Arts & International Affairs: Volume 2, Number 2 | Page 35

Theodor Adorno (����) argues that the aesthetic is embedded in art and
provides the work with the quality necessary to provoke a critical reaction
from the observer. Adorno explicates how the aesthetic does or does not
make for beautiful art. He argues that there is a competitive tension, or
dialectic, between beauty and ugliness in each successfully executed work of
art. For him, the critical function of art is wholly dependent in the presence
of both components because beauty projects out of the dialectic tension
with ugliness in the spectator’s reception of the work.
Beautiful art appeals to the best elements of human nature; these works
make us better, as cultured individuals, through engagement with them. But
the desire to cultivate the mind is under threat in the West from pervasive
incuriosity (Epstein ����). A new and optimistic defense for it is needed.
High art sharpens our ability to think critically. The individual with highbrow
taste genuinely prefers reading serious literature, interpreting an abstract
painting or trying to articulate how a classical score makes him feel. There is
a disinterested passion not only for these works’ aesthetic qualities, but also
in the sensation of intellectual growth.
The unwillingness to grow the mind has many causes, but in culture it is
aided by art created with the sole intention to please through contrived
representations of undiluted beauty. Adorno labels these works as kitsch, or
“sugary trash”, because they are packaged to consumers for the sole purpose
consumption as an enjoyable experience. Kitsch is the object of middlebrow
taste. Consider Alberto Giacometti’s evocative Man Pointing (����), currently
on view at Tate Modern, and then consider the un-subtlety of Best Time Ever,
Neil Patrick Harris’ short-lived ���� variety show on NBC, and the difference
becomes apparent. The latter, whose title anticipates the futility in promising
exponentially increasing amounts of fun, was doubtless sugary trash.
To prize a creative work for its accessibility and ease to enjoy appeals to
the basest human desires. High art, on the other hand, remains beautiful
through epochs, but it also challenges audiences to engage and develop
intellectually and spiritually as a result of their participation. There is a
tendency on the left to blame the proliferation of kitsch on the Culture
Industry, the economic complex that Adorno and Max Horkheimer theorize
as an explanation for how capital dictates cultural consumption and tastes to
the masses. The Culture Industry is a persuasive text, but it fails to acknowledge
that the individual is his own agent fully capable of making discriminating
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