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Title: Clement Greenberg Late Writings by Clement Greenberg, Robert C. Morgan ISBN: 0-8166-3938-8 Publisher: University of Minnesota Press Pub. Date: 01 February, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (3 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: He's going down in history
Comment: as the baddest critic "that ever could be".
Hilton Kramer and I agree on at least one thing: the publication of Clement Greenberg's *Late Writings* is an exceptionally welcome event. But should Kramer think Greenberg would be pleased by his critical stance, I must ask what possible reason there would be for that. Really, the *New Criterion* is *Scheisseclem*: pampered "terrors" trying not to like new developments, such as the growing evenness of women's representation in the art world. But if Greenberg is to be dug up as a support for attacks on "modifications" to modernist traditions, I must confess the evidence for his foursquare opposition to such preening and prancing lies elsewhere: namely, in his private collection, now on display at the Portland Art Museum.
If one expects this to consist in backdrops for Buddy Lee commercials, we are very far gone from the singleness of purpose manifested in Greenberg's classic writing (even his issuing of the first principled Luxemburgist statement in the US): the portion of the collection on display (?) consists primarily of muted and small color-field paintings -- and if you think this is at all funny, you probably didn't read art-appreciation teacher Barnett Newman's passionate inveighing against Hegel, Marx and Lenin (recommending Spinoza, Plato and Kropotkin instead).
Clement Greenberg was inclined to give young people the benefit of the doubt, and it shows: his defense of modernist values was none too dessicated, even in this era, and there are shades of Rothkonia in the packaging of this book. (Compare with the "homemade aesthetics" of his collected pieces.) Still, it's refreshing to have ready access to such *principled* materials and the fact of this is testament to the durability of Greenberg's prose: also the quality which made him an artist's *favorite*, a complete lack of both exoticist and theoreticist tendencies. In other words, this book has already paid for itself, and I'm inclined to let partisans of the "counter-avant-garde" (and occasional patrons of "art prostitutes") do the same.
Rating: 3
Summary: Inessential Greenberg
Comment: I'm not sure that the publication of this book was a great idea. I can understand that there was a need to tie up some loose ends to cover the period of Greenberg's writing after 1969 (where the "Collected Essays" left off).
However, by this point, Greenberg's essays were beginning to sound like a stuck record- the flexibility and openness of his classic criticism of the 1940s and 1950s was replaced by an ossified aesthetic, a dogma which prevented him from dealing relevantly with artistic practice from the 1960s onwards. This is exemplified most clearly by the essay "Modern and PostModern", where Greenberg says nothing helpful whatsoever about the Postmodern, but simply trots out his definition of Modernism for the umpteenth time. One wonders whether Greenberg had actually bothered to find anything out about PostModernism before dismissing it so casually.
Nevertheless this book has its moments. It contains some good interviews with Greenberg, where his pithy responses are both witty and incisive. Asked about the relation between Abstract Expressionism and Existentialism, he replies, "Phew! How did that fit in? Existentialism. Existentialism came from Paris and sounded jazzy. At the time, they [art writers] would co-opt anything." Furthermore, some of the essays are shot through with the odd sharp insight, especially "Influences of Matisse," where Greenberg waxes lyrical about the artist who exemplified his paradigm of a cool, detached, materialist Modernism most succinctly.
However, there is a pervading tone of laziness; the writing is often casual where it was once lean and precise, and the length of some of the essays is frustratingly short, sometimes only a page and a half long. It is quite astonishing that a critic who wrote such lengthy, sophisticated gems as "The Jewishness of Franz Kafka" and "The Plight of Our Culture" back in his heyday, could become so complacent. Furthermore, two of the essays, "Can Taste Be Objective?" and "Seminar 6", are already contained in "Homemade Esthetics," which is a stronger collection than this one. Perhaps the two collections could have been combined in one, saving the reader some time (and cash). ...
Rating: 5
Summary: Modern Art In a Nutshell
Comment: I read a four-volume set of the collected writings of Clement Greenberg and consider this to be the fifth book, even though a different editor put it together. It wraps up what I read earlier and clarifies what little Greenberg had left to clarify of his aesthetic. Granted it is only one man's opinions, but what opinions! Even if you don't agree with many of his individual ideas, he gives off a profound sense of understanding the ins and out of Modern Art. Further, if what he states is Modern, you are left with a sense of what must be Postmodern. He touches briefly on that topic as well.
I recommend this book both for artists and for anyone attempting to understand Modern Art. Greenberg's writing became a little thicker as he aged, but he is about as down-to-earth as a critic of his type can be. You might have to run to the dictionary here and there, but that is a small price to pay for what you get in return. If you are frustrated with other art critics being too opaque, Greenberg is a good alternative. Well, I can't help but add that, to me, he is one of the definitive critics of Modern Art!
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Title: Art and Culture Critical Essays: Critical Essays (Beacon Paperback, 212) by Clement Greenberg, C. Greenber ISBN: 0807066818 Publisher: Beacon Press Pub. Date: 01 June, 1978 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
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Title: Clement Greenburg: The Collected Essays and Criticism Vol. 4 - Modernism With a Vengeance, 1957-1969 by Clement Greenberg, John O'Brian ISBN: 0226306240 Publisher: University of Chicago Press Pub. Date: 01 March, 1995 List Price(USD): $17.00 |
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Title: The Collected Essays and Criticism: Perceptions and Judgments 1939-1944 by Clement Greenberg, John O'Brian ISBN: 0226306216 Publisher: University of Chicago Press Pub. Date: 01 March, 1988 List Price(USD): $18.00 |
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Title: The Collected Essays and Criticism: Arrogant Purpose, 1945-1949 by Clement Greenberg, John O'Brian ISBN: 0226306224 Publisher: University of Chicago Press Pub. Date: 01 March, 1988 List Price(USD): $22.00 |
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Title: After Modern Art, 1945-2000 (Oxford History of Art) by David Hopkins ISBN: 019284234X Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: 01 September, 2000 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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