Essays, Analyses and Meditations


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Art since World War II

  • World War II caused a complete collapse of artistic values
  • An aesthetic of shock was born: art as a shock against the traditional taboos and prevailing aesthetic codes
  • Artistic innovation still consists in finding ever new ways to challenge aesthetic, social, political and religious dogmas
  • The more controversy the more creative the artist
  • The anxiety of the Cold War gave a tragic mood to much of this program
  • Art in the 1990s benefited from the end of the Cold War in that the tragic mood increasingly became a comic mood
  • Art became "play", a way to make people smile and laugh
  • Art became entertainment for a society much less preoccupied with its own survival and with a short attention span
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