Art and Artworks

Onur Karamercan, Heidegger'de Sanat Eserinin Yeri: Sanal Müzeler Çağında Sanat ve Mekân adlı yazısında, iki yıldır yaşamakta olduğumuz salgınla birlikte çok daha sık biçimde görülmeye başlayan “sanal müze” veya “elektronik müze” uygulamalarına yakından bakar. Dünyanın en meşhur müzelerinin ve sanat galerilerinin sanatsal ve kültürel etkinliklerden mahrum kalmak istemeyen ziyaretçilerine "kapılarını" elektronik ortamda açtığı ve birçok müzenin de koleksiyonlarını tamamen ya da kısmen dijitalleştirdiği bu ortamda, şu iki soruyu yanıtlamayı amaçlar: 1) Bir mekân olarak bir müzeyi uzaktan ziyaret etmek ve bir (...) müzede sergilenen sanat eserlerini internet üzerinden “deneyimlemek” ne anlama gelmektedir ve 2) bu estetik-dijital “deneyim” (Erlebnis) insanın sanat ve mekân ile olan ilişkisi ve sanat eserinin “tecrübesine” (Erfahrung) dair ne söylemektedir? (shrink)

Is there a substantial difference between a portrait depicting the sitter’s face made by an artist and an image captured by a machine able to simulate the neuro-physiology of facial perception? Drawing on the later Wittgenstein, this paper answers this question by reference to the relation between seeing a visual pattern as (i) a series of shapes and colours, and (ii) a face with expressions. In the case of the artist, and not of the machine, the portrait’s creative process involves (...) the ability to see both aspects. From the perspective of the image’s viewer, the distinction is more difficult to draw. I address this difficulty by further distinguishing between two attributes of portraits: their representational accuracy, and their ability to convey the artist’s reflection on her experience of seeing the sitter face-to-face. While artificial intelligence can mimic this latter reflective ability, it cannot exactly reproduce it. (shrink)

A review of the recent exhibition of Wassily Kandinsky's artworks at the Guggenheim Museum, with interest in Kandinsky's career-wide separation of form from content.

The stand-up special is growing cultural significance just as it is maturing and becoming more distinct as an art form. Philosophical treatments of the special are therefore neither frivolous nor redundant. I argue here that such inquiry can be aided by a definitional account of “special” and that an essential definition – if one is available- would serve us best. I then offer a candidate definition of this kind and reply to some likely objections to it.

In this paper, I argue that modelling occupies a curious role in the art making process, and that it constitutes a hybrid art form. Modelling is intriguingly under-research in aesthetics, despite it being a cornerstone of art education and deeply involved in various art practices. It functions both within a supportive role to further the goals of art making, while also retaining the creative agency and performance of the professional model upon which the artist, photographer, or wider crew rely. This (...) ability entails not merely helping to steer a posing session, but experimenting with and adapting to any unexpected issues that arise in the course of the session. To understand the salient performative qualities of modelling, I first focus on expert movement, improvisation, and style. Second, I reflect on how modelling corresponds to creativity and skill. Finally, I propose that the model is a performer, and that, ultimately, modelling should be recognised as a hybrid collaborative art form which incorporates qualities of various performing arts. (shrink)

The work of artist Ron Athey has long befuddled the art historical establishment and has mostly remained under the philosophical radar. In this review of Athey’s Acephalous Monster, performed on August 28, 2021, at the Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater in Los Angeles, I propose a philosophical frame- work for Athey’s radical reinvention of ethical categories like agency, mutuality and communion. I describe the performance and its critical context in order to tease out the aesthetic dimension of this reinvention and (...) the subversive power of reconstituting personhood along lines of collective artistic jubilation and creative survival. (shrink)

In this Editor’s column I discuss certain fruits and limits of applying the notion of ‘performance’ to works of art. Art works can be viewed as perfor- mances, the public furnishing of works’ final form. Concerts can be viewed as performances of a work scored by someone else, the composer, but not all arts are double in this sense. Moreover, art can be viewed as mirroring the psychological, phenomenological and rhetorical aspects of human interaction, which exemplify the way people scrutinise (...) moral situations. Not all performances are artistic, let alone art. (shrink)

The art of Simon Finn has always had a markedly temporal dynamic. Vast structures built and annihilated again and again across different media, their fragmentation across space and time simultaneously methodical and darkly chaotic. Roiling waters and eldritch surfaces held captive in their unrest. Finn’s works render cycles of construction and disintegration, of stasis and motion, in ways that shed light upon the underlying structures of our experience of time while shattering simplistic notions of linearity. This is nowhere more apparent (...) than in Instability, through which Finn allows us to explore the intertwining of personal and historical time, ancestral memory and radical futurity, artefactual form and temporal function. (shrink)

'My First Philosophy Book' is an illustrated A to Z introductory philosophy book. Edited by I-Sen Chen.

Early 20th century debates over the possibility of ‘metaphysics’ are grounded in a set of questions and answers whose central themes are already delineated in Kant’s critical philosophy. Wittgenstein and Carnap are sympathetic to Kant’s dismissal of transcendent metaphysics, but skeptical that there could be any substantive account of the fundamental conditions of our meaning-making. By contrast, Heidegger follows Fichte and the early German Romantics in seeing answers to the problems raised by metacritique not in science, but in the non-discursive (...) forms of understanding and expression exemplified in art. This Romantic turn to art is not taken arbitrarily; it is motivated by methodological considerations that emerge within Kant’s own critical system. I take up the Kantian considerations which lead to an understanding of art as a window into the fundamental conditions of meaning-making before turning to Heidegger’s development of this line of thought. Next, I examine Carnap and Wittgenstein’s skepticism concerning the meaning of Heidegger’s philosophical terminology, focusing on what is perhaps the most problematic case: Heidegger’s talk of ‘the nothing’. I argue that this skepticism is overblown. Heidegger’s talk of the nothing is meaningful in the way that talk about figure and ground is meaningful: it serves as an ostensive indication of intersubjectively accessible structural features of our encounters with things. I conclude by drawing out the existential ramifications of the decision to speak or be silent, drawing on Audre Lorde to illustrate the place of art in making it possible for us to lead authentic lives. (shrink)

Is art epistemically valuable? Catherine Z. Elgin answers this question in the affirmative. She argues for the epistemic value of art on the basis of her innovative epistemological theory, in which the focus is shifted from knowledge and truth to a non-factive account of understanding. After an exposition and critique of her view, as she develops it in her most recent book “True Enough”, I will build on some of her ideas in order to strengthen her account.

A rejoinder to Harri Mäcklin, "A Heideggerian Critique of Immersive Art".

Elämä tavataan nähdä kuoleman vastakohtana. Tällaisen kahtiajaon ulkopuolelle mahtuu kuitenkin paljon ontologisia ja eettisiä kysymyksiä, joita on lähdettävä purkamaan toisesta suunnasta. Marietta Radomska ja Cecilia Åsberg ehdottavat suunnaksi biofilosofiaa, jossa elämistä ja kuolemista tarkastellaan yhteen kietoutuneina ja yhdessä muuttuvina.

In this chapter we argue for biophilosophy as a queerfeminist and posthumanities methodology that attends to the question of life by focusing on multiple differences and transformations, materiality and processuality, as well as relations, intra-actions, and disconnections. By combining both the ontological and ethical concerns that go beyond what is conventionally seen as “life”, biophilosophy offers a critical and innovative approach to the issues of death, extinction, (un) liveability, terminality, and toxicity, among others, which all form the backbone of the (...) environmental crises and changing conditions of life on Earth, often framed as the Anthropocene. In what follows, we first discuss select theorisations and implications of the “life/death” coupling as an ethico-political question; subsequently we elaborate the concept of biophilosophy as a methodology; and finally, we propose two examples where we test biophilosophy as a framework that allows us: (1) to engage with the enmeshment of life and death through the concept of the non/living, and (2) to explore the concept of toxic embodiment as an onto-ethical condition we all (human and non-human) are differentially immersed in. (shrink)

Bioart is a form of hybrid artistico-scientific practices in contemporary art that involve the use of bio-materials (such as living cells, tissues, organisms) and scientific techniques, protocols, and tools. Bioart-works embody vulnerability (intrinsic to all beings) and depend on (bio)technologies that allow these creations to come into being, endure and flourish but also discipline them. This article focuses on ‘semi-living’ sculptures by The Tissue Culture and Art Project (TC&A). TC&A’s artworks consist of bioengineered mammal tissues grown over biopolymer scaffoldings of (...) different shapes and require sterile conditions of a bioreactor and constant care in order to survive. The article explores how bioart-works are always already intertwined with multiple (bio)technologies and techniques of care and labour, forming specific feminist technoecologies that challenge conventional bioscientific and cultural imaginaries of embodiment and the relation between physis and techné. TC&A’s sculptures expose life as the non/living: the processual enmeshment of the organic and inorganic, living and non-living, and growth and decay. The article argues that thinking with and through the feminist technoecologies of bioart mobilises philosophical inventiveness: not only does it problematise the entwinement of technology and biomatter and of culture and nature, but it also prompts us to rethink the ontology of life. (shrink)

In the Western cultural imaginaries the monstrous is defined – following Aristotelian categorisations – by its excess, deficiency or displacement of organic matter. These characteristics come to the fore in the field of bioart: a current in contemporary art that involves the use of biological materials (various kinds of soma: cells, tissues, organisms), and scientific procedures, technologies, protocols, and tools. Bioartistic projects and objects not only challenge the conventional ideas of embodiment and bodily boundaries, but also explore the relation between (...) the living and non-living, organic and inorganic, human and nonhuman, as well as various thresholds of the living. -/- By looking at select bioartworks, this paper argues that the analysed projects offer a different ontology of life. More specifically, they expose life as uncontainable, that is, as a power of differentiation that traverses the divide between the living and non-living, organic and inorganic, human and nonhuman, and, ultimately, life and death. In this way, they draw attention to excess, processuality and multiplicity at the very core of life itself. Thus understood, life always already surpasses preconceived material and conceptual limits. -/- Finally, while taking Deleuzian feminisms and new materialism as its theoretical ground, the paper suggests that such a revision of the ontology of life may mobilise future conceptualisations of ethics that evade the anthropocentric logic dominant in the humanities and social sciences. (shrink)

The ongoing global pandemic of Covid-19 has exposed SARS-CoV-2 as a potent non-human actant that resists the joint scientific, public health and socio-political efforts to contain and understand both the virus and the illness. Yet, such a narrative appears to conceal more than it reveals. The seeming agentiality of the novel coronavirus is itself but one manifestation of the continuous destruction of biodiversity, climate change, socio-economic inequalities, neocolonialism, overconsumption and the anthropogenic degradation of nature. Furthermore, focusing on the virus – (...) an entity that holds an ambiguous status between the ‘living’ and ‘non-living’ – brings into question the issue of the agentiality of non/living matter. While the story of viral potency seems to get centre stage, overshadowing the complex and perverse entanglement of processes and phenomena which activated these potentials in the first place, the Covid-19 pandemic also becomes a prism that sheds light on the issues of environmental violence; social and environmental injustices; more-than-human agentiality; and ethico-political responses that the present situation may mobilise. -/- This article serves as a written record of joint conversations between artists and researchers in the working group ‘Non/Living Queerings’ that formed part of the online series of events ‘Braiding Friction’ organised by the research project Biofriction. The article strives to capture the collective effort of braiding and weaving a variety of situated perspectives, theoretical toolboxes, knowledges and experiences against the background of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. In particular, the text focuses on the issues of crisis, ‘amplification effect’, viral agency and the changing notions of humanity. (shrink)

This paper argues that certain literary works can only be fully appreciated if the reader is able to experience through empathy the character’s values. I call it "the axiological account" because it makes the grasping of aesthetic values dependent on the experience of other values embodied in the work. I develop my argument in three stages. First, I argue that in empathy we not only apprehend but also experience something similar to what the target is going through. Next, I show (...) how this experience is necessary to extract the aesthetic values of certain works. The final section addresses two challenges to the proposed account. (shrink)

This essay takes a synthetic and critical approach to the scattered pieces of art criticism and aesthetic theory authored by Louis Althusser. Connecting these texts to his larger philosophical and political project, we argue that these reflections make an independent contribution to its worth and that they offer different perspectives on lingering theoretical problems. We piece together the insights that form the core of the Althusserian approach to aesthetics and show how these are formulated (in connection with the work of (...) Pierre Macherey as well as the dominant controversies of the time) and trace how their formulations take shape in relation to the work of different authors and artists. In addition to helping us better understand his overall project, Althusser’s aesthetic theory is, we argue, a powerful and original contribution to Marxist aesthetics. Specifically, it points us to the idea that we need to take aesthetic production seriously as a practice with its own specificity - one that has its own logics of determination, rituals of production, circulation, and consumption, one that commands effects that need to be theorized on their own terms. (shrink)

Entrevista com Júlia Rebouças, curadora, pesquisadora e crítica de arte.

While the idea of art as self-expression can sound old-fashioned, it remains widespread—especially if the relevant ‘selves’ can be social collectives, not just individual artists. But self-expression can collapse into individualistic or anthropocentric self-involvement. And compelling successor ideals for artists are not obvious. In this light, I develop a counter-ideal of creative receptivity to basic features of the external world, or artistic objectivity. Objective artists are not trying to express themselves or reach collective self-knowledge. However, they are also not disinterested (...) or emotionless. They can be unmoved by personal feelings and human concerns, but they are still receptive—just attuned to the more elemental forces that creatively inspire them. I elaborate this ideal in dialogue with John Ruskin’s influential critique of the pathetic fallacy. By contextualizing Ruskin’s view vis-à-vis Romantic and Modernist poetics, post-Kantian aesthetics, modern environmental art, and contemporary theories of expressiveness, I show how it indirectly motivates my account. (shrink)

This essay aims to contribute comparative points of contact between two influential figures of nineteenth century aesthetic reflection; namely, Victor Hugo’s artful considerations on architecture in his novel Notre-Dame de Paris and G.W.F. Hegel’s philosophical appraisal of the artform in his Lectures on Fine Art. Although their individual views on architecture are widely recognized, there is scant comparative commentary on these two thinkers, which seems odd because of the relative convergence of their historically situated observations. Owing to this shortage, I (...) note that, while certainly not identical, Hugo and Hegel share an aesthetic family resemblance in how they hold similar ideas on architecture’s symbolic function, cognitive content, and, ultimately, how the artform’s ability to remain a standing paragon of meaning was razed by successive modes of cultural communication. Consequently, the essay works to show some congruent aesthetic affinities between these two great figures, but which appears to be overlooked in the literature. (shrink)

Хайдегер има цикъл статии, посветени на немския поет Хьолдерлин и обсъждащи отношението на философия и поезия. Една често срещана "дума" в тях е 'природа'. Нейни рзлични конотации в произведения на философа за поета са предмет на изследване.

Thc articlе is devoted to onе of thе grеatest Bulgarian writers: Yordan Radichkov (1929-2004). Thc choice of Radichckov's work "Attеmpt of flying" is eligiЬie to an philosophical interpretation Ьccause of the following reasons. Radichkov has won public recognition in Bulgaria. Не is а classic of the Bulgarian literature and, to а great cxtent, its fасе abroad. Не has а considcraЬle effect on the Bulgarian culture: from theatre to linguistics and philosophy. His works themselves ring true and eminently philosophically; simultaneously, they (...) are not philosophical prose. Нis ideas contain exceptional depth and originality. The mythical and folklore elements which impart characteristic Bulgarian sounding to them are emphasized. Нis typically Bulgarian view of life charms the readers. Summarizing, Radichkov's work "Attempt of fying" is represenrarive of the Bulgarian literature and possesses philosophical depth. (shrink)

«Сикстинската мадона» основава и завършва зданието на църквата , казва Хайдегер . Тя е първото и последното и тя е , която придава зъвършеност. Сред сградата на съществуващото откритост и събраност може да й придаде възможност да се мисли цялостност, смисъл , облик и завършеност.

The aim of the paper is to reassess the prospects of a widely neglected affective conception of the aesthetic evaluation and appreciation of art. On the proposed picture, the aesthetic evaluation and appreciation of art are non-contingently constituted by a particular kind of pleasure. Artworks that are valuable qua artworks merit, deserve, and call for a certain pleasure, the same pleasure that reveals (or at least purports to reveal) them to be valuable in the way that they are, and constitutes (...) their aesthetic evaluation and appreciation. This is why and how art is non-contingently related to pleasure. Call this, the Affective View. While I don’t advance conclusive arguments for the Affective View in this paper, I aim to reassess its prospects by (1) undermining central objections against it, (2) dissociating it from hedonism about the value of artworks (the view that this value is grounded in, and explained by, its possessors’ power to please), and (3) introducing some observations on the practice of art in support of it. Given that the objections I discuss miss their target, and given the observations in support of it, I conclude that the Affective View is worth serious reconsideration. (shrink)

Dieses Kapitel handelt von der Empathie in der Kunst. Ich beginne mit einer Reflexion über die Ursprünge des Begriffes und seine Verwendung in der Ästhetik. Es folgt eine Analyse der Empathie im Vergleich zu anderen Formen der Anteilnahme an Kunstwerken. Im dritten Teil untersuche ich die Mechanismen der Empathie in der Kunst und die Funktion der Imagination. Der vierte Teil widmet sich der Bedeutung der Gefühle bei der Empathie für Kunstfiguren. Schließlich thematisiere ich den epistemischen, moralischen und ästhetischen Wert der (...) Empathie für die Kunst. (shrink)

What more do we need to fully appreciate perfumes, beyond considering them objects for aesthetic appreciation? My contention is that our appreciation of some perfumes would be largely incomplete, unless we acknowledged them as works of art. I defend the claim that some perfumes are works of art from the point of view of different definitions. Nick Zangwill’s aesthetic definition makes it easy to defend the proposed claim, but is not very informative for the purposes of fully appreciating some perfumes. (...) On the other hand, Jerrold Levinson’s intentional-historical definition and Dominic Lopes’s approach to defining art make it more challenging to defend the proposed claim. I show that, even so, the challenge may be met. Moreover, the challenge is well worth engaging with, since tackling it uncovers features of some perfumes that are essential to their full appreciation. (shrink)

What more do we need to fully appreciate perfumes, beyond considering them objects for aesthetic appreciation? My contention is that our appreciation of some perfumes would be largely incomplete, unless we acknowledged them as works of art. I defend the claim that some perfumes are works of art from the point of view of different definitions. Nick Zangwill’s aesthetic definition makes it easy to defend the proposed claim, but is not very informative for the purposes of fully appreciating some perfumes. (...) On the other hand, Jerrold Levinson’s intentional-historical definition and Dominic Lopes’s approach to defining art make it more challenging to defend the proposed claim. I show that, even so, the challenge may be met. Moreover, the challenge is well worth engaging with, since tackling it uncovers features of some perfumes that are essential to their full appreciation. (shrink)

The author shares philosophical and biographical reflections, accompanied by photographs, on the lives of his well-known literary parents, poet Elizabeth Bartlett and writer/artist Paul Alexander Bartlett.

This article is a theoretical treatment of the ways in which local worldviews on wealth acquisition give rise to contemporary manifestations of spirituality in cyberspace. It unpacks spiritual (occult) economies and wealth generation through a historical perspective. The article ‘devil advocates’ the ‘sainthood’ of claimed law-abiding citizens, by highlighting that the line dividing them and the Nigerian cybercriminals (Yahoo-Boys) is blurred with regards to the use of magical means for material ends. By doing so, the article also illustrates that the (...) intersectionality of the spirit world and the acquisition of wealth (crime or otherwise) is connected with local epistemologies and worldviews, and its contemporaneity has social security benefits. Therefore, the view that the contemporary manifestations of spirituality in cyberspace signify a ‘new-danger’ and an ever-increasing outrage in the Nigerian society is misplaced. I conclude that if people believe all aspects of life are reflective of the spiritual world and determined by it, the spiritual realm, by implication, is the base of society, upon which sits the superstructure comprised of all aspects of life, especially wealth. Inferentially, this conceptual position that the spirit world is the base of society is an inversion of Orthodox Marxist’s theory of economic determinism. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Stand-up so closely resembles-and is meant to resemble-the styles and expectations of everyday speech that the idea of technique and technical mastery we typically associate with art is almost rendered invisible. Technique and technical mastery is as much about the understanding and development of audiences as collaborators as it is the generation of material. Doing so requires encountering audiences in places that by custom or design encourage ludic and vernacular talk-social spaces and third spaces such as bars, coffee houses, (...) and clubs. Cultivating uncultivated speech and cultivating real audiences in found settings form the background of developing the stand-up comedian, neither of which lend themselves to the conservatory tradition we think of when we think of the development of artists. This article addresses two areas of the overall question of stand-up as art, starting with the ontological question of stand-up comedy: if it is an art where is it located, and what we may mean by “artworks” and “artworld” in stand-up comedy? Then I consider whether stand-up comedy as practiced can be reconciled with several recent definitions for art and note some of the special conditions and contexts for stand-up. (shrink)

Modern aesthetic Minimalism is neither a flight to abstract spirituality, nor an extracting process of a primordial essence. It is concerned, rather, with the aesthetic object as pure refiguration and the production of “concrete universality”, of form as content and possibility of itself. This becomes especially apparent in the Minimalism of the 1960s. The main focus of this paper will be on Dan Flavin’s luminous minimalism. The latter is characterised by a style that, though simple in appearance, introduced a higher (...) level of complexity with regard to the relation between form and matter, concept and thing, in artistic production. Neither sculptures nor paintings, Flavin’s works fall right under Donald Judd’s category of “specific objects”. Nevertheless, his luminous creations are not particularly specific, just as they are not strictly speaking objects. Their main material – colour-light – is as intangible and diffuse, as its origin – the fluorescent lamp – is commonplace and artificial. Drawing on such influential theorists of art as Theodor W. Adorno, Peter Bürger, Clement Greenberg and Jacques Rancière, this paper studies the lessons that philosophy can learn from Flavin's light minimalism, most notably in relation to the notions of aesthetic materiality and sublimation. (shrink)

This study aims to grasp the two distinct artworks one is from the literary field: Penal Colony, written by F. Kafka and the other one is from painting: The Large Glass, designed by M. Duchamp. This text tries to unravel the similarities betwe- en these artworks in terms of two main significations around “The Officer” from Penal Colony and “The Bachelors” from The Large Glass. Because of their vital role on the re-production of status-quo, this text asserts that there is (...) a similarity between them in the name of being part of the dispositions of body and desire. First of all, the text focuses on Penal Colony, especially on “The Officer” in or- der to observe his obsession towards the order that ruled by former and the late officer of colony. Deleuze & Guattari conceptualize it as “abstract-machines” and it refers to a contingent state of being which is produced as an obligatory entity. Besides, The Officers’ application via a “labeling machine” on inmates creates a framewok of a dispositif in Foucauldian terminology. Secondly, it is emphasized that The Bachelors from the Large Glass for his context, due to its reference for the concept of desire and a metaphorical connotation for desire as “cocoa”. The Large Glass is also turn around the dispositif in a different way: love. It is stated that criticizing the love to nowhere which belongs to The Bachelors and it can be found that there is an abstract-machine again in back of this practice and it converts The Bachelors’ energeia to make an apparatus possible and operative. (shrink)

In this paper I make the case that at least some tattoos are artworks. I go on to propose a definition of tattoo art that distinguishes it from other uses of tattooing, and from other forms of visual art. I argue that tattoo art is an art form that creates artworks in living skin, and that the living body is an essential component of and contributor to the artwork. This gives rise to several other distinctive features of tattoo art, in (...) particular that it reconfigures in interesting ways the relationships between artist, artworks, and viewers. Like street art, tattoo art by its nature resists inclusion in and valuation through art institutions such as galleries and museums. (shrink)

Creations of many contemporary artists indicate the emergence of technoculture. Although artistic manifestations of technoculture may appear to be a provocation, they encourage fundamental ontological questions, such as whether a person has unchanging nature; what was and is our relationship to the Other, and what it should be; to what extent can body and mind be altered before they stop being “human”; what is the future of our species. To properly understand the works of technoculture artists, it appears necessary to (...) have a thorough grasp post- and transhumanism as their key sources of inspiration. As a result, the developed tools will be employed to indicate which aspects of technoculture are a manifestation of post- and transhumanist ideas. This analysis is based primarily on the works of Stelarc and Orlan – two widely commented artists of technoculture. (shrink)

Este capítulo presenta dos versiones de la teoría según la cual deberíamos centrarnos en ciertas acciones realizadas por los artistas para comprender qué tipo de objetos son las obras de arte: la propuesta de Gregory Currie (An Ontology of Art, 1989) y la de David Davies (Art as Performance, 2004). Si bien estas teorías no están exentas de problemas, es cierto que estas proporcionan una guía completa de algunos de los temas en los que uno debería meditar al evaluar y (...) desarrollar teorías sobre qué son las obras de arte. Además, Currie y Davies presentan algunos de los argumentos más refinados contra los puntos de vista contextualistas y estructuralistas sobre la metafísica de las obras de arte, así como contra el empirismo estético. (shrink)

This chapter illustrates through the analysis of some examples how philosophical research can illuminate the improvisational aspects of installation art. There is little philosophical research on improvisation in the visual arts. Similarly, there is little philosophical research on installation art – in section 2, I mention some key claims that have been put forward. Not surprisingly, then, philosophers have not yet focussed – at least to my knowledge – on improvisation in installation art. The issue, though, is timely. Not only (...) some installation artists have explored improvisation in their practice, both solo and collaboratively (see section 3) but, as I shall argue, it can be claimed that some works of installation art represent or express improvisation (section 4), that some invite the public to engage in improvisation (section 5), and that curatorial teams responsible for the displays of certain installation artworks have the opportunity to introduce improvisational elements in their practice, if they so wish (section 6). (shrink)

There is growing debate about what is the correct methodology for research in the ontology of artworks. In the first part of this essay, I introduce my view: I argue that semantic descriptivism is a semantic approach that has an impact on meta-ontological views and can be linked with a hermeneutic fictionalist proposal on the meta-ontology of artworks such as works of music. In the second part, I offer a synthetic presentation of the four main positive meta-ontological views that have (...) been defended in philosophical literature about artworks and of some criticisms that can be lodged against them: Amie Thomasson’s global descriptivism, Andrew Kania’s local descriptivism, Julian Dodd’s folk-theoretic modesty, and David Davies’ rational accountability view. In the conclusion, I show the advantages of my view. (shrink)

Why do painters paint? Obviously, there are numerous possible reasons. They paint to create images for others’ enjoyment, to solve visual problems, to convey ideas, and to contribute to a rich artistic tradition. This book argues that there is yet another, crucially important but often overlooked reason. -/- Painters paint to feel. -/- They paint because it enables them to experience special feelings, such as being absorbed in creative play and connected to something vitally significant. Painting may even transform the (...) painter’s whole sense of being. Thus, painting is not only about producing art, communicating content, and so on, but also about setting up and inhabiting an experiential space wherein highly valued feelings are interactively enabled and supported. This book investigates how and why this happens by combining psychoanalytical theorization on creativity with philosophical thinking on affectivity. It focuses on creative experience itself, and illuminates the psychological mechanisms and dynamics that underlie the affects at stake. Painters’ own descriptions of how they feel at work are used throughout to give an accurate, true-to-life portrayal of the experience of painting. -/- The strength of the book lies in its open-minded yet critical integration of contemporary psychoanalytic and philosophical thinking, and in its truthfulness to painters’ experiential descriptions of the painterly process. On the whole, it enriches our understanding of artistic creativity and sheds more light on how and why we come to feel the things we do. As such, the book will appeal to philosophers, psychoanalysts, and art researchers alike. (shrink)

The current form and transformation of artistic practice in the 20th and 21st century caused some estrangement of the recipient and the art. The current discourse is therefore dominated by some distrust in defining the criteria of contemporary art, or even the dilemma of whether or not art has to be defined at all, mostly under the influence of Morris Weitz. Arthur Danto very aptly reminds that there is currently no way to distinguish art from objects that are not art, (...) even though many theorists have tried to come up with a solution. The need to distinguish different objects in order to carry out the theoretical examination or to have a functional defining apparatus for criticism, or the exhibition practice is not necessary only on the semantic level. The aim of the submitted paper is therefore to offer a brief cross-section of theories, which, over the past sixty years, dealt with the problem of the definition of art and appreciate/re-think the need for a functional definition of art as the determinant of adequate aesthetic theory. (shrink)

What is the sense of the question “What is art?” It may seem that the only adequate answer will be the effort to define the notion of art, that is, the exclusive purpose of this question is the classification of art, encompassing all artifacts regarded as works of art and distinguishing them from those do not belong to art. The study points to the connection between our classification of artifacts and our evaluation and understanding of them. It also recalls reflections (...) on the subject “What is Art?”, which does not even attempt to define it. Their aim is different: to change our understanding, evaluation or explication of art. (shrink)

This paper develops Richard Wollheim’s claim that the proper appreciation of a picture involves not only enjoying a seeing-in experience but also abiding by a standard of correctness. While scholars have so far focused on what fixes the standard, thereby discussing the alternative between intentions and causal mechanisms, the paper focuses on what the standard does, that is, establishing which kinds, individuals, features and standpoints are relevant to the understanding of pictures. It is argued that, while standards concerning kinds, individuals (...) and features can be relevant also to ordinary perception, standards concerning standpoints are specific to pictorial experience. Drawing on all this, the paper proposes an ontology of depiction according to which a picture is constituted by both its visual appearance and its standard of correctness. (shrink)

Este libro inaugura la serie Homenaje de la Colección La Fuente. Con él se busca reconocer, de manera particular, al pensador, dramaturgo y director brasileño Augusto Boal (1931-2009), creador del teatro y la estética del oprimido, genuina aportación cultural latinoamericana que mucho tiene que ver con ese particular lugar de enunciación que es Nuestra América y sus siempre actuales expectativas emancipadoras. El libro fue precedido y nutrido por un Coloquio que en mayo de 2014 reunió a importantes especialistas y seguidores (...) del legado teórico-práctico de Boal y que tuvo como tema principal el del rescate y la continuación de su obra. Incluye los más importantes trabajos allí presentados, junto a un estudio biográfico, una contribución enviada por su hijo, una entrevista a su esposa y dos obras del propio Boal que (una parcialmente y la otra de manera completa) se publican por primera vez. (shrink)

Section 1 proposes a new philosophical account of melancholy. Section 2 examines the reasons why one might think that pornography and melancholy are incompatible. Section 3 discusses some successful examples of melancholic pornography and makes the case that feminist pornographers are particularly well-placed to produce such material.