About the irreconciliability of Traditional aesthetics and contemporary art: Some current tensions from Adorno's Aesthetic Theory

Abstract

The frictions between 20th century art and aesthetics as a discipline, addressed by Theodor W. Adorno between 1962 and 1969 throughout his work Aesthetic Theory, constitute the basis of both his own project and a very important part of the posterior theoretic-artistic debates, whose validity remains alive even today. The purpose of this paper is to address some of them (the tensions between modern categories and contemporary practices; the analyzes which are focused merely on the object or on the aesthetic experience; the reflexivity and materiality of the work in contrast with that of the discourses, etc.) in order to connect them with two contemporary authors who, explicitly or not, have updated the analyzes of the Frankfurtian author, appreciating his approach: Peter Osborne and his proposal constitutes a self-critical discourse against the deficiencies of Aesthetics, and Jacques Rancière and his interpretation of the aesthetic regime of art as a mode of distribution of the sensible. Our aim, therefore, is to show how contemporary Aesthetics and Theory of art continue to learn from the Adornian project, but also that they are still useful tools with which one can approach the most recent artistic practice.