There used to be a time when conservatives railed against grievance-mongering, a time when complaints about perceived slights and inadequate representations in the mass media — “Gay Inuits with PTSD are statistically underrepresented in the fall TV lineup!” — were dismissed with a snort and a chuckle.

As the culture wars progressed, however, conservatives became more comfortable in the role of victim. Seeing how well it worked, how much it riled up the base and spurred sympathetic coverage, they took to complaining about things — underrepresentation of conservative points of view, foul language and overt sexuality, lack of respect for religious beliefs — in language eerily reminiscent of that employed by the PC police years ago.

The latest opportunity to showcase their outrage came after a recent episode of “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” during which a splash of urine was mistaken for a tear on a painting of Christ.

Blasphemy! they cried. this would never be done to another religion, like Islam, they scolded. They’re so brave, came another sarcastic reply, arguing that attacking the sacred cows of the left would be a far dicier proposition in the artistic community, one that might actually risk personal and business relationships. That would take real courage.

It’s easy enough to be against something — but given the chance to be for something, will the right spring to the ramparts in the same manner?

A new indie film “(Untitled)” puts that question to the test.

“(Untitled)” isn’t a conservative film in any narrowly doctrinaire sense of the word. it isn’t a Randian broadside against “the looters” trying to implement socialized medicine. it isn’t a rousing war epic in the vein of “300″ or “The Longest Day.” it isn’t a terrible parody film that takes cheap shots against easy targets such as Michael Moore.

Instead, “(Untitled)” goes after postmodernism — specifically, postmodern art.

Brothers Adrian and Josh Jacobs (Adam Goldberg and Eion Bailey, respectively) are artists of different temperaments. Adrian’s a sound artist whose musical arrangements include bucket-kicking and vinyl-squeaking; Josh is more successful, a painter whose compositions are less challenging than his brother’s cacophonous noise but far more popular.

Josh’s popularity with corporate types doesn’t win him what he desires, however: a showing in the avant-garde art gallery owned by Madeleine Gray (Marley Shelton). Madeleine has been content to sell his art — it keeps her afloat financially, in fact — but she refuses to show his work because it will diminish her credibility with the artiste set.

Instead, she shows art that can only be described as hideous. one exhibited artist is Ray Barko (Vinnie Jones), whose work resembles a taxidermist’s office by way of Derrida: Animals are stuffed and put into odd positions and splashed with makeup as a “comment” on society.

Another show consists of little more than items from a home placed onto a wall. A thumb tack (”Pushpin Stuck into Wall”), for example, or a flickering lightbulb. in the world of new York’s hipster pomo set, this is what passes for art.

As Josh becomes more and more frustrated by Madeleine’s sensibilities, he finally blows his stack, yelling out, “When did beauty become so… ugly?”

“(Untitled)” is by no means a defense of banality in art, and Josh’s art is nothing if not banal — his painted canvases of soothing colors dotted with the occasional sphere line the hallways of corporate meeting rooms and hospitals. Instead, “(Untitled)” searches for the midpoint between banality and absurdity, doing so in a way that is likely to please lovers of both modern and classical art.

Again, this isn’t a fire-breathing conservative tract. It’s far more subtle than that. But it is a celebration of art and, in large part, a rejection of the turn the artistic avant-garde has taken over the last few decades.

It’s a relatively brave rejection at that: those who argue that Hollywood is uniformly too timid to attack its own sacred cows would do well to recognize it. We shall see if they do.

Have you ever gone to a modern-art showing and felt like the dumbest person in the room? those who nod appreciatively at what’s essentially junk are called out as poseurs in (Untitled), writer-director Jonathan Parker’s very funny and on-the-nose takedown of artsy pretension.

Interestingly, though, the character who ends up most sympathetic starts out as the most infuriating. Adrien (Adam Goldberg, born for the role) is a new York composer whose work can be called avant-garde at best and insufferable at worst. Harmony—which Adrien damns as “a capitalist plot to sell pianos”—is absent in his music; instead there is atonality, bucket-kicking, paper-crumpling, and, frequently, wailing, the last provided by his good-natured clarinetist (Lucy Punch, whose character is called only “the Clarinet”). his performances are sparsely attended, and even those who sit though them have no qualms about trashing his work: One pair tells him a show was “40 minutes of pure tedium” and that his music is “emotionally bankrupt with no relation to the way human beings make sense of sound.”

One person gets Adrien, however, and that’s his brother’s girlfriend, Madeleine (Marley Shelton). Adrien immediately dislikes her because her noisy clothes distract him during a concert. But afterward, Madeleine dissects his compositions and confesses a deep reaction to them. She owns a gallery in Chelsea in which she displays nonsense. (One artist’s work is centered on taxidermy, with pieces such as a rooster stuck in a dartboard and a lamb that fell off a bicycle. Her interpretation: “His narratives are so powerful.”) But to keep money coming in, she sells the paintings of Adrien’s brother, Josh (Eion Bailey), mostly to hotel chains. such commercial appeal is gauche, of course, so she stores Josh’s work in the office. He’s also not going to win Madeleine’s heart. Adrien, though, is another story.

(Untitled) was co-written by frequent Parker collaborator Catherine DiNapoli and is less about romantic connections than about the ludicrousness of artists and collectors who affix deep meaning to works such as a pushpin stuck in a wall or blankness itself (herein titled “Wall Surrounding Space”). Madeleine, who, it becomes increasingly clear, is full of shit, defends the works she champions as suffering from “the van Gogh syndrome,” i.e. geniuses who were dismissed until well after their deaths. and though she has a point—to a point—Josh offers a more apt critique: “When did beauty become so fucking ugly?” Adrien, meanwhile, just wants to be creative and get people’s attention, as he entertainingly does during his day job, playing piano at a restaurant that’s filled with diners gabbing on their cells.

The script itself is clever but the performances here sell it, particularly those of Vinnie Jones and Ptolemy Slocum, who have minor roles as artists, Zak Orth as a faux-intelligentsia collector, and Punch, whose expressions are a delicious balance between feigned understanding and bafflement when included in discussions about art. Shelton is perfectly sophisticated and believably defensive, and Goldberg uses his sarcasm and scowl to wonderful effect. (Untitled) offers a strong yet witty statement about art and those who pursue it. But all you really need to know is this: If you’ve ever busted out laughing at works such as, oh, child mannequins with penises growing out of their heads, you’ll find plenty to entertain you here.