Uploaded September 2022 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago

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Alex Sheremet is joined by painter Ethan Pinch of @AnthropomorphicHorse to discuss Clement Greenberg’s classic essay, "Avant-Garde and Kitsch". They take differing views on the art critic, partly due to their different judgments on the value of abstract expressionism as a whole. Questions tackled include: is kitsch a legitimate part of artistic judgment, or is it merely an aesthetic object? Do Clement Greenberg and other Marxist critics fall into an anti-Marxist idealism trap? Is E.B. White’s “Charlotte’s Web” an example of kitsch, and if so, is every example of great children’s writing by definition kitsch? Did Clement Greenberg promote bad art?

Clipped from ArtiFact #13: NFTs, Kitsch, 90s Culture, Rap Music, R.W. Fassbinder | Alex Sheremet, Ethan Pinch - youtube.com/watch?v=z4O594Rqu5w

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Read Clement Greenberg's essay, "Avant-Garde and Kitsch": en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avant-Garde_and_Kitsch

Tags: #abstractart, #kitsch, #aesthetics