ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the phenomenon of modernism in the arts demands new terms of criticism, beyond the traditional "good art" and "bad art"; understanding the necessity of these new terms of criticism is one way of gaining access to the nature of modernism itself. These new terms include Clement Greenberg's "decoration," "entertainment," and "kitsch"; Stanley Cavell's "fraudulence"; and Michael Fried's "theatricality." An approach that links literalism and skepticism explains Fried's reliance on the concept of "objecthood" in describing literalist art. Fried says that Tony Smith's turnpike experience revealed to him the "conventional nature of art." Smith experienced the turnpike and drill ground as "empty situations," "as though reveal the theatrical character of literalist art, only without the object; that is, without the art itself". The key phrase that explains Smith's experience is "something that had nothing to do with any function."
