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2012 111: 81Thesis ElevenChristine Magerski

Arnold Gehlen : Modern art as symbol of modern society

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Arnold Gehlen: Modernart as symbol ofmodern society

Christine MagerskiUniversity of Zagreb, Croatia

AbstractArnold Gehlen is one of the most controversial figures of German intellectual history.Gehlen’s commitment to National Socialism (a commitment he never disavowed) is mostlyseen in close connection with his theoretical focus on institutions. According to Gehlen,what mankind requires above all is order and thus the protection of institutions. And yet,by reducing Gehlen’s sociology to the necessity of order one misses the analytical scope ofhis writings. As this article aims to show, the strength of Gehlen’s sociology lies less in itstheory of institutionalization than in its attempt to comprehend change, i.e. the conceptualclarification of the interplay between radical innovation and institutionalization. In order toapprehend Gehlen’s understanding of change we have to look at his sociology of art as it isart which works as ‘a small symbol of society’. To approach Gehlen from this perspective isnot to rehabilitate the controversial thinker. Instead, I am trying to show that Gehlen’stheoretical framework is as complex as modern culture itself and should therefore notprematurely be declared a reactionary testimony of the past.

Keywordsavant-garde, crystallization, cultural innovation, institutionalization, sociology of art

I. Modern art as a genuine subject of sociology

First of all, it should be said that Arnold Gehlen never presented a closed theory of

modern art or culture. Instead, he was convinced that the era of theoretical ambition lies

behind us. ‘I see a trait of modernity especially in the emancipation of theoretical

ambitions’ (Gehlen 2004 [1965]: 35), he wrote in 1965. According to Gehlen, a social or

Corresponding author:

Christine Magerski, German Studies, University of Zagreb, Croatia

Email: [email protected]

Thesis Eleven111(1) 81–96ª The Author(s) 2012Reprints and permissions:sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.navDOI: 10.1177/0725513612445369the.sagepub.com



cultural theory all of one piece is no longer possible – unless one approaches reality

‘consciously from a one-sided methodological perspective’ (Gehlen 2004 [1965]: 33).

This attitude and its consequences, the essayist nature of Gehlen’s writings, contributed

to the oblivion into which the writings have fallen. That Gehlen’s anthropology is widely

discredited is mainly due, however, to his engagement with National Socialism, an

engagement Gehlen never regretted. Furthermore, there can be no doubt that Gehlen’s

political commitment and his anthropological conviction are connected. In Gehlen’s

view, what mankind needs above all is order, and because of that order itself – although

man-made – should not be challenged. This is why Karl-Siegbert Rehberg called Gehlen

an ‘extremist of order’ (Rehberg 1991: 5) and criticized his ‘institutionalist ahistorical

short-cut’ (Rehberg 1994a: 257).

And yet, looking at Gehlen’s writings on modern art we get a different picture. In fact,

his aesthetic writings form an empirically saturated history of the institutionalization of

modern art, in which order is not accomplished by respectful obedience to any authority

but rather by the constant attack on any attempt to establish order. What Gehlen illus-

trates, using art as an example, could be called the ritualization and institutionalization of

the revolution, which, in turn, could be read either as institutionalist or as an attempt to

understand art from the perspective of cultural sociology: that is to say, art as a fasci-

nating, because totally arbitrary, phenomenon held together by division and tension. In

no case, however, can the aesthetic writings of Gehlen be described as the expression of

‘reactionary and authoritarian thought’ (Luthy 1997: 66) that completely denies the

freedom and autonomy of art and raises ‘the worst accusations’ (Luthy 1997: 66) against

modernism. On the contrary: as I shall show in detail, it is especially modern art that

Gehlen treats with great interest and understanding.

As with the pioneers of the sociology of culture, such as Georg Simmel, Gehlen refers

directly to players in the world of art. Referring to art dealer Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler,

Gehlen’s focus is on the avant-garde – a phenomenon in which he saw a key to the under-

standing not only of modern art but of modern society as a whole. As Dana Giesecke has

pointed out in her discussion of Zeit-Bilder (1960), Gehlen belongs to the ‘few sociolo-

gical thinkers who devoted themselves systematically to the transformation of art as a

social realm of being and production – without sacrificing the aesthetic value and the

internal structure of works of art’ (Giesecke 2010: 4). According to Giesecke, it was

thanks to Gehlen that art became a ‘sui generis subject’ (Giesecke 2010: 4) of sociology

– a subject which, in turn, allows conclusions as to the tensions, frictions and strains a

society can cope with. Modern art is ‘a small symbol’ (Gehlen 1986 [1960]: 192) of soci-

ety. In order to read the symbol properly, one has to analyse art simultaneously from a

historical and sociological perspective. If we follow Joachim Fischer, it is Zeit-Bilder

which stands in the middle between art history and sociology of modernity (Fischer

2010: 1). The ‘unusual and revolutionary content’ (Linfert 1961: 872) of Zeit-Bilder was,

by the way, recognized right after its publication. Later it fell almost into oblivion or, as

with Gehlen’s work as a whole, it was widely discredited, until the ‘brilliant insights and

great theoretical prudence’ (Ortmann 2004: 22) of the book were recently rediscovered.

However, in order to grasp these insights, we have to look not only at Zeit-Bilder but

at other writings concerned with modern art as well. To indicate the importance of

modern art for Gehlen’s understanding of sociology, I start with a lecture from 1966 in

82 Thesis Eleven 111(1)



which Gehlen discusses the avant-garde. This lecture can be seen as the explicit opening

of the subject to sociology, as Gehlen – directly addressing his audience, among them

artists – seems to feel that as a sociologist he has to justify himself for daring to speak

of these issues. ‘Competent’, he said, ‘would also be a philosopher, an esthetician; there

once was such an aesthetic theory as an essential part of philosophy, but these days it

would be hard to find such a theory. The efforts seem to have ceased’ (Gehlen 1966:

77). Declaring aesthetic theory to be a thing of the past, ‘the question of competence

is itself a problem still unresolved by aesthetics’ (Gehlen 1966: 78); it is therefore up

to sociology to approach art and thereby renew the answer to the question of authority

in this matter. And that is exactly what Gehlen is doing: he claims art to be no longer

a matter of philosophy but of sociology. Furthermore, he points out the significant fea-

tures of a cultural-sociological approach to art in an almost exemplary manner.

What are these features? First of all there is the interest not only in the changes to art

but in its relation to socio-cultural change in general. In order to tackle these questions

Gehlen defines art as a ‘cultural area’ (Gehlen 1961: 90), thereby indicating that art and

its analysis have to be seen as one form of cultural analysis among others. That is to say,

one could also examine a cultural area such as money for the same reason, just as Georg

Simmel did, for example. What is crucial for the sociology of culture is that they are

symbolic forms, that is, entities that exist solely due to ongoing social interaction, losing

their value as soon as they cease to be observed. Symbolic forms do not have to exist;

they are highly arbitrary and could disappear. The fact that they do exist makes symbolic

forms fascinating for the humanities concerned with the constitution of society in

general. Focusing on symbolic forms such as art, sociology can study an object entirely

constituted by the power of social interaction.

Here it should be emphasized that, according to Gehlen, it is only modern art that

functions as symbolic form and thus offers a privileged way to the understanding of

modern culture. Why? The answer is to be found in the history of art. In Zeit-Bilder

Gehlen, who deals mainly with painting, distinguishes three periods of European art:

first, the ideal period, which relates to secondary motifs such as biblical topics or his-

torical events and is mediated by higher-level institutions of feudal society like the

church; the second is the period of realistic art, which conquered the real world,

renounced moral connotations and sees itself as representative of civil society; and

finally, the third period, the period of abstract art, which belongs to post-bourgeois indus-

trial society. This third period was specified by Gehlen in 1967 as a stage of art charac-

terized by abstraction and increasing theoretical reflexion that continues to this day (the

late 1960s) (Gehlen 2004 [1967]: 334).

The beginnings of modern art take us to the Paris of the late 19th century. Gehlen calls

the years between 1880 and 1910 an era of invention, because it was in this period that a

new and very modern art was founded and established. But although the practice of art

had been entirely redefined at the beginning of the century, it was not until the period

from 1905 to 1925 that major breakthroughs were accomplished, above all the break with

the old realistic tradition accompanied by the search for new paths which led to a

reflection on the basic elements of art such as colour, surface, line. Everywhere, Gehlen

writes, thanks to new ways of thinking and practice, a deliberate repositioning of art can

now be found (Gehlen 2004 [1967]: 79–82).

Magerski 83



To underline the importance of these breakthroughs Gehlen defines them as ‘a

revolution of art’ (Gehlen 2004 [1967]: 79–82). As such, they liberated art from its own

history and exposed it to an open future. Initiated by individuals, the revolution breaks

with everything earlier and thus liberates art from the burden of heritage. On the other

hand, however, the revolution – once successful – confronted art with the challenge of

constant reinvention:

I like to call the leaders pioneers, pioneers into a new area; they had the conviction that they

started the practice of art for everyone, just because they went beyond comparison. Such a

thing is called revolution, and rightly so, as it is a radical change at the expense of

everything considered to be valid up to this point. If the process is successful, the uneasy

question arises of what should become of a revolution once it has succeeded. . . . The way

back is cut off, the way forward blocked, because the idea of the revolution implies that

whatever is happening now is still the revolution and therefore the future from which one

cannot consequently deviate. (Gehlen 2004 [1967]: 82)

According to Gehlen, this permanent revolution of art presents a real danger to art itself,

because, as he points out in Zeit-Bilder, as with any revolution, it is difficult to predict

what ‘goes overboard’ once it has started. To destroy tradition is a dangerous thing since,

after all, ‘a revolution can lead very easily to the disappearance of the thing itself’

(Gehlen 1986: 126–9). But art did not disappear.

Why not? This is the question pointing right to the heart of Gehlen’s sociology of art.

The answer given by Gehlen is that art survived the revolution because the revolution

itself was ritualized and institutionalized. Crystallization, ritualization and institutiona-

lization are the key concepts of Gehlen’s approach to the history of modern art. In order

to grasp their meaning we have to look closer at this history. Let us take Expressionism

as an example. For Gehlen, Expressionism is above all a new generation that developed

into a youth movement which made itself a reputation by the publishing of magazines,

promoting action without defining a direction, such as Der Sturm, Die Aktion or Der Ruf.

The members of the movement shared the tendency towards group formation, a strong

sense of mission and the effort to stand out. Also, the movement formed itself at a time in

which everyone was waiting for a new formula so that success came soon. The new

formulas of Expressionism but also of Cubism were seen on their appearance not only as

artistically but also politically revolutionary. But with the banning of abstract art by the

Soviets, modern Western painting became ‘depoliticized’ (Gehlen 1986: 133). From this

point on the new directions of art could no longer be linked credibly with the left. The

consequences of this de-politicization of art, which was forced on art by politics, should

not be underestimated:

Thus the revolution of art was liberated from the political background noise, i.e. forced into

the mere sphere of art. We believe that the consequences of this event cannot be evaluated;

the art of painting was practically forced into the l’art-pour-l’art role, pushed into mere

visuality. . . . If the de-politicized artist of industrial society lets loose his aggression and

anxiety, he can turn only against art of his own kind. Thus informal abstract painting was

killing the geometrizing abstraction. The permanent revolution of art has surely here its

main causes. (Gehlen 1986: 150, 151)




This view is remarkable as it clearly rejects the widespread assumption of the autonomy

of art within aesthetic theory. According to Gehlen, it was not art which liberated itself

from all external restraints, including political ties, but rather politics that forced freedom

and automony upon art. The de-politicization enabled art to concentrate fully on its own

realm, thereby transforming the sphere of art into a constant battleground. The internal

struggle reached its peak with the failed attempt by the Dadaists to destroy the idea

of art all together. With the failure of the elimination of art through art we can

return to the three key concepts – crystallization, ritualization, institutionalization –

and follow Gehlen in his attempt to explain the functioning of modern art in a more

systematic way.

II. Key concepts: Crystallization, ritualization andinstitutionalization

Let us start with the concept of cultural crystallization. This concept was formulated for

the first time in 1916 by the Italian sociologist Vilfredo Pareto. Gehlen introduced the

concept in 1961 in Uber kulturelle Kristallisation and defined crystallization as a con-

dition that occurs in a cultural field ‘when the possibilities of this field are all developed’

(Gehlen 2004 [1961]: 307). The field of art had reached this stage with the avant-garde

movement. According to Gehlen, since the 1920s further fundamental changes in the art

system are very unlikely. The term neo-avant-garde from the 1960s can therefore not be

taken seriously. ‘There is no progress’, said Gehlen, ‘but rather accumulation and expan-

sion in a stand still. Talking about the avant-garde today means talking about freedom as

a program, but this very freedom has long been granted’ (Gehlen 2004 [1961]: 308). We

shall return to Gehlen’s criticism of the neo-avant-garde later in more detail. Here it is

crucial to underline that, according to Gehlen, the stage of crystallization is reached with

the avant-garde movement. The result of the revolution of art is a freedom literally entan-

gling art insofar as this very freedom forces art into new dependencies, especially into

dependence on its own logic.

What does this mean? Modern art is characterzied by an art establishment which

increasingly develops its own logic and a higher differentiation. The result is ‘inherent

self-motion’ (Gehlen 2004 [1956]: 290) that forces everyone within the field of art to

strive after whatever new emerges. The inherent logic of modern art described by Gehlen

promotes three things: the tendency towards a business-like organization, the unique

awareness and alertness of culture, and the shift of attention from content to form. This

new interest is defined by Gehlen as ‘a methodical, technical one: how is this done’

(Gehlen 2004 [1956]: 292). In Zeit-Bilder, Gehlen adds that it was art itself that shed

light on its internal logic of development from one epoch to the next, thereby imprinting

itself into the historical consciousness of people. The knowledge of the inner logic of

development of art enables the artist to choose means and effects systematically in oppo-

sition to the established order. In this context Gehlen outlines the image of a real

‘process-rational progression: Impressionism / Expressionism, Expressionism / new rea-

lism, representational / non-representational, geometric and abstract / informal abstract’

(Gehlen 1986: 157). Always, Gehlen writes, what happens is what is most likely, namely

the turn to an antithesis, but the question is: how long can this process continue?

Magerski 85



Once again: up to the avant-garde. With the avant-garde the maximum freedom of

movement and experimental opportunity are achieved. Crystallization reaches the point

where the history of art comes to a standstill. Now the process comes to a halt:

From now on, there is no further inherent artistic development! With a kind of logical sense

art history is over, even the consequence of absurdity. Development is completed, and what

comes next is already there: the syncretism of the mixture of all styles and options, Post-

histoire. (Gehlen 1986: 206, emphasis in original)

In other words, the permanent art-immanent revolution, the forced acceleration of his-

tory, finally led to the end of immanent development. With the end of the development

of art we have arrived at the subject Gehlen is mainly interested in, modern art as ‘an

aliud’ (Gehlen 1966: 78) – as an equivalent of art, and yet as something totally different

in comparison to any previous kind of art. Only with this sort of art is a discipline like

sociology really challenged, because the standards and categories developed by looking

at the history of art do not apply to modern art any longer. And this is exactly why, with

concentrating on modern art as an aliud, we can switch over from the history of art to the

sociology of culture and demonstrate to what extent Gehlen’s ‘diagnosis of late culture –

movement without progression’ (Weiss 1994: 859) – is derived from the observation of

modern art, and in particular from the observation of the phenomenon of the avant-garde.

The change from the history of art to the sociology of culture manifests itself in terms

of ritualization and institutionalization. Ritualization and institutionalization guarantee,

according to Gehlen, the survival of art after the end of art history. We could say that

they cushion art after it has left the shelter of its own history and had finally reached a

freedom which endangered art itself. In this sense, Gehlen in 1964 speaks with reference

to cultural evolution of modern art’s obligation to continue and to be highly aware – an

obligation that forces art continuously to prove its own existence, historically aware of

the danger of falling silent. Futhermore, the laws which shaped modern art are already so

obvious that they have moved into the area of planning and can thus be wound up. ‘Art

can cease but it is not allowed to cease; do not believe that this problem is far-fetched’

(Gehlen 1966: 83). And because art could stop but should not, there emerges simulta-

neously the possible end of art and the ritualization and institutionalization of art as art.

The crystallization of art – what Gehlen calls ‘running on the spot’ (Gehlen 1966: 84) – is

accompanied by a concentration on its own field, which, in turn, is the precondition for

ritualizing and to institutionalizing art as art.

Gehlen defines the concept of ritualization by quoting the Romanian literary scholar

Petru Dumitriu:

The initial anarchistic phase of the avant-garde did have this theoretical and practical earn-

estness, which caused the angry reaction of society. On the other hand, it is equally true that

the second and third generations are established artists, included by and integrated in society

by ritualizing its theories and practice. (Gehlen 1966: 86)

Gehlen takes over this definition and confirms that the avant-garde has become classic

and normative. Like any earlier artistic movement it also could ‘not escape the danger of

becoming too common, too widespread and too easily accessible’ (Gehlen 1966: 85).




Thus the avant-garde finally becomes the establishment. Once adjusted, art loses its rev-

olutionary content but remains programmed for a revolution and thus committed to

ongoing innovation, which must inevitably bring art into trouble. With Dumitriu, Gehlen

warns in this context that art will finally abolish itself unnoticed or the concept of art will

be overstretched to the point that no standards for judging remain.

And yet with his discussion of the concept of ritualization Gehlen does not primarly

intend to criticize the development of modern art but rather to understand the process in

which even an action openly violating the rules can be absorbed by the set of rules. Going

further than Dumitriu, Gehlen clarifies and expands the concept of ritualization by

declaring that the normalization of artistic styles explicitly opposing the norm has to be

seen in its relation to the normalization of the artistic mindset. Ritualization, as Gehlen

understands it, means more than just the repetition of a particular practice. It is defined as

ways of behaviour which, like religious behaviour, are at once a stereotype and a value in

itself. This is how the norms of religion or art become stabilized and immune to criticism.

Gehlen illustrates these thoughts by taking Expressionism as an example, where expe-

rience turns into a solid collective attitude – a conversion Gehlen calls ‘inner-institu-

tionalization’ (Gehlen 1986: 134). This sort of institutionalization is the primary one.

Secondary institutionalization corresponds to the inner-institutional, but goes beyond

individuals and leaves a visible network of art. Only secondary institutionalization can in

fact support art, since in the long run individual artists, in particular the representatives of

the avant-garde, could not survive in the precarious situation of isolation without an

institutionalization that holds together ‘the whole airy, endangered organism of art

through a stable framework of international dimensions’ (Gehlen 1986: 207).

At the core of this stablizing framework is the art trade, including the museum

directors and the entire publication process. This market-oriented large-scale organiza-

tion has taken the place of the social mission of art and keeps artist and art alive. Gehlen

stresses that not all elements of this institution were directly interested in the market, but

all of them refer to the same audience. He also underlines that no-one familiar with the

conditions of existence in modern society could reject this ‘great institutionalization’

(Gehlen 1986: 208), because the paradox that novelty has to be acknowledged before-

hand is one of the characteristics of modern art. The art dealers of high rank mediate,

control and inspire. Thanks to them and particularly to their publicity, the public is now

awaiting ‘the unheard of’, while the artist tries to find ‘the special formula within the

existing directions’ (Gehlen 1986: 208). The functioning of this secondary institution

is described by Gehlen as follows:

Accordingly, art is what people who are interested in art declare it to be. The artist has long

since inwardly removed himself from society by seeking recognition only from the art

dealers, critics, museum directors, collectors and exhibitors. This, one might say, constitutes

‘a cynical cartel of opinion’, and without doubt, it is the art trade which selects what is

valuable and should circulate. (Gehlen 1986: 230)

This characteristic of art as a kind of secret society reemerges in more recent cultural

theory such as that of the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. And yet these are two

different perspectives on the same phenomenon. Although Gehlen also emphasizes that

Magerski 87



the institution of art creates the ‘belief in art’ (Gehlen 1986: 230), for him it is the

institution rather than the belief that keeps art going. According to Gehlen, the self-

conservation of the institutional structure becomes an end in itself insofar as finally the

meaning of the production of art lies in the conservation of the apparatus of art. Similar

to Georg Simmel’s thought on symbolic forms, Gehlen compares the ‘illusion of art’ to

the ‘illusion of money’ (Gehlen 1986: 231) and asks what would happen to them once, as

in the case of money, disillusionment sets in. Because the apparatus of art is not working

in a naked speculative capitalist way, it needs constant innovation and – ‘as in women’s

fashion’ (Gehlen 1986: 231) – has to test constantly the limits of the buyer taste. That

sounds critical. However, if we follow Gehlen, neither the belief in art nor the institution

of art operating openly in the modus of the market economy is in need of enlightenment.

As Gunther Ortmann has convincingly argued, society as Gehlen understands it needs

institutional fictions, because only the institutions can ensure the ‘continuity, foresee-

ability, repeatability, reliability’ (Ortmann 2004: 23–5) without which the weak human

being could not cope with the world around him. In Gehlen’s view, belief, art, and fiction

are not deceptions or self-deceptions but an integral component of human nature. They

are fake but, as Ortmann puts it nicely, a fake for the purpose of establishing a normative

order and not a fraud.

However, this important difference between Gehlen and subsequent cultural theorists

should not overshadow the fact that they all try to come to terms with a problem

symptomatic of the sociology of culture: what constitutes an arbitrary structure such as

modern art and how does it sustain itself? To find an answer, Gehlen had focused on the

art revolution of the avant-garde and the forces that make them dive back ‘into line’

(Gehlen 1986: 11). What he sees on closer inspection is that the seemingly boundless and

unregulated space of art proves to be as well regulated as other social institutions and

thus comparable:

There are societal needs outside of the field of art which intervene in artistic matters. The

lastest art is also institutionalized, . . . so that even the unconventional innovator is forced to

move within a space structured by expectations which are broad but not unlimited. A lot of

possibilities within abstract painting could better be expressed in other forms than that of the

rectangular picture. What is constraining artists is the extraordinary power of convention.

(Gehlen 1986: 11)

III. Modern art from the perspective of communication

The need for commentary is seen by Gehlen as a constitutive element of ritualization and

institutionalization, that is, of the gradual constitution of meaning and significance by an

automonous art entangled in its own freedom. As with the revolution and its institu-

tionalization, the need for commentary refers directly back to the avant-garde. Gehlen

argues as follows: modernism, especially avant-garde art, is an art of reflection. The

paintings are puzzles and so they need commentary or communication to solve the

particular puzzle.

As Joachim Fischer has pointed out, these comments are condensed by the art critics

and the audience alike into an endless conversation about the meaning of the pictures – a




conversation which can no longer be separated from art itself. According to Fischer, this

idea was picked up and further developed by systems theory into the concept of a society

that lacks binding norms and therefore depends on ‘legitimation through procedure’

(Fischer 2010: 2). In fact, with Gehlen the ‘commentary problem’ can be seen as

response not only to the ‘structural crisis’ (Gehlen 1986: 169) of modern painting and

modern art but of modern society in general.

Let us take a closer look: according to Gehlen, modern art’s need for comment ‘is a

most remarkable phenomenon’ (Gehlen 1986: 54). That the no longer clearly visible

meaning of the picture has established itself ‘beside the picture as commentary, as art

literature and, as everyone knows, as art talk’ (Gehlen 1986: 54, emphasis in original)

must be understood as a special feature of modern art. Not coincidentally, Gehlen

illustrates his thought by taking Kandinsky as an example. Here the need for comment

derives from Kandinsky’s withdrawal into subjectivity. Painting enters the public sphere

only as a picture, and this is how it generates the search for meaning and significance:

Someone invents a language by himself, which appears so logical and clear to him that he is

beginning to communicate in this language: the others do not understand a single word, but

some people feel deeply impressed, because they hope that the mystery may finally become

sensuously perceivable: profane, and yet still auratic, private, but of public value. They

understand that language in their own way. The two strands of monologues produced by the

participants run as a dialogue for decades. (Gehlen 1986: 121)

With the commentary a new, second frame is marking the picture as a picture. Comments

‘place themself like a second frame around the images’ (Gehlen 1986: 163). By so doing,

they become ‘wordy and poetic, because they try to reach the image through language,

competing in a lyrical form with the image without ever reaching a unique identifia-

bility’ (Gehlen 1986: 9). The validity of the comments can no longer be verified. It was

not always like this. If we follow Gehlen, the commentary of conceptual painting could

be verified because this style of painting came with its own theory. This is why peinture

conceptuelle marks the peak and turning point of modern painting. Cubism, Klee,

Kandinsky, Mondrian, and Surrealism – they all had an explicit concept of art against

which, in turn, their work could be measured. For the subsequent development this no

longer applies, so that the comments now become more and more arbitrary.

At this point we should remember the accusations raised against Gehlen concerning

his attitude towards modern art. Given his discussion of conceptual painting, these

accusations seem to be more than questionable. If there is something Gehlen could be

accused of, it is mixing up his own artistic preferences with his theoretical considera-

tions. By emphasizing the importance of conceptual painting, Gehlen attempts to freeze

the development of art at exactly the point which proves his own theory. And when

Gehlen critizises art after modernism it is primarily in order to mark the problem, or

rather the risk, to which art exposes itself by playing with its own justifiability. Gehlen

calls this a ‘very sophisticated problem’ (Gehlen 1986: 217) as art may now suddenly

turn into a farce, a game, or just junk. The paths towards a solution to that problem,

Gehlen writes, have been widely travelled and what initially needed considerable acu-

men is now a well-worn route. While Klee’s cryptograms were designed to stimulate the

Magerski 89



sense of reading and to lead the observer to the borderline between image and non-

image, subsequent art leaves no traces at all. That may be regrettable, and indeed Gehlen

seems to regret it, but essentially he is concerned to point out that modern art precisely as

an art of reflection – existing from the outset in the ‘medium of ambiguity’ (Gehlen

1986: 217) – has provoked such a development. Not naıve but well aware of the reflexive

nature of their art, the representatives of the avant-garde such as Klee speculated on this

ambiguity, knowing that the most radical form of ambiguity is to let their works raise

doubts whether they are works of art or not.

Under the heading ‘The Mystery of Cubism’, Gehlen in Zeit-Bilder writes that in all

the major events of modern painting such as Cubism or the pictures of Klee and Kan-

dinsky the systematic theoretical reflection belongs directly to the process of the for-

mation of the images and is no additional ingredient (Gehlen 1986: 74). The same applies

to literature. In his remarks On Cultural Evolution Gehlen illustrates through the plays of

Beckett that modern literature consists of statements not about the world, but of literature

itself. Beckett’s plays are seen as self-commentaries by which literature itself becomes

endless. Therefore, modern culture according to Gehlen is a ‘second degree’ culture – a

culture that ‘always simultaneously has to cope with a reality that exists only unraveled

and through representation on the one hand, and with its own history on the other’

(Gehlen 1966: 83). This is pecisely why Gehlen is so attracted by modern art and culture.

It is a complex situation confronting not only art but also sociology with enormous prob-

lems. In order to solve them Gehlen focuses on art commentary, as this is the level at

which the real struggle of modern art for its own legitimacy takes place:

The comments, which manifest themselves in large numbers of manifestos, reviews, books,

brochures, exhibition texts, lectures, etc., have to be understood as an essential part of

modern art which moves in two streams: an optical and a rhetorical one. A unique phe-

nomenon. Of course there was always art literature as the philosophy of art, as aesthetics,

teaching or the canon, as art history, etc., but never in the modern sense of a verbal

explanation of the meaning of painting in general, as a legitimation of the existence and

form of an image that by itself says nothing about itself. (Gehlen 1986: 54, emphasis in

original)

How could it come to be such a unique phenomenon and how does it sustain itself?

According to Gehlen it is an interaction of two moments. First, there is the moment of

crystallization which follows the revolution of art on the side of production, that is, the

unfolding of all formal possibilities up to the puzzle pictures, which need commentary.

Second, on the side of reception there is an audience interested in solving the puzzles and

ultimately interested in the commentaries as well. Such an interest is by no means self-

evident and can only be understood if we consider art, as Gehlen does, as a kind of refuge

within a rationalized world. In this context Gehlen speaks of a longing for mystery to

escape a reality that has become all too clear. Art comforts this longing by offering puz-

zles that cannot be solved. Gehlen takes over the romantic idea of a connection between

art and a longing which is aimed almost necessarily at infinity and argues that the func-

tion of the commentary is to suggest that with art much more is at stake. And only

because this is so, because the audience and the commentators cling to the belief that




images – even the non-objective ones – deliver a statement or a message, can modern art

work. Hence Gehlen speaks in Zeit-Bilder of art as ‘a stepping back to take breath’ and as

‘a site for excursions of consciousness which have no other place anymore’ (Gehlen

1986: 222).

Let me summarize: Gehlen’s central concepts – revolution of art, crystallization,

ritualization, institutionalization and the need for commenary – revolve around the

phenomenon of socio-cultural change. That the preoccupation with this phenomenon

occurred in the 1960s, in a phase of cultural conflict in which the boundaries between

art and society were again tested, is not by chance. Nor was it chance that in this phase

of cultural conflict the term postmodern was coined. How did Gehlen – as a strong sup-

porter of modern art and a close observer of art and its society – respond to the so-called

postmodern constellation?

IV. Postmodernism or art in the ‘state of endlessness’

As Wolfgang Lipp has pointed out, Gehlen had an ‘eye for reality, for the dramatic, the

action-drama, and the tragic dimension of reality’ (Lipp 1994: 77). And indeed there is a

strong relation to the present and an intense discussion of issues of production, distribu-

tion and reception in his writings. This may explain Gehlen’s rather unusual dealing with

the issue of autonomy not only in comparison to the representatives of aesthetics but also

to numerous other cultural sociologists. Unusual, because Gehlen – while also attesting a

loss of autonomy for post-avant-garde art – considers this loss not as the problem of con-

temporary art but rather as the solution.

So let us see how Gehlen captures the drama of the transition which transformed the

supposedly vulnerable structure of art into endless perpetuity. We start from the end,

with Gehlen’s remarks on the ‘end of history’ (Gehlen 2004: 348) published in 1975.

Here he explains that the state of perpetuity is reached by art through an ever-expanding

market and through the media. Cultural and media industries are not a threat to the auton-

omy and ultimately the existence of art, but rather its anchor:

In short, too many lives depend on these sectors. The extraordinary demand for newspapers,

magazines, broadcasters and book series that require material day and night, make a life as a

writer possible; the means of production of many existences is the typewriter. And as for the

visual arts, they seem to be assured of their continued existence indefinitely, because they

have found their own institutional base on an international level. The art dealers, museums,

cities with their patrons and bureaucracy and the art fairs and exhibitions, the critics and art

writers, not to mention the refugees from money who want to invest – they all give a stable

base, which guarantees the perpetuity of an art which would not exist if it were to be

invented today. (Gehlen 2004: 349)

Strong words in relation to an art that has lost its social function and can survive only for

institutional reasons. The main condition of the possibility of such a free market-driven

self-preservation of art is seen by Gehlen in its adaptation to democratization, in partic-

ular through the penetration of art into the ‘repertoire of education’ (Gehlen 1986: 231).

It is the alliance between art and education which creates not only the bureaucratic

patronage of countries and city governments but also the imperative demand that ‘culture

Magerski 91



should be’ and ‘art should be’ (Gehlen 1986: 231), and thereby the growing number of

visitors to exhibitions and art fairs. The idea of equality and the reduction of educational

privileges lead to a culture in which everyone can participate, and thus everyone who

wants to be can be an artist. The resulting pleasure of doing it yourself is attested by

Gehlen. But what, the art lover and connoisseur of modern art is asking, are the conse-

quences for art itself? The answer is as short as it is sobering – devaluation:

Who wants to engage in felt, fat, old cardboard, chocolate, commits a triple error: he is left

behind, because Dada was around 1913, he risks maximum competition, because everyone

can do that, and he joins the dubious moral front where people want to reap without having

sowed. (Gehlen 1986: 232)

What becomes obvious is that Gehlen regards the neo-avant-garde as nothing but an

‘enormous game of legacy hunting’ (Gehlen 2004: 347). That it works is due to the

ignorance of an aspirational public and to the fact that, thanks to democratization, spec-

ulative capital and mass media have developed an interest in art.

So does this mean that everything that presented itself to the observer of art in the ’60s

and ’70s was already there with the avant-garde? Not at all, but because of the scattered

nature of Gehlen’s writings we have to look closer. Only then are we able to see how

much Gehlen could be irritated by the reality of art. In the ’70s Gehlen added a section to

Zeit-Bilder in which he calls the contemporary situation ‘a chaos of diversity’, char-

acterized by a ‘disorientation caused by anything goes’ (Gehlen 1986: 226). Gehlen’s

effort to find a system behind the chaos and to dare a prognosis is literally inscribed in his

late writings, and indeed they take as a starting-point the dramatic reality of art. In 1966

Gehlen discusses the question of what specific courses of action are open to the contem-

porary artist facing a ‘deep gap between art and the audience’ (Gehlen 1966: 89). The

answer sheds light on what we might call the theory of the two ways:

At the moment, one gets the impression that the young artist sees two ways in front of him:

either in the direction of public events, architecture or even urban design, that is, where only

public funds function as clients. Or he sticks to the traditional forms of the picture and

sculpture and hopes for individual lovers of art. In that case he must not lose contact with the

audience or he will become dependent on public assistance such as in the so called Denmark

plan or in Berlin. (Gehlen 1966: 93)

What Gehlen has in mind when he writes about the second way are not only forms of

government-subsidized art, such as the emergency programme for artists run by the West

Berlin government since 1951 or the Denmark plan set up in 1964, but also the reform of

the art market, as undertaken by the Dutch art dealer Louis Gans, who had tried to win

new buyers through changing exhibitions in previously non-art environments, for exam-

ple in staff rooms or canteens. According to Gehlen such a reform of the art market is

possible only if art adapts to the needs and tastes of the audience. But this is exactly the

problem: The adaptation necessary to the survival of art is blocked by the ‘ideology of

artistic autonomy’ and by the ‘ideology of the autonomy of the creative individual’

(Gehlen 1986: 91). This is true especially for the situation in Europe, where Gehlen sees

a ‘dictatorship of the artist about what pleases and what does not’ (Gehlen 1966: 90).




Thus he looks abroad and tries to encourage the artists to do the same. Above all, it is Pop

Art which attracts his attention:

Pop Art can boast that it has rehabilitated the outside world and to have supported the human

need for meaning. It emerged in the mid-fifties in America, and it returned to the classical

approach of modern art insofar as the artists mirror what they see around them – in this cen-

tury posters, sex, cars, cans, signals. The often huge formats awaken the feeling of heigh-

tened perception, but by other means than before . . . . To loosen the familiar from its

real context, to narrow it by isolation and to increase it at the same time, that has always

been one of the tricks of art . . . . The pop stuff is more complex and carefully worked, the

pop artists invest and want to get something in return; they happily play around with the

present. (Gehlen 1966: 97)

What is crucial here, according to Gehlen, is that there are quite innovative develop-

ments within the post-avant-garde art – but not in Europe.

This also applies to the alternative way. The traces of the new collectivist forms of art

such as cinema or electronic music lead to America and from there ‘further to the

happenings or around the corner to Disneyland’ (Gehlen 1966: 90–3). Above all, these

kind of works of art are collectivist to an extent unprecedented in the history of art: they

are based on anonymous crowds, inconceivable in private settings, but possible as

architectural elements or as parts of public performances and, not infrequently, designed

by engineers or, in the case of electronic music, by technicians. By the end of the ’50s,

Gehlen had set his hopes concerning the further development of art on film, arts and

crafts, and the electronically produced sound. In the mid-’60s, he describes this area

shaped by technology and media as ‘a genuine new category of public games’ (Gehlen

1966: 92), because these are objects in which the viewer is included. With them the last a

priori of traditional art vanishes. Even the avant-garde had left the picture on the wall and

the sculpture in a specific place and thus still created ‘the single work of art’ for ‘the sin-

gle lover and buyer of art’ (Gehlen 1966: 85, emphasis in original). In Zeit-Bilder Gehlen

writes of a departure from the art of objects and of a setting-in-motion of the artwork

through audiovisual media (Gehlen 1986: 229).

The idea of the new collectivist art introduced by Gehlen in the ’60s and ’70s can be

connected to contemporary discourse, especially if we think of the creative industries

described by Richard Florida and Paul H. Ray. Both the avant-garde of the ’20s and the

creative industry of today are based on bohemia. Yet, unlike the avant-garde, the creative

industries do not constitute a counter-culture on the margins of society motivated by a

critique of capitalism, but rather an affirmative culture, a culture that is playing a central

role in post-industrial society, or at least claims to do so.

Whether today’s creative industry can be understood as an extension or perhaps even

as the accomplishment of the avant-garde project that began around 1900 is certainly one

of the most interesting questions not only for cultural history but also for cultural studies.

If we agree that it does, we could argue as follows: in the ’60s, a relatively small anti-

bourgeois counter-culture turned into an affirmative creative industry. The year 1968

– seen as a key moment or a moment of transition – marks not only a new form of capit-

alism of post-industrial society but also a new form of art. This new form of art is col-

lectivist by nature and acts as a visionary and supplier of the new industry. The new

Magerski 93



concept of art is then no longer based on the artist, inspiration or the work of art, but

rather on a collective project and on an affirmative creativity closely connected to the

project. That such a concept of art leaving behind the tension between art and society

could succeed was possible only within the context of the cultural revolution of the

’60s, because it was the cultural revolution that allowed a generalization of the previ-

ously marginal existence of the bohemia.

If we agree with this version of cultural history, Gehlen – as an eyewitness – would

have formulated his thoughts precisely at the point of transition from the first to the

second bohemian subculture, or rather from the avant-garde to the creative industry. In

this case, it would be the conservative Gehlen who proves to be a proponent of cultural

revolution. Addressing the artists directly, he strongly advises them not to outlaw the

decorative or to ignore the fact that artists such as Kandinsky, Klee and Picasso always

served the commercial side of art. Referring to the ceramics of Picasso, the carpet

designs by Hans Arp or Vasarely, he emphasizes that it is ‘dogma which draws a sharp

distinction between art and craft’ (Gehlen 1966: 95), and not modern art itself:

Modern art is mannerist, it is also decorative in many successful cases, and it provides a

smooth transition to the crafts, but officially all this is banned. Why? Because according to

the theory of the time around 1900, which still prevails, irrationality and originality are

overrated. This must be the starting point of an aesthetic consideration aiming at the review

of a programme which has become inconsistent, with the intention of finally learning how to

read ‘the picture puzzle of the situation’. (Gehlen 1966: 97, emphasis in original)

Learning how to read ‘the picture puzzle of the situation’ is exactly what art and theory

are still doing. Sociology is no exception. The discipline was defined by Gehlen in 1976

as the ‘science of institutions from a historical perspective, with special consideration of

critical conditions’ (Gehlen 2004: 622). As such, it was sociology that undermined the

notion of the humanities. That these remarks appeared under the title ‘The State of

Sociology’ at a time when cultural studies were looming and starting to undermine the

notion of sociology itself was not chance. Gehlen himself sympathized with the cultural

turn and in 1976 suggested dropping the ‘almost ghostly term society’ (Gehlen 2004:

631) and switching to the concepts of tension and structure instead. But whether under

the guise of sociology, cultural sociology or cultural studies, the question of the possi-

bilities of theorizing modern art and society remains. Perhaps it can no longer be

answered positively. Perhaps the concepts of art and society share the same destiny and

must be left behind precisely because even in the form of criticism they are bound to the

idea of wholeness and integration that is disproved daily by a pluralistic society and its

art. However, the study of culture that has emerged from the cultural revolution must

continue to work on theorizing contemporary art and society if it wants to reclaim the

leading role in the observation of cultural change. Gehlen as a theorist sceptical of closed

theories may provide suggestions.

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Biographical note

Christine Magerski is a Senior Lecturer of German Studies at the University of Zagreb,

Croatia, and author of The Constitution of the Literary Field in Germany after 1871

(2004), Theories of the Avant-Garde (2011) and Which University? Historical Observa-

tions on the Construction of Higher Education (2012).




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