What about the fashion aesthetic?

I find this article ‘Sitings of Public Art; Integration Versus Intervention’ very interesting. The concerns of the community relating to the insertion of high-brow artworks into public spaces. I also find it interesting that none of these text seem to mention anything about things going in and out of fashion. In this article, which was written in the 70's, the erection of a public minimalist artwork from the 50's and 60's is seen as the worst thing that could happen to a community. The communities were seen to be complaining that minimalist public sculpture was an extension of the museum. It was unapproachable and made no effort to include, integrate or be part of the community. I can see how this argument is made possible, as modernist sculpture inherently holds an inviolable stature, impenetrable and an entity unto itself.

Though what is the initial the reason for these modernist sculptures making their first appearance in the community. What was happening in the years preceding the first public minimalist sculpture? Many artists were making their way to the U.S. fleeing from Germany and Paris, where Hitler was attempting to ban any type of new thinking in art. Abstract Expressionism was being born and it was all new and exciting. A step toward the new future. 

These so called boring minimalist geometric shapes were a radical shift to a new way of thinking. A way of clearing the mind of the clutter of a consumerist society, with clean lines and pure untainted materials. And then, a few decades later, it simply went out of fashion, because it over saturated the market and became common. Art is always looking for the new, so naturally, art styles are going to go out of fashion.

We are currently at a point now where it is fashionable to have a band named after an animal, paint or draw anything with an animal head on it, objects knitted or sewn has become cool, and craft and the DIY aesthetic is everywhere. This could be viewed as a necessary shift from the throw away mass production society that we now live, and the need for this shift is concurrent with our toxic world in crisis. But guess what? In a decade or two, or less, this style will go out of fashion because people will become bored with this aesthetic and the aesthetic it will probably take a shift back to clean lines and a minimalist aesthetic. And we will be stuck reading some Greenbergian-esque art theorists bullshit about how minimalist sculpture is the new way forward.