Discussion Response 1

1. In Avant-Garde and Kitsch, Greenberg outlines the idea that "real art" occupies a precarious position: "real art" was oppressed in authoritarian regimes, but in the US it relied on wealth. Artists had to fund their art, and without funding, they would not be able to exercise the artistic freedoms provided to them by the US government. Greenberg called this an "umbilical cord of gold."

How does this reliance on funding sit with you? Is it right that artists should be reliant on the commercial success of their work, or should there be some other way to support art/design/culture that is truly challenging and maybe even disliked? How might an ideal society support Avant-Garde art, design, or ideas?

Your response should be approximately 200 words

2.In Modernist Painting, Greenberg identifies a few aspects of painters that he believes are unique to painting. On page 4 of the PDF, he says

"It was in the name of the purely and literally optical, not in the name of color, that the Impressionists set themselves to undermining shading and modeling and everything else in painting that seemed to connote the sculptural."

Shading and modeling, to Greenberg, were things that belonged to sculpture and thus were eliminated from painting on the way toward "purity". He goes on to list flatness, the "enclosing shape or frame" (i.e. the shape of the support of the canvas), and the idea of paint texture are things that belong to a "pure" painting.

If flatness, the shape of the canvas' support, and paint texture are characteristics of a "pure" painting, what are characteristics of a "pure" monument or a "pure" memorial? List two, and explain why you believe them to be essential to a monument or memorial.

Your response should be approximately 200 words.