In the print edition of the October issue of The Monthly Sebastian Smee reviews Edmund Capon's I Blame Duchamp: My life's Adventures in Art

In one of the chapters Capon lines up Marcel Duchamp for the current state of contemporary art, especially conceptual art. Duchamp and his Fountain--- a ready-made sculpture as a ordinary manufactured objects designated by the artist as works of art--- are fingered for the second-rate in art today, which is devoid of beauty and sometimes a concept.

The reason given is that this ready made does not meet Capon's definition of art and so it is a version of the end of art thesis. I'm reading contemporary art as different from modern art in the sense that much contemporary art is no longer modern art in a stylistic sense. The non art--in Capon's sense--is an anti art in that these reject prior definitions of art and question art in general.

The end of art thesis, in the form of Arthur Danto's argument, Warhol’s discovery that anything, including a commonplace Brillo Box for Danto could become art is described by Danto as the end point but also as the high point of that revolutionary period. After this discovery, there were no boundaries anymore to cross and hence no further steps to take towards greater artistic self-understanding.

Artworks continued to be made, but the history of art came to a definitive halt---ie., the developmental history of art is over.Danto welcomes the unlimited diversity of art since the art world is a model of a pluralistic society, in which all disfiguringbarriers and boundaries have been thrown down.

The end of art then is where the word “art” ceases to be a meaningful term because it refers to nothing or everything.