In The End of Art, Donald Kuspit argues that art is over because it has lost its aesthetic import. Art has been replaced by 'postart', a term invented by Alan Kaprow, as a new visual category that elevates the banal over the enigmatic, the scatological over the sacred, cleverness over creativity. Tracing the demise of aesthetic experience to the works and theory of Marcel Duchamp and Barnett Newman, Kuspit argues that devaluation is inseparable from the entropic character of modern art, and that anti-aesthetic postmodern art is its final state. In contrast to modern art, which expressed the universal human unconscious, postmodern art degenerates into an expression of narrow ideological interests. In reaction to the emptiness and stagnancy of postart, Kuspit signals the aesthetic and human future that lies with the New Old Masters. The End of Art points the way to the future for the visual arts.

卡斯比特（Donald Kuspit），纽约州立大学石溪分校艺术史与哲学教授，当代美国最富盛名的艺术评论家之一，福特、古根海姆等多项国际著名艺术基金的获得者。先后出版过《怪癖性认同：前卫艺术终结中的艺术家》（Idiosyncratic Identities:Artists at the End of the Avant-garde，1996），《拯救艺术：批判式的白日梦》（Redeeming Art:Critical Reverties）。《艺术的终结》是其2004年的最新著作。