Psychoanalysis on the Cultural Barricades

The fundamental paradigm shift in twentieth-century art and critical theory is the shift from Modernism to Postmodernism. Modernist artists, by and large, revered individuality, expression, originality, authenticity, purpose, and growth, a collective agenda highly congruent with psychoanalysis. Postmodern theorists and artists, inextricably entwined, challenged these fundamental Modernist tenets. The pressing goal was to expose and overthrow moribund art world ideologies and practices (which tacitly supported a capitalist, ethnocentric, and patriarchal power clique). Postmodernism, repudiating the myth of the Western White Male artist-genius, nihilistically jettisoned creative self-expression in the process (which tacitly foreclosed genuine support for marginalized and downtrodden artists). Psychoanalysis inevitably withered in a climate that proclaimed “the death of the author” (Barthes), where “a picture is but a space in which a variety of images, none of them original, blend and clash” (Sherrie Levine, plagiarizing Barthes). Twentieth-century aesthetics has become a deadlocked rivalry between the “old guard” (the conspicuously elitist Modernist coterie) and

the “new guard” (the speciously democratic Postmodern coterie). This paper evaluates these two warring camps—a tale of two fanatical enclaves—and makes a case for psychoanalytic psychology as a third and vital interpretive strategy for the history, theory, and practice of art.