Having It Both Ways--Art Theory Division

It is sometimes said--by me, for example--that the art theorists headquartered at October magazine have never come up with much in the way of theory. Their writing is a collage of bits and pieces brought back from Europe, and you know what collage is: the amateur's medium. Unless you're Picasso or Kurt Schwitters, making a collage is like keeping a scrapbook. Nonetheless, the October theorists are brilliant. They have figured out how to have it both ways--how to placate even as they attack. So, as they rack up credit as daring radicals, scourges of the establishment, they hold down university positions, sinecures at the heart of the establishment they so daringly oppose.