A CRITICAL HISTORY OF 20TH-CENTURY ART
by Donald Kuspit
In the introduction to his new book, to be published in Artnet Magazine, the author examines the rise of the avant-garde.

Dec. 27, 2005

Introduction
Twentieth Century Art: An Overview of Critical Opinion
"The real problem of modernity is the problem of belief," writes Daniel Bell, the sociologist and political theorist. "To use an unfashionable term, it is a spiritual crisis, since the new anchorages have proved illusory and the old ones have become submerged. It is a situation which brings us back to nihilism; lacking a past or a future, there is only a void."(1) Modern art, in all its seemingless limitless variety, presents itself as one solution to the problem, indeed, as some think, the only important solution.
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