It's Not Aesthetically Pleasing

Adorno does not believe that art can clearly be defined by any one definition.  Yet, the dictionary does give us a definition of art.  Dictionary.com defines art as:

1.  the quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance.

Such a simple definition surely does not satisfy Adorno’s need to flush out what it truly means to be a work of art.  He says, “all efforts to restore art by giving it a social function-of which itself uncertain and by which it expresses its own uncertainty-are doomed.”  Everything about art is uncertain.  Society has a need to define and place everything it encounters into certain categories.  The uncertainty of what actually defines art and what its purpose is makes art impossible to place into any sort of category.  Unlike most other definitions art cannot be defined by its history.  The first work of art does not give a basis for what all other works of should be compared to. “The concept of art is located in a historically changing constellation of elements; it refuses definition.  Its essence cannot be deduced from its origin as if the first work were a foundation on which everything that followed were constructed and would collapse if shaken.”

I am comparing the essay with Duchamp’s 1917 work of art called “Fountain”.  It was created during the Dada movement in which artists mocked and ignored artistic and social conventions of what was thought to make art, art.   “Fountain” is essentially a men’s urinal turned sideways and signed with an alias of R. Mutt.  He didn’t use his own name when he sent it in for an exhibit because he wanted to see if it would still be considered art if it didn’t have his already famous name on it.  

The "Fountain" is not aesthetically pleasing to the eye.  It is obviously, and clearly a urinal. What makes this urinal art? Is it art simply because we call it art? I read up on some information about Adorno as well and wikipedia said that he also held interest in social conventions and culture.  He thinks of culture as an industry.  The urinal is a great example of how the industry of culture would lead us to believe the urinal to be art.  We are told through culture and mass media that the urinal is art so therefore it is. 

-Also, we have/had one of the urinals here at IU in the Art Museum.  I tried to look up if we still have it or not but could not find it posted online anywhere.

Word: Kitsch

Kitsch, as defined by Merriam-Webster Online, means something that appeals to popular or lowbrow taste and is often of poor quality.

Adorno uses the term when pointing out the murkiness of Kant's use of the phrase, "representation of the existence of an object," in his explanation of disinterested liking. For Adorno, it is unclear as to whether the phrase is referring to content, thematic material, or the artwork itself. He states, "the pretty nude model or the sweet resonance of a musical tone can be kitsch or it can be an integral element of artistic quality" (10).

Word: Self-evident

I'm going to have to argue that the most important word is not art, but that it is only one of the most important. The word, or combined words of "self-evident" prove to be incredibly significant in Adorno's essay. His introductory sentence "It is self-evident that nothing concerning art is self-evident anymore..." not only sets the tone for the rest of the essay, being one of artistic open-minded expression, but also proposes a seeming paradox which encompasses the very idea of art itself. 

Adorno defines art as being "at every point indicated by what art once was" in one of his several definitions, yet though art "can be understood by it's laws of movement," his opening statement seems to contradict that fact that it could ever be defined.  The the movement of the piece may be "self-evident," the entire meaning of the piece itself may not be, just as the definition of art varies from definer to definer. 

Word: Art

Word: Art (n) -

1. the quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance.

2. the class of objects subject to aesthetic criteria; works of art collectively, as paintings, sculptures, or drawings: a museum of art; an art collection.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Art

Art indoubtedly is the most important word throughout the essay. Adorno argues about what art is and how it should be viewed. "It is self-evident that nothing concerning art is self-evident anymore, not its inner life, not is relation to the world, not even its right to exist" (1).

Back For The First Time

Theodor Ardono is calling for the liberation of the arts in his essay, "Aesthetic Theory." Why? Because it's about time we start deciding what is sublime and what is not. And it won't have anything to do with what we've been taught. "Art's essence cannot be deduced from its origin as if the first work were a foundation on which everything that followed were constructed and would collapse if shaken." (2) Origins do not penetrate art the way that origins do with learning. Art does not follow objective didactic rules (or shouldn't), nor should it be governed by those. "One paints a painting, not what it represents."(qtd. Shoenberg, p 4) Adorno argues against empiricism, suggesting that art must have its own identity. The truth's truth is self-identity, not a fictitious objectivity. "Truth exists exclusively as that which has become." (3)

Precis: “Art Without Circumstance”

Adorno takes to defining art through its autonomy. “Because art is what it has become, its concept refers to what it does not contain” (Adorno; p.3). Eventually art is not a reflection of its unique culture, but rather an identity within itself. As time passes, the reason in which an object was created becomes less evident to the contemporary viewer. Adorno seems hostile in his view of art that in unsustainable without context. The only way in which art can be properly viewed is through this level of existence or self-identity. “Only by virtue of separation from empirical reality, which sanctions art to model the relation of the whole and the part according to the works own need, does the artwork achieve a heightened order of existence” (Adorno; p.4) Our understanding of a piece needs to be taken no further than the piece itself.

Word: EMPIRICAL

Empirical (OED): based on observation or experience rather than theory or pure logic.

Adorno begins to use this word in the first paragraph of his essay, saying "Artworks detach themselves from the empirical world and bring forth another world, one opposed to the empirical world as if this other world too were an autonomous entity," in his attempt to define art. He uses the word a great number of times throughout his essay. He begins the essay by talking about what is "self-evident" in relation to art. Since those things which are empirical are literally those things which are self evident, by definition, it is important to explore the importance of this word. Adorno claims of modern art, (that is, art created after the "emancipation" of art, during the period in which it became autonomous) "art sanctions the primacy of reality, by virtue of its rejection of the empirical world." It seems an interesting contradiction that art's "rejection of the empirical world" somehow brings it closer to describing reality, since reality, in its most rudimentary sense, can be define as that which is in fact, empirical, that which is self-evident, that which we can see. This apparent contradiction brings us to one of the most alluring arguments in Adorno's essay. Adorno criticizes romanticized art as presenting something nonexistent as existing. "The fictions are modifications of empirical reality." So, the artist who creates this type of art, shows us something which is a romanticized version of reality, thus a rejection of empirical reality, whereas modern art attempts to bring to the surface, actual reality, without the guild of 'poetic glimmer.'