Modernism in a Non-Melancholic Key

Once again it is time for a reckoning about the status of modernist art in Western Europe and North America. However we frame it, it's now perceived, in artist studios and academic programs alike, as just one formation among others, with no special claim on art practice or art history. No longer central, the field is relative not only to other modern arts in other geopolitical regions but also to all other art-historical fields. In short, it is neither the aesthetic epitome nor the historical gateway that most old-school modernists have believed it to be. This isn't news in other fields; that it might be for many modernists is one more sign that we have fallen behind.