"A hundred years ago, the artists of the age said enough to their own academic culture. Without any government, academic, or institutional support..."

http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/The-Armory-Show-at-100-7494

DECEMBER 2012

The Armory Show at 100

by James Panero

The lessons of the 1913 International Exhibition of Modern Art.

There is a reason that such an exhibition, with such energy, has never been repeated. We like to think we live in a post-Armory age, but we rather seem to be locked in a pre-Armory moment. Today our own cultural establishment announces its agenda with auction headlines. A professionalized museum class dictates the story of art to an increasingly passive public. A hundred years ago, the artists of the age said enough to their own academic culture. Without any government, academic, or institutional support, they found like-minded souls who helped nurture and propagate a renewed vision for culture. “Something is wrong with the world,” observed the banker James A. Stillman after seeing the Armory Show in New York. “These men know.”