That modern aesthetics is an act of violence

FMR, a Rivista bimestrale d'arte e cultura visiva, as its byline calls it, is an extraordinarily expensive (490 euros for 6 issues) bimonthly of extraordinary visual beauty published in Italy since 1982. It has until recently attempted to cover contemporary art as well as the art of the former times. The jarring effect of the juxtaposition which this created was not missed by anyone flipping through its pages. The possibility of jabbing my eye on contemporary content has always kept me on edge and prevented me from subscribing.

But now I can: as of 2008, FMR no longer mixes chalk and cheese, having shipped out the contemporary stuff to its own, separate publication. This in belated recognition of the fact that Picasso and Hirst do not belong on the same side of the brain with Mabuse and Kakiemon. In this, FMR is no different form the majority of art museums of the world which, if they can only afford it, carefully isolate the two types of art in from each other in separate buildings.

Actually, the question in my mind is whether the two types of art belong in the same brains at all. As to this there are good reasons for doubt and no evidence at all to the contrary. And if contemporary and traditional arts indeed belong to different kinds of brains; then perhaps aesthetics is no more than a means by which one kind of brains overthrows another.

That would explain all the violence in contemporary art. It is an act of war.