When the New Becomes Old

When does the new in a particular art movement become old and irrelevant? When, for instance, did the Dada gesture lose its force as an artistic statement? "It never had any," some would say. But Duchamp defined Dada as simply the act of raising the question, "What is art?" and said that such an act was important and relevant in any place and time. I would agree...but I would add that even the act of raising the question "What is art?" can lose its freshness, its relevance.

I don't suppose there's any precise and predictable moment when an art movement can be identified as irrelevant. Perhaps it's something like asking, when will your child become tired of a favorite toy? I've noticed that my son has grown tired of most of his toys and books lately. He also seems to crave new experiences--trips to unknown stores and homes, unknown wilderness terrains. If, as I said in yesterday's post, "play" is an activity in which one does something to discover what new thing will happen, my boy knows just about everything that will happen with all of his toys, so the sense of discovery is missing for him these days when he plays with them.

Perhaps an art movement dies when the sense of discovery is missing for all of its participants and spectators. On the other hand, we do not crave the absolutely new, all of the time. My son likes to return home after an excursion; he likes his daily routine; he likes many of the old books, still. And we still do enjoy, after all, the Pantheon and the Mona Lisa, even now when the particular art movements with which they were associated have long since faded away.

Kant probably had it right when he talked about the sublime and the beautiful, where the word "sublime" signifies the incommensurable (if I can brutally paraphrase his writings) and "beautiful" indicates perfect harmony and order. Every art movement has to begin with something incommensurable or unfathomable, then settle into some kind of orderly arrangement; that's perhaps the nature of all life and growth. So perhaps the real question is: when is it time for the incommensurable to make an appearance? In life, and in art?