function to each and every individual and to declare pluralism the main virtue. Everybody is equal, everybody has creative ability, and everybody is free to create his/her own universe. Every result of creative act is interesting and can be called art, if only the creator is ready to consider and call it so.

Thus, irony and pluralism became the main features of this new mentality. However, with irony as the main – and more and more often, the only – artistic method, creating anything new became simply impossible. Irony is by nature deconstruction, and deconstruction can only be used on something already existing. This doomed artists to do nothing more than compile all the previously existing styles and forms and endlessly replicate those compilations.

As for pluralism, leveling down all the results of creative activity lead to devaluation and soon to dissipation of the notion of school as an incessant chain of succession that is key to art development.

«Starting with the noble proposition that all of the multiple perspectives are to be treated fairly and impartially (“pluralism and rich diversity”), postmodernism slides, in its extreme forms, into the insidious notion that no perspective whatsoever is better than another, a confusion that results in complete paralysis of will, thought, and action. Madness it is indeed: it claims no view is better than another, except its own view, which is superior in a world where nothing is supposed to be superior at all. And worse: if no view is better than another, then the Nazis and the KKK are on the same moral footing as, say, art critics» Ken Wilber, «One taste»

Thus, postmodernism led itself into a deadlock. As long as it was about the deconstruction of the modernism myths, postmodernism was alive and kicking, however, as soon as the deconstruction phase came to an end, postmodernism was simply unable to create anything new, or, at the very least, meaningful and independent. As irony degraded into endless and annoying sarcasm, the joke quickly became stale; and the wonderful humanist pluralism eroded the notion of art in general.

It seems now is the time to again define the borders of art, and to discover its future development course. For this purpose we should understand whether it is possible to ponder on meanings and to have a serious discussion without running to the extremes of modernist pathos on one hand and postmodernist sarcasm on the other.

«Art is a recoilless weapon, and its development is determined not by the individuality of the artist, but by the dynamics and the logic of the material itself, by the previous fate of the means that each time demand (or suggest) a qualitatively new aesthetic solution. Possessing its own genealogy, dynamics, logic, and future, art is not synonymous with, but at best parallel to history; and the manner by which it exists is by continually creating a new aesthetic reality. That is why it is often found “ahead of progress”, ahead of history, whose main instrument is … precisely the cliché» Joseph Brodsky, Nobel Lecture

The real, essential opposition to pathos is sincerity. Somehow postmodernism evaded it, either by not having considered it interesting and bright enough or just by leveling it with pathos. Despite this fact there were visionaries, artists, poets, etc., who did consider sincerity the main terms and conditions of art even when using stylistic methods of postmodernism. Such examples can be found both in Western and in Russian art.

Kurt Vonnegut, for instance, could seem quite close to postmodernism in terms of style, but above all he was flat-out sincere and never avoided any “serious conversation”. All the grotesque viewpoints he created easily in his novels, his irony and mosaic-like narration worked for one and only intention, to give a voice to his clear ethical position.

In Russia, or more correctly, in the Russian-language culture, the brightest examples were probably Joseph Brodsky and Sergey Dovlatov. In fact, the latter directly said that honesty was the basis for his artistic method.

This approach set the vector for further motion in art. It is a mature, open and sincere conversation, where form is only necessary to express an idea with the utmost precision; and it is going to take over postmodernism’s endless games.

At the same time, new art cannot be stylistically uniform, as it is a direct worldview manifestation of a particular artist with particular chosen means of art. In this case, the only thing that counts is the artist’s adherence to his own philosophy.

«Which leaves the transpersonal worldspaces with their contents, themes, and perceptions. All of these realms are, indeed, transpersonal, which simply means those realities that include, but go beyond, the personal and the individual—wider currents that sweep across the skin-encapsulated ego and touch other beings, touch the cosmos, touch spirit, touch patterns and places kept secret to those who hug the surfaces and surround themselves with themselves» Ken Wilber, «One taste»

Since its main trait, as we already mentioned, is sincerity, we decided to call it sincerism. Sincerism sounds better than post-postmodernism.

Despite the fact that sincerism preserves its cultural roots, its main source is neither found in culture per se, nor in artistic commentary, nor even in the artist’s personality with its neuroses, fears and hopes. The source is a transpersonal experience that the author seeks to express. It is evident that an artist cannot exist out of a cultural context. But this context gives him the means of communication to express the experience rather that the experience itself. As Joseph Brodsky puts it, the artist perceives himself as his native “language’s means”.

Sincerism doesn’t discard the experience of its predecessors. On the contrary, it inherits the humanist impulse of early postmodernism and combines it with the modernist aspiration to common good. A humanistic world view and a clear ethical position are inherent to sincerism. But when modernism imposed its ideals on everyone around, the sincerist applies his ideals to himself, first of all. Aspiring to common good is appropriate to the extent – and only to that extent – that a person considers appropriate and is ready to take part in. The individual defines his position relying on the awareness that he /she is not separate from society, but without allowing society to become a violent dictator. Thus, the sincerist is a mature, independent and responsible person (as contrasted to a postmodernist brought up by a nursing society and unable to outgrow the neuroses of puberty).

Accordingly, the sincerist artist views his/her audience as a community of mature people that do not need meaning interpretation or clues from specially trained curators. Both artist and audience are independent. To express an experience the author picks up no other language, methods and means but those that do it the best possible way. And this is typical for sincerist art: for each new art work (read, for each new content) the one and only form is found.