The Marketplace of Art & The Commentary The Marketplace of Art

Acclaimed as one of the leading theoreticians of avant-garde art and architecture between the two world wars, Teige’s more political writings still remain to be discovered. Written in 1936, in the context of the rising conservative right-wing culture, and during the intense debates between the avant-garde artists and the Communist Party, The Marketplace of Art is a response to the capitulation of contemporary art to fascist and Stalinist currents. Teige discusses this reaction as something deeply inscribed into the culture of the bourgeoisie, which he claims is a culture “not able to create and inspire any other kind of art besides a hollow and pompous academism or sentimental kitsch.”