"Warhol's art can both subvert (up to a point) formal art and, at the same time, offer socially provocative documents to the ordinary, white, middle-class citizen. Blacks and the poor do not like Warhol's art or movies. Documents that are mainly intended as deliberate references to a predominant white culture cannot incite the imaginations of those who don't give a fuck for that culture in the first place, even if they did understand what it was all about. This inability of Warhol to reach blacks and the poor represents the weakest aspect of his art. Warhol's art implies a certain disgust on the part of the artist for culture — a disgust he shares in common with New Left revolutionaries and progressive activist artists and critics. His latest decision, to stop painting altogether, is a deliberate step in the direction away from culture itself. It is also an inevitable step, as the very notion of art works that possess a quality as items to be traded upon the New York art exchange is incompatible with the socialisation of art. Modern culture is a repressive, police agency. The police function of modern culture has been recognized by Warhol. His paintings of electric chairs, police attacks, most-wanted men, and car crashes all seem to reflect in art the reality of an official culture of repression rather than of life."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Gregory Battcock, in: Art and Artists, Vol. 5 (1970), p. 13; Republished in Gregory Battcock. The new art: a critical anthology, (1973) p. 27
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gregory_Battcock
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Gregory Battcock
Gregory Battcock (New York, 1937 – San Juan, Puerto Rico, 1980) was an American art critic and writer, who performed in , a 1966 Andy Warhol film made at the Factory.
7 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Gregory Battcock →
Related Quotes
"What is video art? How does it differ from commercial television? Is video art linked to such traditional art forms a…"
"Video art is art that will stretch the boundaries of the art world."
"(Performance) art is, perhaps, the first art phenomenon to clearly demonstrate that modern art has become antiquated.…"
"Before man was aware of art he was aware of himself. Awareness of the person is, then, the first art. In performance …"
"Battcock was close friends with Andy Warhol and starred in several of the artist’s films, including "Batman Dracula,"…"
"In the first reel (of '), you see a close-up of art critic Gregory Battcock as he is receiving a blow-job. Like the s…"
"For him delicious flavors dwell In books as in old Muscatel."
"And in the evening, everywhere Along the roadside, up and down, I see the golden torches flare Like lighted street-la…"
"Song like a rose should be; Each rhyme a petal sweet; For fragrance, melody, That when her lips repeat The words, her…"
"Arise, O Soul, and gird thee up anew, Though the black camel Death kneel at thy gate; No beggar thou that thou for al…"