Reluctant Modernity,Used

ReviewA major contribution to the critical analysis of the autonomy of art in contemporary capitalism. Ales Debeljak, following in the tradition of Adorno and Habermas, provides a penetrating and comprehensive inquiry in the contradictory character of art in modern society. Bryan S. Turner, University of CambridgeAt last, a book which punctures the bolder claims of postmodernism, while retaining a shrewd perspective on the limitations of Modernist theories. Debeljak's book is an insightful addition to the literature. Required reading for serious social theorists. Chris Rojek, Brunel University, West LondonDebeljak's work elegantly restates the importance of the autonomy and the critical potential of art. It also forcefully articulates the problem that postmodernism obviates critique and makes important contributions to our understanding of the development of the institution of art through an excellent account which links this development to the public sphere. Nancy Weiss Hanrahan, George Mason University International Journal Of Politics, Culture, And SocietyProduct DescriptionIn this book, Ale Debeljak offers a refreshing alternative to postmodernists such as Baudrillard, who declare the death of art conceived as yet another source of rootless, circulating fictions. Inspired by the melancholy critical theory of Adorno and Benjamin, and drawing on Weber, Debeljak shows that with the dawning of modernity, art was made autonomous. Art production was effectively emancipated from the exigencies of everyday life and its guiding ideal of purposive rationality. The Renaissance brought on the first stage in a long, gradual withdrawal of art from the hitherto dominant mythological, religious, and aristocratic legitimization. Yet it was not until the 18th century that art assumed the separate status of a commodity to be bought and sold. However, art paid a price for its autonomy; through commodification art production ultimately become an extension of capitalist logic and control. The deterioration of bourgeois liberal individualism into the narcissism of mass society accompanied the decomposition of art into simplified mass art and commercialized kitsch. Maintaining its formal autonomy (museums, galleries, etc.), its content became the universal object of indirect corporate exploitation. Today postmodern art, argues Debeljak, is subjected to infinite reproducibility, total integration into mass society, and political resignationno longer representing an alternative reality. The postmodern institution of art thus cannot be simply cured of modern structures and assumptions, but is, instead, fated to a continuous and painful relationship with modernity.About the AuthorAle Debeljak, a leading Central European poet and cultural critic, teaches cultural studies at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. His books in English include Anxious Moments (1994) and Twilight of the Idols: Recollections of a Lost Yugoslavia (1994).