Dismissed as a miserable elitist who condemned popular culture in the name of high art, Theodor W. Adorno is one of the most provocative and important yet least understood of contemporary thinkers. This book aims to challenge this popular image and re-examines Adorno as a utopian philosopher who believed authentic art could save the world. Jade Montserrat finds that the author is extremely generous in his descriptions of the artists’ vision and treatment

Montserrat, Jade

English

LSE Research Online

blo gs.lse.ac.ukhttp://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofbooks/2013/01/29/book-review-adorno-reframed-by-geoffrey-boucher/by Blog Admin January 29, 2013Book Review: Adorno Reframed by Geoffrey BoucherDismissed as a miserable elitist who condemned popular culture in the name of high art,Theodor W. Adorno is one of the most provocative and important yet least understood ofcontemporary thinkers. This book aims to challenge this popular image and re-examinesAdorno as a utopian philosopher who believed authentic art could save the world. JadeMontserrat finds that the author is extremely generous in his descriptions of the artists’ visionand treatment.Adorno Reframed. Geoffrey Boucher. IB Tauris.Find this book: The Ref ramed series, published by I.B. Tauris, presents accessibleentries into prominent philosophic enquiry, “conceived specif ically f or thevisually minded”. Adorno Reframed, by Geof f rey Boucher, is a resourcef uland pragmatic compendium f or students and arts practit ioners eager toentertain radical and subsequently non-prescriptive thinking. ThatAdorno’s theories have been previously considered “negative” in thebleakest sense is beside the point and Boucher attempts to marginallydispel this belief  with clarity and f ortitude.Adorno Reframed is neatly divided into f our signif icant chapters pertinentto the theorist’s principle enquiries, with an introduction to atonalphilosophy. Akin to the music, modernist art, and literature of  the time,Adorno sought “to develop the phenomenological insight withoutsurrendering to the lure of  the immediate, and abandoning the historicaland social contextualisation of  ideas” (p.22). From Adorno’s own perspective he ‘composed’ hisphilosophical works akin to atonal music. Each section opens with clear and concise passages,bef ore f ull- throttle exploration commences. Boucher grabs hold of  the wheel here, steering thereader past mis-readings, avoiding, yet alerting the reader to, potholed received opinion en-route. Boucherref erences Adorno’s pre-eminence within the Frankf urt School, presents background to his biases, hisinf luences, allies and crit ics f orthrightly and with a balanced engagement. Boucher acutely posits theindelibility of  Adorno’s writ ing by honing in on applicable artists.The reader is thoughtf ully granted redress into Adorno’s perhaps exhausted world view of  capitulation byaddressing potential edif ying af f ects of  modernism and, crucially, individualism. Individualism of f eredAdorno, and in turn of f ers humanity, a principle of  hope and the possibility of  ‘reconciliation’ with thenatural environment.Through an awareness of  Adorno’s championing of  a multi-disciplinary research program we may begin toperceive the seizures mitigated on society by totalitarianism. The reader may begin to consider Adorno’sreasoning prof ound, arguing f or individual autonomy against conf ormity: in his collaboration with MaxHorkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, as discussed, together they set out “…to clarif y the real causes oftotalitarian domination” (p.3).Adorno’s theories are disquieting, grave, and sincerely pessimistic. He wrote in an of ten abstruse style, att imes analogous to a f inished drawing: displaying a numbed vibrancy as he worked through the cause andef f ect of  ideas corresponding to aesthetics with an emphasis on the culture industry generated f rom thedehumanisation of  capitalism.Harmo nie  Tranq uil le  (Quie t Harmo ny)b y Wassily Kand inskyUrd  We rd and e  Skuld  (The  No rns) b yAnse lm Ke ife rBoucher explores and clarif ies Adorno’s reconstruction of  theevolution of  music observed through the opposition betweenSchonberg and Stravinsky, in visual terms, translating echoes ofopposition between artists Wassily Kandinsky and Emil Nolde. Howwell the visual alternative works is lef t f or the reader to decide andexplore in more detail. As with all reproductions, grasping the f ullstrength of  accompanying text is f requently inadequate. Boucher is,however, extremely generous in his descriptions of  the artists’ visionand treatment. The reader is guided towards a reading of  Kandinsky’sComposition VII and Composition VIII as indicative of  Schonberg’smusic “illustrating what Adorno is advocating in terms of  rationalconstruction and spontaneous expressivity” (p.83). Eschewingrepresentational art, it is suggested that Kandinsky’s abstraction “isthe solution to the crisis in painting generated by the invention ofphotograph.” (p.84) The reader is steered towards an interpretationof  Kandinsky’s work as the antithesis of  “an entertainment complexdesigned to impress”: accentuating Adorno’s overall disdainf ul theoryof  the culture industry.The reader comes to understand that Adorno’s is terse, provocative and sometimes misleadinglycontradictory writ ing: “the aphoristic Adorno” (p.7). Adorno attacked and, one might conjecture, even f eareda trivialisation of  culture and Boucher in this regard augments a shif t in perception towards regarding him autopian thinker. Perceiving the culture industry as monolithic, Adorno purposef ully articulates its dangerousand combustible nature, ref erencing the era of  industrial capitalism in which he lived and the atrocit ies whichhe witnessed. With negative dialectics and aesthetic modernism (accompanied by, thankf ully, easily digestedparagraphs on mimesis) at the core of  this re-f raming, the reader may begin to understand these as ahelpf ul posit ion with which to view art and articulate the perils of  cultural conf ormity crit ically andprogressively.Chapter 3, ‘Aesthetic Theory’ looks to the work of  Anselm Keif er, anartist whose work parallels Adorno’s own bent: “…art must inhabit af ield of  contradictions constituted by the tension between crit icalnegativity and utopian anticipation. (p.97)” In persuasively using Keif eras illustrative of  Adorno’s aesthetic theory, and ref erencing Marx‘riding shotgun’ to his thinking, Boucher has contained inherent keysto his aesthetics: the revolutionary principle of  hope, utopianreconciliation through autonomous self - ref lexivity, assimilatedindividuality in opposition to commodif ication and the requirement of‘creative praxis’ in the f ormation of  artworks. “‘Artworks are,’ saysAdorno, ‘the plenipotentiaries of  things that are no longer distortedby exchange, prof it, and the f alse needs of  a degraded humanity’(Adorno, 1984: 227).” (p.108) This is not to say that the reader is notalerted to the f alsity of  ‘high art’, to its market led elevated statusand the role of  the artist as a perf ormer within the capitalist divisionsof  social labour. The reader is introduced to his dialectics of  materialand technique, content and f orm, the later of  which, expressly abetsunderstanding of  the dif f erentiation between art and commodity.Adorno’s theories are uncompromising. Boucher f inally ref lects,contentiously, on the post-modern condition. He unf linchingly draws to one’s attention Adorno’s perhapsidealistic trope, a hope f or a better world, as a hope that has the potential of  obliteration by post-modernism. He touches on Adorno’s f limsy stance on women (“men-that- lack”, p.142), somewhat alienatingand historically marginalising his dialectics. Despite this f ailing, Adorno’s work is championed here throughregard of  the substantial contributions he made to philosophy, sociology, cultural crit icism and aestheticswith the predominance on human happiness being a crucial means of  ref erence to those inclined. Thereader is alerted to his ecological f ocus, of  considerable relevance today, which still requires development.——————————————————————————————-Jade Montserrat  is currently a resident artist at Crescent Arts, Scarborough. She read f or a History of  ArtBA at the Courtauld Institute of  Art, f ollowed by an MA in Drawing at Norwich University College of  Arts.Read more reviews by Jade.

Book review: Adorno reframed by Geoffrey Boucher

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