The Search for Tradition: Avant-Garde and Postmodernism in the 1970s

Author(s): Andreas Huyssen

Source: New German Critique, No. 22, Special Issue on Modernism (Winter, 1981), pp. 23-40
Published by: Duke University Press
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The Searchfor Tradition:
Avant-Garde
and Postmodernism in the1970s*

by Andreas Huyssen

Imagine WalterBenjamin in Berlin,the cityof his childhood,walking

throughthe internationalavant-gardeexhibit Tendenzender zwanziger
Jahre,on displayin 1977 in the new Nationalgaleriebuiltby Bauhaus ar-
chitectMies van der Rohe in the 1960s. Imagine Walter Benjamin as a
flaneurin the cityof boulevardsand arcades he so admirablydescribed,
happeningupon the Centre Georges Pompidou and itsmulti-mediashow
Paris-Berlin 1900-1933, which was a major culturalevent in 1978. Or
imaginethe theoristof media and imagereproductionin 1981in frontof a
televisionset watchingRobertHughes' BBC-producedeight-part serieson
avant-gardeart "The Shock of the New."' Would thismajor criticand
aesthetician of the avant-gardehave rejoiced in its success- manifest
even in the architectureof the museumshousingthe exhibits- or would
shadows of melancholyhave clouded his eyes? Would he, perhaps,have
been shockedby "The Shock of theNew" or wouldhe have feltcalledupon
to revise the theoryof post-auraticart? Or would he simplyhave argued
that the administeredcultureof late capitalismhad finallysucceeded in
imposingthe phonyspell of commodityfetishismeven on thatart which
more thanany otherhad challengedthevalues and traditionsofbourgeois
culture?Maybe afteranotherpenetrating monu-
gaze at thatarchitectural
ment to wholesale technologicalprogressin the heartof Paris, Benjamin
would have quoted himself:"In everyera the attemptmustbe made to
wresttraditionaway froma conformism thatis about to overpowerit."2
Thus mighthe acknowledgenot onlythattheavant-garde- embodiment

* An earlierversionof thisessaywas presented on Innovation/Ren-

at theSymposium
novation:Current
TrendsandReconceptions inWesternCulture washeldinWiirzburg
which
and MunichinJune1980.
1. Catalogues: Tendenzender ZwanzigerJahre:15. EuropiiischeKunstausstellung
(Berlin,
1977); Wemgehoirt in der WeimarerRepublik,Neue Gesell-
die Welt:Kunstund Gesellschaft
schaft Kunst(Berlin,1977);Paris- Berlin1900-1933,
fiirbildende Centre Pompidou
Georges
(Paris,1978).RobertHughes'television inbookformas The
serieshasalsobeenpublished
Shock of theNew (New York, 1981). See also Paris - Moscow 1900-1930, CentreGeorges
Pompidou(Paris,1979).
2. WalterBenjamin,"ThesesonthePhilosophy inIlluminations,
ofHistory," ed. Hannah
Arendt(New York,1969).

23

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24 Huyssen

of anti-tradition - has itselfbecome tradition,but, moreover,that its

inventionsand its imaginationhave become integraleven to Western
culture'smost officialmanifestations.
Of course, thereis nothingnew in such observations.Alreadyin the
early 1960s Hans Magnus Enzensbergerhad analyzed the aporias of the
avant-garde3and Max Frischhad attributedto Brecht"the strikinginef-
fectualnessof a classic."4 The use of visual montage,one of the major
inventionsof the avant-garde,alreadyhad become standardprocedurein
commercialadvertising,and remindersof literarymodernismpopped up
in Volkswagen's beetle ads: "Und liuft und liuft und lauft." In fact,
obituarieson modernismand theavant-gardeabounded in the 1960s,both
in WesternEurope and the United States.
Avant-garde and modernismhad not only been accepted as major
culturalexpressionsof the20thcentury.They were fastbecominghistory.
This thenraisedquestionsabout thestatusof thatartand literature which
was produced afterWorld War II, afterthe exhaustionof surrealismand
abstraction,afterthedeath of Musil and Thomas Mann, Valdryand Gide,
Joyceand T. S. Eliot. One of thefirstcriticsto theorizeabout a shiftfrom
modernismto postmodernismwas IrvingHowe in his 1959 essay "Mass
Society and PostmodernFiction."s And only a year later,HarryLevin
used the same conceptof the postmodernto designatewhathe saw as an
"anti-intellectualundercurrent" whichthreatenedthe humanismand en-
lightenment so characteristic
of thecultureofmodernism.6 Writerssuchas
Enzensberger and Frischclearly continued in the traditionof modernism
(and this is true forEnzensberger'spoetry of the early 1960sas well as for
Frisch's plays and novels), and criticssuch as Howe and Levin sided with
modernismagainstthe newerdevelopments,whichtheycould onlysee as
symptomsof decline.But postmodernism7 tookoffwitha vengeancein the

3. Hans Magnus Enzensberger,"Die Aporien der Avantgarde,"in Einzelheiten:Poesie

und Politik(Frankfurt am Main, 1962). In thisessayEnzensbergeranalyzesthecontradictions
in the temporalsensibilityof avant-gardism, the relationshipof artisticand politicalavant-
gardes, and certainpost-1945avant-gardephenomenasuch as artinformel, actionpainting,
and the literatureof the beat generation.His major thesisis thatthehistoricalavant-gardeis
dead and thatthe revivalof avant-gardism after1945 is fraudulentand regressive.
4. Max Frisch,"Der Autor und das Theater" (1964), in GesammelteWerkein zeitlicher
Folge, vol 5:2 (Frankfurtam Main, 1976), p. 342.
5. PartisanReview, 26 (1959), 420-436. Reprintedin IrvingHowe, The Decline of the
New (New York, 1970), pp. 190-207.
6. HarryLevin, "What Was Modernism?"(1960), in Refractions (New York, 1966),p. 271.
7. It is not my purpose in thisessay to defineand delimitthe term"postmodernism"
conceptually.Since the 1960s the termhas accumulatedseveral layersof meaningwhich
should not be forcedinto the straight-jacket of a systematicdefinition.In thisessay theterm
"postmodernism"will variouslyreferto Americanartmovementsfrompop to performance,
to recentexperimentalism in dance, theatreand fiction,and to certainavant-gardisttrendsin
literarycriticismfromthe workof Leslie Fiedlerand Susan Sontag in the 1960sto the more
recentappropriationof Frenchculturaltheoryby Americancriticswho mayor maynot call

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 and Postmodernism 25
Avant-garde

early to mid-1960s,mostvisiblyin Pop art,in experimentalfiction,and in

the criticismof Leslie Fiedler and Susan Sontag. Since thenthe notionof
postmodernismhas become key to almost any attemptto capture the
specificand unique qualitiesof contemporary activitiesin artand architec-
ture, in dance and music, in literatureand theory.Debates in the late
1960s and early 1970s in the United States were increasingly obliviousto
modernismand to the historicalavant-garde.Postmodernism reignedsu-
preme, and a sense of noveltyand culturalchangewas pervasive.
How thendo we explainthe strikingfascinationof the late 1970swith
the avant-gardeof the firstthreeto fourdecades of thiscentury?What is
the meaningof thisenergeticcome-back,in the age of postmodernism, of
Dada, constructivism, futurism,surrealism,and the New Objectivity of
the Weimar Republic? Exhibits of the classical avant-gardein France,
Germany, England and the United States turned into major cultural
events. Substantialstudiesof theavant-gardewerepublishedin theUnited
States and in West Germanyinitiatinglivelydebates.8Conferenceswere
held on variousaspectsof modernismand theavant-garde.9 All of thishas
happened at a timewhen thereseems to be littledoubt thatthe classical
avant-gardehas exhaustedits creativepotentialand when the waningof
the avant-gardeis widelyacknowledgedas a faitaccompli. Is thisa case,
then, of Hegel's owl of Minerva beginningits flightafterthe shades of
nighthave fallen?Or are we dealingwitha nostalgiaforthe "good years"
of 20th-century culture?And ifnostalgiait is, does it pointto theexhaus-
tionofculturalresources inourowntimeordoesitholdthe
andcreativity
promiseof a revitalizationin contemporary culture?What,afterall, is the
of
place postmodernism in all this?Can we perhapscomparethisphenom-
enon with that other obnoxious nostalgiaof the 1970s,the nostalgiafor
egyptian mummies (Tut exhibitin U.S.), medieval emperors(Stauffer
exhibitin Stuttgart),or, most recently,Vikings(Minneapolis)? A search

themselves Someusefuldiscussions
postmodernists. canbe foundinMatei
ofpostmodernism
Calinescu, Faces of Modernity:Avant-Garde,Decadence, Kitsch(Bloomingtonand London,
1977),especiallypp. 132-143; in a specialissueon postmodernism ofAmerikastudien, 1
(1977);thisissuealsocontains
a substantive onpostmodernism,
bibliography ibid.,pp.40-46.
For a criticaltreatment
oftheappropriation ofFrenchculturaltheorybyAmerican literary
criticssee FrankLentricchia,
After theNewCriticism (Chicago,1980).On recenttrendsin
Americanculturesee Salmagundi, 50-51 (Fall 1980-Winter1981),a specialissueon Art
and Intellectin America.
8. Calinescu(see footnote
7); PeterBiirger,Theorie
derAvantgarde (FrankfurtamMain,
1974); 'Theorie der Avantgarde':Antwortenauf PeterBiirgersBestimmungvon Kunstund
ed. W. Martin
Gesellschaft,
birgerlicher amMain,1976);Biirger's
Liidke(Frankfurt replyto
- Rezeption- Funktion
his critics is contained in the introductionto his Vermittlung
(Frankfurt oftheBerlinjournalAlter-
amMain,1979);specialissueonMontage/Avantgarde
(1978). See also theessaysbyJiurgen
native,122/123 and Karl
Habermas,HansPlatscheck
Heinz Bohrer in Stichwortezur 'GeistigenSituationder Zeit,' 2 vols., ed. JiirgenHabermas
(Frankfurt am Main,1979).
9. E.g., the1979conference
on fascism inMadison,Wisconsin.
andtheavant-garde

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26 Huyssen

fortraditionsseems to be involvedin all theseinstances.Is thissearchfor

traditionperhaps just anothersign of the conservatismof the 1970s,the
culturalequivalent, as it were, of the politicalbacklash or the so-called
Tendenzwende?Or, alternatively,can we interpretthe museumand tv
revivalof the classical avant-gardeas a defenseagainstthe neo-conserva-
tiveattackson thecultureof modernismand avant-gardism, attackswhich
have intensifiedin these last years in Germany,France and the United
States?
In orderto answersome of thesequestionsitmaybe usefulto compare
the statusof art, literatureand criticismin the late 1970swiththatof the
1960s. Paradoxically,the 1960s,forall theirattackson modernismand the
avant-garde,stillstand closer to the traditionalnotionof the avant-garde
than the archeologyof modernityso characteristic of thelate 1970s.Much
confusioncould have been avoided if criticshad paid closer attentionto
distinctionsthatneed to be made betweenavant-gardeand modernismas
well as to the differentrelationshipof each one to mass culturein the
United States and Europe respectively.Americancriticsespeciallytended
to use the termsavantgardeand modernisminterchangeably. To give just
two examples, Renato Poggioli's Theoryof theAvant-Garde,translated
fromthe Italian in 1968,was reviewedin the UnitedStates as ifit were a
book about modernism'0and John Weightman'sThe Concept of the
Avant-Gardeof 1973is subtitledExplorationsin Modernism."Both avant-
garde and modernismmay legitimatelybe understoodas representing
artisticemanationsfromthesensibility of modernity, butfroma European
perspective it makes little sense to lump Thomas Mann togetherwith
Dada, Proust withAndre Breton, or Rilke withRussian constructivism.
While thereare areas of overlap betweenthe traditionof the avant-garde
and thatof modernism(e.g., vorticismand Ezra Pound, radicallanguage
experimentationand JamesJoyce,expressionismand GottfriedBenn) the
overall aestheticand politicaldifferences are too pervasiveto be ignored.
Thus Matei Calinescu makes the followingpoint: "In France,Italy,Spain
and other European countriesthe avant-garde,despite its various and
oftencontradictory claims,tendsto be regardedas themostextremeform
of artisticnegativism- artitselfbeingthefirstvictim.As formodernism,
whatever its specific meaning in differentlanguages and for different
authors,it neverconveysthatsense of universaland hysterical negationso
characteristicof the avant-garde.The anti-traditionalism of modernismis
often subtlytraditional."'2 As to the politicaldifferences, the historical
avant-gardetended predominantly to the left,the major exceptionbeing
Italian futurism,while the rightcould claim a surprising numberof mod-

10. Referencesin Calinescu, Faces of Modernity,p. 140 and p. 287, fn.40.

11. JohnWeightman,The Conceptof theAvant-Garde(La Salle, Ill., 1973).
12. Calinescu, Faces of Modernity,p. 140.

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 Avant-gardeand Postmodernism 27

ernistsamong its supporters,Ezra Pound, Knut Hamsun, GottfriedBenn

among others.
Whereas Calinescu makes muchof the negativistic, anti-aestheticand
self-destructive aspectsof theavant-gardeas opposed to thereconstructive
art of the modernists,the aestheticand politicalprojectof theavant-garde
mightbe approached in more positiveterms.In modernismartand litera-
ture retainedtheirtraditional19th-century autonomyfromeverydaylife,
an autonomywhichhad firstbeen articulatedby Kant and Schillerin the
late 18thcentury;the "institution art" (Peter Biurger'3),i.e., thetradition-
tional way in whichart and literaturewere produced,disseminated,and
received, is never challengedby modernismbut maintainedintact.Mod-
ernistssuch as T. S. Eliot and Ortega y Gasset emphasizedtimeand again
thatitwas theirmissionto salvage thepurityof highartfromtheencroach-
ments of urbanization, massification,technologicalmodernization,in
short,of modernmass culture.The avant-gardeof the firstthreedecades
of thiscentury,however,attemptedto subvertart'sautonomy,itsartificial
separation fromlife, and its institutionalization as "high art" whichwas
perceived to feed right into the legitimation needs of the 19th-century
formsof bourgeois society.The avant-gardeposited the reintegration of
art and life as its major project at a time when that traditionalsociety,
especially in Italy,Russia and Germany,was undergoinga major transfor-
mation towarda qualitativelynew stage of modernity.Social and political
fermentof the 1910s and 1920s was the breedinggroundforavant-garde
radicalismin art and literatureas well as in politics.'4 When Enzensberger
wrote about the aporias of the avant-gardeseveral decades later,he did
not just have the cooption of the avant-gardeby the cultureindustryin
mindas is sometimessurmised;he fullyunderstoodthepoliticaldimension
of the problemand pointedout how the historicalavant-gardehad failed
to deliver what it had always promised: to sever political, social and
aesthetic chains, explode culturalreifications, throwofftraditionalforms
of domination,liberaterepressedenergies."5
If withthesedistinctions in mindwe look at UnitedStatescultureof the
1960s it becomes clear thatthe 1960scan be regardedas theclosingchapter
of avant-gardism.
in thetradition sinceSaintSimon
Like all avant-gardes
and the utopiansocialistsand anarchistsup throughDada, surrealism,and

13. PeterBiirger's
TheoriederAvantgarde,inwhichthenotionofthe"institution
art"plays
a centralrole,willbe published ofMinnesota
inEnglishnextyearbytheUniversity Pressin
theirnewseries"Theoryand theHistory ofLiterature."
see DavidBathrick,
14. On thepoliticalaspectsoftheleftavant-garde, "Affirmativeand
NegativeCulture:Technology andtheLeftAvant-Garde,"in TheTechnological
Imagination,
eds. Teresade Lauretis,AndreasHuyssen, andKathleenWoodward (Madison,Wis.,1980),
pp. 107-122,andmyessay"TheHiddenDialectic:TheAvant-Garde - Technology - Mass
Culture,"in TheMyths Technology
ofInformation: andPost-Industrial ed. Kathleen
Culture,
Woodward(Madison,Wis., 1980),pp. 151-164.
15. See Enzensberger, "Aporien,"p. 66f.

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28 Huyssen

the post-revolutionary art of Soviet Russia in the early 1920s,the 1960s

foughttradition,and thisrevolttook place at a timeof politicaland social
turmoil.The promiseof unlimitedabundance,politicalstabilityand new
technologicalfrontiers of the Kennedyyearswas shatteredfast,and social
conflictemergeddominantin thecivilrightsmovement,in theurbanriots,
and in the anti-warmovement.It certainlyis more thancoincidentalthat
the protestcultureof the period adopted the label 'counter-culture,' thus
projectingan image of an avant-gardeleading the way to an alternative
kind of society. In the fieldof art, Pop revoltedagainstabstractexpres-
sionism and sparked offa series of art movementsfromOp to Fluxus,
Concept, and Minimalismwhichmade the artscene of the 1960sas lively
and vibratingas it was commerciallyprofitableand fashionable.'6Peter
Brook and the Living Theatre exploded the endless entrapmentsof ab-
surdism and created a new styleof theatricalperformance.The theatre
attemptedto bridgethegap betweenstageand audienceand experimented
withnew formsof immediacyand spontaneityin performance. There was
a participatoryethos in the theatreand in the arts whichcan easily be
linkedto the teach-insand sit-insof theprotestmovement.Exponentsofa
new sensibilityrebelled againstthe complexitiesand ambiguitiesof mod-
ernism embracingcamp and pop cultureinstead,and literarycriticsre-
jected the congealed canon and interpretive practicesof New Criticism
claiming for their own the
writing creativity,autonomyand presenceof
original creation.
When Leslie Fiedler declared the "Death of Avant-GardeLiterature"
in 1964,17he was reallyattackingmodernism,and he himselfembodiedthe
ethos of the classical avant-garde,Americanstyle.I say "Americanstyle"
because Fiedler's major concernwas not to democratize"high art"; his
goal was ratherto validatepopularcultureand to challengethe increasing
institutionalizationof highart. Thus when a fewyearslaterhe wantedto
"Cross the Border - Close the Gap" (1968)18betweenhighcultureand
popular culturehe reaffirmed preciselythe classicalavant-garde'sproject
to reunitethese artificially separatedrealmsof culture.For a momentin
the 1960s it seemed the Phoenix avant-gardehad risen fromthe ashes
fancyinga flighttoward the new frontierof the post-modern.Or was
American postmodernismrathera Baudelairean albatrostryingin vain to
liftoffthe deck of thecultureindustry? Was postmodernism plaguedfrom
its veryinceptionby the same aporias Enzensbergerhad alreadyanalyzed
so eloquentlyin 1962?It seems thateven in theUnitedStatestheuncritical
embracingof Westernand camp, pornoand rock,pop and counter-culture
as genuine popular culturepointsto an amnesiawhichmayhave been the
16. On Pop Art see my article "The CulturalPoliticsof Pop," New GermanCritique,4
(Winter 1975), 77-98.
17. Leslie Fiedler, The CollectedEssays of Leslie Fiedler,vol. II (New York, 1971), pp.
454-461.
18. Reprintedin Leslie Fiedler,A FiedlerReader (New York, 1977), pp. 270-294.

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 29
Avant-gardeand Postmrnodernismrn

resultofcoldwarpoliticsas muchas ofthepostmodernists' relentlessfight

againsttradition. Americananalysesof massculture have a critical
did
edgeinthelate1940sand 1950s'9whichwentallbutunacknowleged inthe
1960suncritical enthusiasm forcamp,pop, and the media.
A majordifference betweentheUnitedStatesandEuropeinthe1960s
is thatEuropeanwriters, and intellectuals
artists, thenweremuchmore
awareof theincreasing cooption of all modernist and avant-garde artby
thecultureindustry. Enzensberger afterall had not only written about the
aporias of the avant-garde, but about the pervasiveness of the "conscious-
ness industry" as well.20Sincethetradition oftheavant-garde inEurope
did notseemto offerwhat,forhistorical reasons,itcouldstilloffer inthe
UnitedStates, one politically feasibleway to react to the classicalavant-
gardeand to cultural tradition ingeneralwastodeclarethedeathofall art
and literature and to call forculturalrevolution. But eventhisrhetorical
gesture, articulatedmost in
emphaticallyEnzensberger's Kursbuch in 1968
and in the Parisiangraffiti of May '68, was partof thetraditional anti-
and
aesthetic,anti-elitist, anti-bourgeois strategies of the avant-garde.
And byno meansall writers andartists heededthecall.PeterHandke,for
instance,denouncedas infantile theattackon all highartand literature
and he continuedto writeexperimental plays,poetryandprose.And the
culturalleftin WestGermany, whichagreedwithEnzensberger's funeral
forartand literature as longas itburied"bourgeois"artonly,undertook
the taskof unearthing an alternativeculturaltradition, especiallythatof
theleftavant-gardes of the Weimar Republic. But the reappropriation ofthe
lefttradition oftheWeimarRepublicdidnotrevitalize contemporaryandart
literature inGermany thewaytheundercurrent ofDada hadrevitalized the
Americanartsceneofthe1960s.Important exceptions to this generalobser-
vationcanbe foundintheworkofKlausStaeck,Giinter Wallraff andAlex-
anderKluge,buttheyremain isolatedcases.
It soon becameclear,thattheEuropeanattempt to escapefromthe
"ghetto" of art and to break the bondage of the culture industry also had
ended in failureand frustration. Whetherin theGermanprotestmove-
mentor in May '68 in France,the illusionthatculturalrevolution was
imminent foundered on thehardrealitiesof thestatusquo. Artwas not
reintegrated intoeveryday life.The imagination did notcometo power.
The CentreGeorgesPompidouwas builtinstead,and theSPD cameto
powerinWestGermany. The vanguard thrust ofgroupmovements devel-
oping and assertingthe newest styleseemed to be broken after1968. In
Europe, 1968 marks not the breakthrough then hoped for, but ratherthe
replayedend of the traditional avant-garde. Symptomatic of the 1970s

Mass Culture:The PopularArtsin America,

19.Cf. manyessaysin theanthology eds.
BernardRosenbergandDavid Manning White(NewYork,1957).
20. HansMagnusEnzensberger, I: Bewusstseinsindustrie
Einzelheiten amMain,
(Frankfurt
1962).

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30 Huyssen

were loners like Peter Handke, whose workdefiesthe notionof a unitary

style; cult figureslike JosephBeuys who conjures up an archaicpast; or
filmmakers like Herzog, Wendersand Fa/3binder whose films- despite
theircritiqueof contemporary -
Germany lack one of thebasic prerequi-
sites of avant-gardeart, a sense of the future.
In the United States, however, the sense of the future,which had
asserted itselfso powerfully in the 1960s,is stillalive todayin thepostmod-
ernistscene, even thoughitsbreathingspace is shrinking fastas a resultof
recent economic and political changes (e.g., the cuttingof the NEA
budget). There also seems to be a major shiftof postmodernist interest
fromthe earlier two-prongedconcernwithpopular cultureand withex-
perimentalart and literature,to a new focus on culturaltheory,a shift
whichcertainlyreflectstheacademicinstitutionalization of postmodernism,
but is not fullyexplainedby it. More on thislater.Whatconcernsme here
is the temporalimaginationof postmodernism, theunshakenconfidenceof
being at the edge of history which characterizes the whole trajectoryof
American postmodernismsince the 1960s and of whichthe notion of a
post-histoireis only one of the silliermanifestations. A possible explana-
tion of this resilienceto the shiftingmood of the cultureat large,which
certainlysince the mid-1970shas all but lost its confidencein the future,
may lie preciselyin the subterraneanproximity of postmodernism to those
movements,figures and intentions of the classical European avant-garde
which were hardly ever acknowledgedby the Anglo-Saxon notion of
modernism. Despite the importanceof Man Ray and the activitiesof
Picabia and Duchamp in New York, New York Dada remainedat best a
marginal phenomenon in American culture,and neitherDada nor sur-
realism ever met withmuchpublicsuccess in the United States. Precisely
this fact made Pop, happenings,Concept, experimentalmusic,surfiction
and performanceart of the 1960s and 1970s look more novel than they
reallywere. The audience's expectationhorizonin the United States was
fundamentallydifferentfromwhat it was in Europe. Where Europeans
mightreactwitha sense of deji vu, Americanscould legitimately sustaina
sense of novelty,excitement,and breakthrough.
A second major factorcomes intoplay here. If we wantto understand
fullythe power the Dadaist subcurrent assumedin theUnitedStatesin the
1960s, the absence of an AmericanDada or surrealistmovementin the
earlier 20th centuryalso needs to be explained. As Peter Biirgerhas
argued, the major goal of the European avant-gardeswas to undermine,
attack,and transform the bourgeois"institution art." Such an iconoclastic
attack on cultural institutionsand traditionalmodes of representation,
narrativestructure,perspective,and poetic sensibility onlymade sense in
countries where "high art" had an essential role to play in legitimizing
bourgeois politicaland social domination,e.g., in the museumand salon
culture,in the theatres,concerthallsand opera houses and in thesocializa-
tion and educationprocessin general.The culturalpoliticsof 20th-century

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 Avant-gardeand Postmodernism 31

avant-gardism would have been meaningless (if not regressive) in the

United Stateswhere"highart" was stillstruggling hardto gainwider
legitimacy and to be takenseriously bythepublic.Thusitis notsurprising
that major American writers since HenryJames,suchas T. S. Eliot,
Faulknerand Hemingway, PoundandStevens,feltdrawntotheconstruc-
tivesensibility ofmodernism, whichinsisted on thedignity andautonomy
of literature, ratherthanto theiconoclastic andanti-aesthetic ethosofthe
Europeanavant-garde which attempted to break the politicalbondageof
high culture through a fusion with popular culture and to integrate artinto
life.
I wouldsuggestthatitwas notonlytheabsenceofan indigenous US-
avant-garde in the classical Europeansense,say in the 1920s,which,forty
yearslater,benefitted thepostmodernists' claimtonovelty intheirstruggle
against the entrenched traditions of modernism, abstract expressionism
and New Criticism. Thereis moreto itthanthat.A European-style avant-
gardist revolt against tradition made eminent sense in the United Statesat
a time when highart had become institutionalized in the burgeoning
museum,concertand paperbackcultureof the 1950s,whenmodernism
itselfhad enteredthe mainstream via the cultureindustry, and later,
the
during Kennedyyears, when high culture began to take on functions of
politicalrepresentation (Robert Frost and Pablo Casals at the White
House).
All of this,then,is notat all to say thatpostmodernism is merelya
pastiche of an earliercontinental avant-garde. It rather serves to pointto
the similarity and continuity betweenAmericanpostmodernism and cer-
tainsegments ofan earlierEuropeanavant-garde, a similarityon thelevels
of formalexperimentation and of a critiqueof the"institution art."This
was
continuity alreadymarginally acknowledged in some postmodernist
criticism, e.g., byFiedlerand IhabHassan,z'butitemergedinfullclarity
withthe recentretrospectives of and writings on theclassicalEuropean
avant-garde. From the perspective today, artof the 1960s- pre-
of US
cisely because of itssuccessful attackon abstract expressionism - shines
as the colorfuldeathmaskof a classicalavant-garde whichin Europe
alreadyhad beenliquidatedculturally andpolitically byStalinandHitler.
Despite its radical and legitimate critique of the gospelof modernism,
postmodernism, which in its artistic
practices and itstheory wasa product
of the 1960s,mustbe seen as theendgameoftheavant-garde and notas
theradicalbreakthrough it oftenclaimedto be.22
At thesame timeitgoes without sayingthatthepostmodernist revolt

oftheTimes(Urbana,Chicago,London,
SevenSpeculations
21. IhabHassan,Paracriticisms:
1975).See also Ihab Hassan,TheRightPromethean Fire:Imagination,
Scienceand Cultural
Change(Urbana,Ill., 1980).
22. For an incisivecritiqueof postmodernism positionsee
froma largelyconservative
Gerald Graff,"The Mythof the Postmodernist Breakthrough," 26 (1973),
TriQuarterly,

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32 Huyssen

against the institutionart in the United States was up againstbiggerodds

than futurism,dadaism, or surrealismwere in their time. The earlier
avant-gardewas confrontedwiththecultureindustryin itsstage of incep-
tion while postmodernismhad to face a technologically and economically
fullydeveloped media culture which had mastered the highartof integrat-
and
ing,diffusing, marketing even themost serious challenges.This factor,
combined withthe alteredconstitution of audiences,accountsforthe fact
that, compared withthe earlier20th century,the shock of the new was
much harder, perhaps even impossible,to sustain. Furthermore,when
Dada erupted in 1916 in the placid 19th-century cultureof bourgeois
Zurich, there were no ancestors to contend with. Even theformally much
less radical avant-gardesof the 19thcenturyhad notyethad a measurable
impact on Swiss cultureat large. The happeningsat the Caf6 Voltaire
could not but scandalize the public. When Rauschenberg,JasperJohns
and the Madison Avenue pop artistsbegan theirassault on abstractex-
pressionism,drawingtheirinspirationas theydid fromtheeverydaylifeof
American consumerism,theysoon had to face serious competition:the
workof Dadaist fatherfigureMarcelDuchampwas presentedto theAmer-
ican public in major museumand galleryretrospectives, e.g., in Pasadena
(1963) and New York (1965). The ghostof the fatherwas not onlyout of
the closet of arthistory,but Duchamp himselfwas alwaysalreadytherein
fleshand blood saying,like the hedgehogto the hare: "Ich bin schonda."
All of thisgoes to show thatthe mammothavant-gardespectaclesof
the late 1970scan be interpreted as theflipside of post-modernism, which
now appears much more traditionalthanit did in the 1960s. Not onlydo
the avant-gardeshowsof the late 1970sin Paris and Berlin,London, New
York and Chicago help us come to termswiththe traditionof the earlier
20th century,but postmodernismitselfcan now be describedas a search
for a viable modern traditionapart from,say, the Proust-Joyce-Mann
triad and outside the canon of classical modernism.The searchfortradi-
tion combined withan attemptat recuperationseems more basic to post-
modernismthaninnovationand breakthrough. The culturalparadoxof the
1970s is not so much the side-by-sideco-existenceof a future-happy
postmodernismwith avant-gardemuseum retrospectives.Nor is it the
inherentcontradictionof the postmodernistavant-gardeitself,i.e., the
paradox of an art thatsimultaneously wantsto be artand anti-artand of a
criticismthatpretendsto be criticismand anti-criticism. The paracdoxof
the 1970s is ratherthatthe postmodernist searchforculturaltraditionand
continuity,whichunderliesall theradicalrhetoricof rupture,discontinuity
and epistemologicalbreaks,has turnedto thattraditionwhichfundament-
ally and on principledespised and denied all traditions.
Seeing the avant-gardeexhibitsof the 1970sin thelightof postmodern-

383-417. The essay also appeared in Graff,LiteratureAgainst Itself:LiteraryIdeas on

ModernSociety(Chicago,1979),pp. 31-62.

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 Avant-gardeand Postmodernism 33

ismmayalso helpfocusattention on someimportant differencesbetween

Americanpostmodernism and thehistorical In
avant-garde. post-World
War II America,thehistorical realitiesof massivetechnological, social,
and politicalchange,whichhad giventhe mythof avant-gardism and
innovation itspower,persuasiveness, andutopiandriveintheearlier20th
century, had all butvanished.Duringthe 1940sand 1950sAmericanart
and intellectual lifehadgonethrough a periodofdepoliticization inwhich
avant-gardism and modernism actually had been with
realigned thecon-
servativeliberalism ofthetimes.23Whilepostmodernism rebelledagainst
thecultureand politicsofthe1950s, it nevertheless lacked a radicalvision
of social and politicaltransformation which had been so essential to the
historicalavant-garde. Time and againthe futurewas incantedrhetori-
cally,but it neverbecameclearhowand in whatformspostmodernism
wouldhelpimplement thatalternative cultureofthecomingage. Despite
thisostentatious orientation towardthefuture, postmodernism maywell
havebeen an expression ofthecontemporary crisisofculturerather than
the promisedtranscendence towardculturalrejuvenation. Much more
thanthehistorical avant-garde, whichwassurreptitiously connected tothe
dominantmodernizing and anti-traditionalist trendsof 19thand 20th-
centuryWesterncivilization, postmodernism was in dangerof becoming
affirmative culturerightfromthestart.Mostof thegestureswhichhad
sustainedtheshockvalueofthehistorical avant-garde wereno longerand
couldno longerbe effective. The historical avant-garde's appropriation of
for art
technology high (e.g., film,photography, montage principle) could
produceshocksinceitbrokewiththeaestheticism andthedoctrine ofart's
autonomy from "real" lifewhich were dominant in the late 19th century.
The postmodernist espousalofspaceage technology andelectronic media
inthewakeofMcLuhan,however, couldscarcely shockan audiencewhich
had been inculturated to modernism via theverysame media.Nor did
Leslie Fiedler'sdiveintopopularculture causeoutrageina country where
thepleasuresof popularculturealwayshavebeenacknowledged (except
perhapsinacademia)withmoreease andlesssecrecy thaninEurope.And
mostpostmodernist experiments in visualperspective, narrative structure
and temporallogic,whichall attackedthedogmaof mimetic referential-
ity,werealreadyknownfromthemodernist tradition. The problemwas
compoundedby thefact that experimental strategies popularculture
and
wereno longerconnected ina critical
aesthetic andpolitical projectas they
had been in the historicalavant-garde. Popular culture was accepted
uncritically (Leslie Fiedler) and postmodernist experimentation had lost
theavant-gardist consciousness thatsocialchangeand thetransformation
of everydaylifewereat stakein everyartistic experiment. Ratherthan

23. See SergeGuilbaut,"TheNewAdventures oftheAvant-Garde

inAmerica,"October,
15 (Winter,1980),61-78. Cf. also Eva Cockroft,
"Abstract Weaponofthe
Expressionism:
Cold War,"Artforum, XII (June1974).

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34 Huyssen

aiming at a mediationbetween art and life, postmodernistexperiments

soon came to be valued for typicallymodernistfeaturessuch as self-
reflexivity,immanence,and indeterminacy (Ihab Hassan). The American
postmodernistavant-garde,therefore,is not only the endgame of avant-
gardism.It also representsthe fragmentation and thedeclineof theavant-
garde as a genuinelycriticaland adversaryculture.
My hypothesisthatpostmodernism alwayshas been in searchof tradi-
tion while pretendingto innovationalso is borne out by the recentshift
towardculturaltheorywhichdistinguishes thepostmodernism of the 1970s
fromthatof the 1960s.On one level, of course,the Americanappropria-
tion of structuralist and especially poststructuralisttheoryfromFrance
reflectsthe extentto whichpostmodernismitselfhas been academicized
since it won its battle against modernismand New Criticism.z4It is also
temptingto speculate that the shifttowardtheoryactuallypointsto the
fallingrate of artisticand literarycreativityin the 1970s, a proposition
whichwould help explain the resurgenceof historicalretrospectives in the
museums. To put it simply,if the contemporary art scene does not gen-
erate enough movements,figures,and trendsto sustaintheethosof avant-
gardism, then museum directorshave to turnto the past to satisfythe
demand forculturalevents. However, the artisticand literarysuperiority
of the 1960sover the 1970sshouldnot be takenforgrantedand quantityis
no appropriatecriterionanyway.Perhaps the cultureof the 1970sis just
more amorphousand diffuse,richerin difference and variationthanthat
of the 1960s when trends and movementsevolved in a more or less
"orderly" sequence. Beneath the surfaceof continuously changingtrends,
therewas indeed a unifying drivebehindthecultureofthe 1960swhichwas
inheritedpreciselyfromthe traditionof avant-gardism. Since the cultural
diversityof the 1970s no longersustainedthissense of unity- even if it
was the unityof experimentation, fragmentation, Verfremdung and inde-
terminacy- postmodernismwithdrewinto a kindof theorywhich,with
its key notionsof decenteringand deconstruction, seemedto guaranteethe
lost centerof avant-gardism.Suspicion is in orderthatthe postmodernist
critics'shiftto continentaltheoryis the lastdesperateattemptof thepost-
modernistavant-gardeto hold on to a notion of avant-gardismwhich
already had been refutedby certainculturalpracticesof the 1970s.The
irony is that in this peculiarlyAmericanappropriationof recentFrench
theorythe postmodernist searchfortraditioncomes fullcircle;forseveral
major exponentsof Frenchpost-structuralism such as Foucault,Deleuze/
Guattari,and Derrida are more concernedwiththe archeologyof moder-

24. I am not identifying withpostmodernism,

poststructuralism even thoughtheconceptof
postmodernismhas recentlybeen incorporatedinto Frenchpoststructuralist writingin the
work of Jean FrangoisLyotard.All I am sayingis thatthereare definitelinksbetweenthe
ethos of postmodernismand the American appropriationof poststructuralism, especially
Derrida.

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 Avant-gardeand Postmodernism 35

nitythanwithbreakthrough and innovation, withhistory and the past

morethanwiththeyear2001.
Two concluding questionscanbe posedat thisjuncture. Whywasthere
thisintensesearchforviabletraditions inthe1970sandwhat,ifanything,
is historicallyspecificaboutit?And,secondly, whatcan theidentification
withtheclassicalavant-garde contribute to oursenseofcultural identity,
and to whatextentis suchan identification desirable?The Western indus-
trializedcountries are currently experiencing a fundamental culturaland
politicalidentity crisis.The 1970s'searchforroots,forhistory and tradi-
tions,was an inevitableand in manywaysproductive off-shoot of this
crisis;apartfromthenostalgiaformummies and emperors, we are con-
fronted witha multi-faceted and diversesearchforthepast(oftenforan
alternative past)which,in manyofitsmoreradicalmanifestations, ques-
tions the fundamental orientation of Westernsocietiestowardfuture
growthand towardunlimited progress.This questioning of history and
tradition, as itinforms forinstance thefeminist inwomen'shistory
interest
and theecologicalsearchforalternatives inourrelationship withnature,
shouldnot be confusedwiththe simplemindedrearguard assertionof
traditionalnormsand values,althoughboth phenomenareflect,with
diametrically opposed politicalintentions, the same disposition toward
tradition and history. The problem withpostmodernism is thatitrelegates
historyto the dustbinof an obsoleteepist6mb, arguinggleefully that
history does notexistexceptas text,i.e., as historiography.25 Ofcourse,if
the "referent"of historiography, thatwhichhistorians writeabout,is
eliminated, thenhistory is indeedup forgrabsor,to putitinmoretrendy
words,up for"strongmisreadings." WhenHaydenWhitelamentedthe
"burdenofhistory" in 1966andsuggested, perfectlyinlinewiththeearly
phase of postmodernism, thatwe acceptour lotofdiscontinuity, disrup-
tion,and chaos,26he replayedthe Nietzschean impetusof theclassical
avant-garde, buthissuggestion is lessthanhelpful indealingwiththenew
culturalconstellations of the 1970s.Culturalpracticesof the 1970s--
postmodernist theorynotwithstanding - actuallypointto thevitalneed
notto abandonhistory and thepastto tradition-mongering neo-conserva-
tivesbenton reestablishing thenormsof an earlierindustrial capitalism:
discipline,authority, theworkethicand thetraditional family. Thereis
indeedan alternative searchfortradition andhistory goingontodaywhich
manifests itselfin theconcernwithculturalformations notdominated by
logocentricand technocratic thought,in the decentering of traditional
notionsof identity, in thesearchforwomen'shistory, in therejection of

25. For a sustained critiqueof the denial of historyin contemporaryAmericanliterary

criticismsee FredricJameson,The PoliticalUnconscious:Narrativeas a SociallySymbolicAct
(Ithaca, N.Y., 1981), especiallychapter 1.
26. Hayden White,"The Burden of History,"reprintedin Tropicsof Discourse: Essays in
CulturalCriticism(Baltimore, London, 1978), pp. 27-50.

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36 Huyssen

centralisms,mainstreamsand meltingpots of all kinds,and in the great

value put on difference and otherness.This searchforhistoryis of course
also a search forculturalidentitiestoday,and as such it clearlypointsto
the exhaustionof the traditionof the avant-garde,includingpostmodern-
ism. The searchfortradition,to be sure,is notpeculiarto the 1970salone.
Ever since Westerncivilizationenteredthe throesof modernization,the
nostalgiclamentfora lostpast has accompaniedit likea shadowthatheld
the promiseof a betterfuture.but in all the battlesbetweenancientsand
moderns since the 17thand 18thcenturies,fromHerder and Schlegel to
Benjamin and the Americanpostmodernists, the modernstendedto em-
brace modernity,convincedthattheyhad to pass throughitbeforethelost
unityof lifeand artcould be reconstructed on a higherlevel. This convic-
tion was the basis foravant-gardism.Today, when modernismlooks in-
creasinglylike a dead end, it is thisfoundationitselfwhichis beingchal-
lenged. The universalizing driveinherentin the traditionof modernity no
longer holds thatpromessede bonheuras it used to.
Which bringsme to thesecond questionwhetheran identification with
the historicalavant-garde- and byextensionwithpostmodernism - can
contributeto our sense of culturalidentityin the 1980s.I do not wantto
give a definitiveanswer, but I suggestthat an attitudeof skepticismis
called for. In traditionalbourgeoisculturethe avant-gardewas successful
in sustainingdifference.Withinthe project of modernityit launched a
successfulassaulton 19th-century aestheticism,whichinsistedon theabso-
lute autonomyof art, and on traditionalrealism,whichremainedlocked
into the dogma of mimeticrepresentation and referentiality.
Postmodern-
ism has lost that capacity to gain shock value fromdifference,except
perhaps in relationto formsof a verytraditionalaestheticconservatism.
The counter-measuresthe historicalavant-gardeproposed to break the
grip of bourgeois institutionalized cultureare no longereffective.The
reasons thatavant-gardism is no longerviabletodaycan be locatednotonly
in the cultureindustry'scapacityto coopt, reproduceand commodify, but,
more interestingly, in theavant-gardeitself.Despite thepowerand integ-
rityof its attacks against traditionalbourgeois cultureand against the
deprivationsof capitalism,thereare momentsin thehistoricalavant-garde
which show how deeply avant-gardism itselfis implicatedin the Western
traditionof growthand progress.The futuristand constructivist confi-
dence in technologyand modernization,therelentlessassaultson thepast
and on traditionwhichwenthand in hand witha quasi-metaphysical glori-
ficationof a presenton theedge of thefuture,theuniversalizing, totalizing
and centralizingimpetusinherentin the veryconceptof avant-garde(not
to speak of its metaphoricmilitarism),the elevation to dogma of an
initiallylegitimatecritiqueof traditionalartisticformsrooted in mimesis
and representation,the unmitigatedmedia and computerenthusiasmof
the 1960s- all these phenomenareveal the secretbond betweenavant-
garde and officialculturein advanced industrialsocieties. Certainlythe

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 and Postmodernism 37
Avant-garde

avant-gadists'use of technologywas mostlyverfremdend and criticalrather

than affirmative.And yet, fromtoday's perspectivethe classical avant-
garde's belief in technologicalsolutionsforcultureappears more a symp-
tom of the desease than a cure. Similarlyone mightask whetherthe
uncompromising attackon tradition,narration,and memorywhichcharac-
terizes large segmentsof the historicalavant-garde,is not just the other
side of Henry Ford's notoriousstatementthat"historyis bunk." Perhaps
both are expressionsof thesame spiritof culturalmodernity in capitalism,
a dismantlingof storyand perspectiveindeed parallelling,even if only
subterraneously,the destructionof history.
At the same time,the traditionof avant-gardism, ifstrippedof itsuni-
versalizing and normative claims, leaves us with a precious heritageof
artisticand literarymaterials,practices,and intentionswhichstillinform
manyof today'smostinteresting writersand artists.Preservingelementsof
the avant-gardisttraditionis not at all incompatiblewiththe recuperation
of
and reconstitution history and of storywhichwe have witnessedin the
1970s. Good examples of this kind of coexistenceof seeminglyopposite
literarystrategiescan be found in the post-experimental prose worksof
Peter Handke fromThe Goalie's Anxietyat thePenaltyKick throughShort
Letter,Long Farewelland A SorrowBeyond Dreams to The Left-Handed
Woman or, quite differently, in theworkofwomenwriterssuchas Christa
Wolf fromThe Questfor ChristaT. throughSelf-Experiment to Kein Ort.
Nirgends. The of
recuperation history and the reemergence storyin the
of
1970s are not partof a leap back intoa pre-modern,pre-avant-garde past,
as some postmodernists seem to suggest.They can be betterdescribedas
attemptsto shiftintoreversein orderto getout of a dead-endstreetwhere
the vehicles of avant-gardismand postmodernismhave come to a stand-
still. At the same time,the contemporary concernforhistorywillkeep us
fromlapsing back into the avant-gardistgestureof totallyrejectingthe
past - this time the avant-gardeitself.Especially in the face of recent
wholesale neo-conservativeattackson the cultureof modernism,avant-
gardismand postmodernism, itremainspoliticallyimportant to defendthis
traditionagainst neo-conservativeinsinuationsthat modernistand post-
modernistcultureis to be held responsibleforthe currentcrisisof capi-
talism. Emphasizing the subterraneanlinks between avant-gardismand
the developmentof capitalismin the 20thcenturycan effectively counter-
act propositionswhichseparatean "adversaryculture"(Daniel Bell) from
the realmof social normsin orderto blame theformerforthedisintegration
of the latter.

In Reply to JiirgenHabermas

In my view, however,the problemin contemporarycultureis not so

betweenavant-
much the strugglebetweenmodernityand postmodernity,

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38 Huyssen

gardismand conservatism,as Jiurgen Habermasarguesin hisAdorno-prize

speech which is included in this issue. Of course, the old conservatives,
who reject the cultureof modernismand the avant-garde,and the neo-
conservatives,who advocate the immanenceof art and its separateness
from the Lebenswelt,must be foughtand refuted.In that debate, es-
pecially, the culturalpractices of avant-gardismhave not yet lost their
vigor. But this strugglemay well turnout to be a rearguardskirmish
between two dated modes of thought,two culturaldispositionswhich
relate to each other like the two sides of one coin: the universalistsof
traditionpitted against the universalistsof a modernistenlightenment.
While I standwithHabermas againstold conservativesand neo-conserva-
tives,I findhiscall forthecompletionoftheprojectofmodernity, whichis
the political core of his argument,deeply problematic.As I hope to have
shown in my discussion of avant-gardeand postmodernism,too many
aspects of the trajectoryof modernityhave become suspectand unviable
today. Even theaestheticallyand politicallymostfascinating componentof
modernity,the historicalavant-garde,no longerofferssolutionsformajor
sectors of contemporaryculture,which would reject the avant-garde's
universalizingand totalizinggestureas muchas itsambiguousespousal of
technologyand modernization.what Habermas as a theoreticianshares
withthe aesthetictraditionof avant-gardism is preciselythisuniversalizing
gesture, which is rooted in the bourgeoisenlightenment, pervadesMarx-
ism, and ultimately aims at a wholistic
notion of modernity.Significantly,
the original title of Habermas' text, as it was printedin DIE ZEIT in
September 1980, was "Modernity- an IncompleteProject." The title
pointsto the problem- theteleologicalunfoldingof a historyof modern-
ity- and it raisesa question:to whatextentis theassumptionofa telosof
historycompatiblewith"histories."And thisquestion is legitimate.For
not only does Habermas smoothover contradictions in
and discontinuities
the trajectoryof modernityitself,as PeterBuirgerpointsout poignantlyin
this issue. Habermas ignores the fact that the very idea of a wholistic
modernityand of a totalizingview of historyhas become anathemain the
1970s, and preciselynot on theconservativeright.The criticaldeconstruc-
tion of enlightenmentrationalismand logocentrismby theoreticiansof
culture, the decenteringof traditionalnotions of identity,the fightof
women and gays fora legitimatesocial and sexual identityoutsideof the
parametersof male, heterosexualvision,thesearchforalternativesin our
relationshipwith nature, includingthe nature of our own bodies - all
these phenomena,whichare keyto thecultureof the 1970s,make Haber-
mas' propositionto completetheprojectof modernity questionable,ifnot
undesirable.
Given Habermas' indebtednessto the traditionof criticalenlighten-
ment, whichin German politicalhistory- and thisshouldbe mentioned
in Habermas' defense- always was the adversaryand underdogcurrent
ratherthanthe mainstream,itcomes as no surprisethatBataille,Foucault,

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 and Postmodernism 39
Avant-garde

and Derrida are lumped with the conservativesin the camp of postmo-
dernity.There is no doubt in my mind that much of the postmodernist
appropriationof Foucault and especiallyDerrida in the United States is
indeed politicallyconservative,but that, after all, is only one line of
receptionand response. Habermas himselfcould be accused of construct-
ing a manicheandualismin his essaywherehe pitsthedarkforcesof anti-
modern conservatismagainst the enlightenedand enlightening forcesof
modernity.This manicheanview manifestsitselfagain in the way Haber-
mas tends to reduce the projectof modernity to itsrationalenlightenment
componentsand to dismissother,equally importantpartsof modernity as
mistakes.Justas Bataille, Foucault, and Derrida are said to have stepped
outside the modernworldby removingthe imagination,emotionality, and
self-experienceinto the sphereof the archaic(a propositionwhichis itself
debatable), surrealism is described by Habermas as modernitygone
astray.Relyingon Adorno's critiqueof surrealism,Habermas reproaches
the surrealistavant-gardeforhavingadvocated a falsesublation(Aufheb-
ung) of the art/lifedichotomy.While I agree withHabermas thata total
sublation of art is indeed a false project fraughtwith contradictions,I
would defend surrealismon three counts. More than any other avant-
garde movement,surrealismdismantledfalsenotionsof identityand artis-
tic creativity;it attemptedto explode the reificationsof rationalityin
capitalist culture and, by focusingon psychicprocesses, it exposed the
vulnerabilityof all rationality,not only that of instrumental rationality;
and, finally,it includedthe concretehumansubjectand his/herdesiresin
its artisticpractices and in its notion that the receptionof art should
systematicallydisruptperceptionand senses.27
Although Habermas, in the sectionentitled"Alternatives,"seems to
retain the surrealistgesturewhen he speculates about the possibilityof
relinkingart and literaturewitheverydaylife,everydaylifeitself- con-
trary to surrealism- is defined in exclusivelyrational, cognitiveand
normative,terms.Significantly, Habermas' example about an alternative
reception of art in which the experts'cultureis reappropriatedfromthe
standpoint of the Lebenswelt,involvesyoungmale workers,"politically
motivated" and "knowledge hungry";the time is 1937, Berlin; the art
work reappropriatedby the workersis the Pergamon altar, symbolof
classicism,power, and rationality;and the statusof thisreappropriation is
a
fiction, passage in Peter Weiss' novel Die Asthetikdes Widerstands.The
one concreteexample Habermas gives is several timesremovedfromthe
Lebenswelt of the 1970s and its culturalpractices,which,in such major
manifestationsas the women's movement,the gay movement,and the
ecology movement,seem to point beyond the cultureof modernity,be-
yond avant-gardeand postmodernism,and most certainlybeyond neo-
conservatism.

27. See Peter Biirger,DerfranzdsischeSurrealismus(Frankfurtam Main, 1971).

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40 Huyssen

Habermas is rightin arguingthata relinkingof modernculturewith

everydaypraxiscan onlybe successfuliftheLebensweltis able "to develop
institutions
out of itselfwhichset limitsto theinternaldynamicsand to the
inperativesof an almostautonomouseconomicsystemand itsadministra-
tive complements."As a resultof the conservativebacklashthe chances
forthismay indeed not be verygood at the presenttime.But to suggest,
as Habermas implicitly does, thatthereare as yetno suchattemptsto steer
modernityin different and alternativedirections,is a view whichresults
fromthe blind spot of the European enlightenment, its inabilityto recog-
nize heterogeneity,otherness,and difference.

P.S.: Some timeago avant-garde/postmodernist artistChristoplannedto

wrap the Berlin Reichstag,an event which,accordingto Berlin
mayorStobbe, could have led to a stimulating politicaldiscussion.
ConservativeBundestagspraisident Karl Carstens,however,feared
spectacle and scandal,so insteadStobbe suggestedtheorganization
of a major historicalexhibitionabout Prussia. When the great
Preu/3en-Ausstellung willopen in Berlinin August1981,theavant-
garde willtrulybe dead. Time forHeinerMiuller'sGermaniaDeath
in Berlin.

THE CINSUrGENT OCIOLOGIST

C/oDepartment ofSociology,UniversityofOregon,Eugene,
OR 97403.
Current Special issue: Race and Class inTwentieth Century
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Forthcoming Special issues: RadicalCriminology (1981);
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