Pluralism and Post-modernism are two of the “-isms” which emerged in the 1960’s and to many are almost synonymous. Today’s contemporary art is still and most definitely heavily tinged with the effect of Pluralism.  Robert Atkins’ defines Plurarism as “the opposite of a clearly defined mainstream” and it “refers to the co-existence of multiple STYLES in which no single approach commands the lion‘s share of support or attention”.

Pluralism encompasses everything from Abstract Expressionism to Realism, from Pop-art to Minimalism.  In the 1970s and 1980s Pluralism culminated to a mega movement worldwide, introducing such new styles as Arte Povera, Conceptual Art, Earth Art, Installation  Art, Ephemeral Art, Feminist Art,  Performance Art, Video and Media Art and more.

With Pluralism, there are no limits and no more institutional controls, so everything is permitted allowing the artist infinite possibilities for expression.  Pluralism in fact, represents the abandonment of dogma and ideology, offering immense opportunities for all sorts of artistic expression.

Along with all this freedom comes a price. A lack of ideology means a lack of standards to be compared and judged by.  The absence of rules resulted in all types of art being able to claim equal status.  This is perhaps the demise of Pluralism, its unlimited freedom weakens art’s integrity, simply because it becomes difficult or even impossible to determine what is acceptable as art and what is not.

It is therefore becoming increasingly difficult to accommodate objective critical analysis of contemporary art, mainly because it is difficult for the critics to focus on any one particular aspect of it and to find the right criteria by which to make a judgment.

Perhaps this is evidence of what a number of art historians and critics are saying,  that art today is in crisis and if so, not far behind it and closely associated following it should be the probability that criticism itself is in crisis as well. If anything goes for art, anything goes for criticism.  Long gone are the days of the famous art critics battling it out tooth and nail in order put their ideas forth and in order to preserve the meaning in art.

Pluralism also becomes problematic from an art historian’s point of view because owing to its own anti-dogma definition, it cannot become a “tradition”.  As in every other tradition in the history of art, for a tradition to succeed it must generate concrete and durable criteria by which it can be judged.  There have to be some standards. But in the absence of standards how is the critic supposed to to write about a “piece” or a body of work even?

It is no wonder then that critical writing has moved away from describing the formal qualities of art works and judging them on their aesthetic value and quality. Instead, critical writing has shifted to describing the ideas and philosophies that are represented by a work of art, often making the writing virtually incomprehensible to any one that is not steeped in the notions of Foucault or Derrida. It has been suggested that critics now are more concerned with the artist’s own morality than they are with  the actual art works or whether the artist has demonstrated to have any talent. This should not come as a surprise when there is not much else that they can write about given the scatological extremes that some contemporary artists are striving for.

It is my view that the situation as it exists today will not continue to prevail. As it is in the order of nature, when things run down we eventually get entropy and similarly in Pluralistic Art, we are heading towards a total randomness with complete loss of direction.  Enantiodromia is inevitable (this is a notion originally expounded upon by the Greek philosopher Heraclitus, 5th centurty B.C. and later coined by Carl Jung. Enantiodromia occurs when superabundance of any force inevitably produces its opposite).  Is the Pluralistic Art world in peril of bringing about its own annihilation?

Perhaps Art Criticism is failing as less critics are willing to stick their necks out and avoid the risk of starting feuds with other crtics over what is good or bad art.  Instead they concentrate on ideas and the language of these styles.  But this permissive attitude means there are eventually not going to be any watch dogs left. There is a lot of garbage out there masquerading as “high-art” and unfortunately fewer ad fewer critics are willing to stand up and “blow the whistle”.

This is bad for a number of reasons.  Firstly, the public at large have pretty much given up on contempoary art because they simply “don’t get it”.  Lack of clear direction from the critics makes things only worse and is a dis-service to the public. Secondly, it is not good for the development of artists themselves as they have no validated standard to be compared against. Thirdly, it allows the art dealers to manipulate the market allowing for huge profits that are often based on hype and as a result of shrewd spin doctors being behind all the hype.  This smacks of unethical  practices but what is ironic about it is is the fact that central to Post Modernism and Pluralism was a rebellious idea that artists are not there to make art so that it can then be sold as luxury goods. We are, however witnessing a rise in both the number of contemporary works being collected as well as a rise in the prices some  of these art works command in the auction houses of the world.

In conclusion, yes, we are indeed facing a pluralist situation in art today and yes there is a need for art critics to specify what is relevant and what is not.  But unless a radical change occurs in the accepted ideas of what constitutes meaningful art as opposed to spectacles whose theatricality is meant to delight audiences at that moment but lacks all the necessary ingredients to become durable and sustained.