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 Art has been replaced by 'postart', a term invented by Alan Kaprow, as a new visual category that elevates the banal over the enigmatic, the scatological over the sacred, cleverness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），紐約州立大學石溪分校藝術史與哲學教授，當代美國最富盛名的藝術評論傢之一，福特、古根海姆等多項國際著名藝術基金的獲得者。先後齣版過《怪癖性認同：前衛藝術終結中的藝術傢》（Idiosyncratic Identities:Artists at the End of the Avant-garde，1996），《拯救藝術：批判式的白日夢》（Redeeming Art:Critical Reverties）。《藝術的終結》是其2004年的最新著作。