Louis Proyect wrote:
>
> --Daniel Lazare's skewering of Hilton Kramer's neoconservative "The New
> Criterion" magazine. "For him (Kramer), modernism is an object of worship,
> not a tool of experimentation; a weapon to employ against those would
> probe, analyze, or otherwise demystify power."
>
What issue # is this in? I'd like to read it. I used to read New Criterion all the time, famous for a McCarthy-like personal attack on Noam Chomsky. Kramer's essay *The Age of the Avant-Garde* is interesting, the avant-garde in visual art has exhausted itself, failing to deliver on its original promise. Kramer's real beef is that a lot of contemporary so-called 'avant-garde' art carries left wing themes; against homophobia, racism etc. Kramer doesn't realize that attempts to turn back the clock and have artists paint in the style of Matisse or Mondrian necessarily falls into parody. Kramer does not realize that certain histrorical periods and styles are a product of the social-historical environment in which they take place.
Another journal *Modern Painters* is similiar to NC, it features Kramer, Scruton et. al. and is dedicated to reviving the tradition of high modernism. It was founded and edited by ex-Marxist Peter Fuller until his death a few years ago. The critic Jed Perl writes for it too. He takes a lot of flack in these pubs for his supposed liberalism. I recommend his book on modern French painting. This mileau do have some good points like critics should avoid needless jargon, jargon which pubs like Art in America incomprehensible.
Sam Pawlett