Critique of Marxist Citationalism in Art Theory Examines Keti Chukhrov's e-flux Essay

A recent blog post from the Manhattan Art Review critiques what it terms 'Marxist Citationalism' in art theory, using Keti Chukhrov's essay 'Art and Emancipation in the Gaze of Political Eschatology' as a primary example. Published last month in e-flux, Chukhrov's work is criticized for relying heavily on citations from figures like Boris Groys while making broad claims about modernist art under capitalism as inherently nihilistic and nonsensuous. The critique notes Chukhrov references only two artworks—Lars von Trier's 'Melancholia' and Todd Phillips's 'Joker'—and idealizes early Soviet avant-garde artists such as Boris Arvatov, Sergey Tretyakov, and Alexey Gastev without addressing historical complexities. The blog author, drawing on Benjamin Studebaker's Substack post about determinism, argues that dogmatic Marxist approaches in art writing often lead to insensitivity toward the phenomenological experience of art, substituting chains of authority for qualitative judgment. Figures like T.J. Clark and Theodor Adorno are mentioned as counterexamples of sensitive observers, though the post contends that many leftist academics treat frigidity toward art as a point of pride. The critique also touches on the 7th Berlin Biennale and Jonas Staal's 'The New World Summit' from 2012, which Chukhrov uses to discuss activist art's institutional co-option. Overall, the post positions itself not as anti-Marxist but as targeting a specific blindness in art theory that prioritizes ideological dogma over engagement with art's ambiguities.