"The decline of the future is a phenomenon that manifests itself, naturally, in the very place where it shone like a real sun: modern Western society. I will give two examples of its decline: the crisis of the notion of an avant-garde in the realm of art, and the violent irruption of sexuality. The extreme form of modernity in art is the destruction of the object; this tendency, which began as a criticism of the notion of the 'work of art', has now culminated in a negation of the very notion of art. Things have come round full circle: art ceases to be be 'modern': it is an instantaneous present. As for sexuality and time: the body has never believed in progress; its religion is not the future but the present."
[Octavio Paz tr. H. Pane]
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