Wie sich das Bürgertum in Form hält. Moderne bildende Kunst als Herrschaftsmedium

Abstract

The sociological question is: Who benefits from modern avant-garde art, as a medium of power? This paper deals not with the trivial neo-Marxian theory of capitalism, but with the new theory of “bürgerliche Gesellschaft”, or civil-bourgeois-creative society. After all attempts to liquidate the structures and the classes of this special formation by non-civil societies of modernity (fascism and communism), a civil-bourgeois-creative class appeared during the 20th century, like a Phoenix, what is deeply connected to the exhibition and experience of modern art. To understand the link between the contemporary formation of society and the establishment of the cult of modern art, it is helpful to contrast it with the other avant-garde art project of the 20th century: The latter reaches from Mexican Muralism to Socialist Realism and promised an art revolution by including all non-bourgeois people (workers, peasants and soldiers) within representational modern painting – it was the modern art of inclusion. This avant-garde project was a means by which the modern non-bourgeois mass aimed at taking control of society. In contrast, abstract painting – and, as a result, all enigmatic art – is exclusive, including only those members of society who dare to train their existential creativity by dint of enigmatic art and to communicate respective individual ideas in social life. Graffiti or Street Art doubles this “light” enigmatic art at night. Modern abstract art is not harmless, but is an instrument of power of the civil-bourgeois-creative middle classes, displayed after their annihilation experience during the 20th century.