TEACHING MACHINES AND AESTHETIC VALUES*

Abstract

Whatever may be said of the status of aesthetic values in everyday life in America, perhaps the most fascinating and most controversial cultural phenomenon in this country is the so-called New York School of painting, Abstract Expressionism. Springing partly from European roots, this uniquely American art style has proven of such vigor that it now has a widespread following among the avant-garde in Tokyo, London, Rome, and Munich. Even Paris itself, the old capital of modern art, has fallen under its spell. Evidence of this world-wide influence and prestige is readily available. One need only compare the production of younger artists at work in these cities with the work of such established New York painters as deKooning, Kline, Hofmann, Gottlieb, Motherwell, and Pollack. Or one may note the demand for their art by collectors and museums. Or compare price-tags. But no matter what one chooses to accept as evidence, it would be hard to deny what is now an obvious fact: Abstract Expressionism represents a range of aesthetic values of major cultural importance. It seems paradoxical, however, that Abstract Expressionist art flourishes as an aesthetic value in a society so thoroughly technological as ours. The paradox is apparent when it is noted that the ethical values these artists advance as necessary conditions for their creative production are in profound conflict with those of modern communal living. They appear to be defending highly individualistic, anti-intellectual, and even anti-social ethical values; yet these values run counter to those which are necessary conditions for modern society. I refer to the values of organization and mechanization which are now-or rapidly becoming-essential in our mass systems of communication, transportation, production and distribution, entertainment, and education. The strangeness is heightened by the fact that these societal values are responsible, in part, for the high esteem which Abstract Expressionism now enjoys. It has become a familiar part of our mass culture, mainly as a result of the distribution and saturation sales of reproductions and art books across the land. Since 1944, its official birth date, this art style has moved from the category of things judged to be grotesque, unwholesome, and outlandish to the status of a popular commodity. Sophisticated Americans buy reproductions of Abstract Expressionist work. Their more affluent friends buy the originals. But neither class of aesthetic consumer will accept along with this art the ethical commitments of the artists who produced it. Because of the publicity given their work, the stated and implied ethical positions of these artists have thereby been made to stand in sharp relief against the prevailing values of conformity in thought and action.