"Theoretical turn” in post-avant-garde art and the aesthetics of de-differentiation
"Theoretical turn” in post-avant-garde art and the aesthetics of de-differentiation

Summary/Abstract: In this article I use the term “theoretical turn” to refer to phenomena in contemporary art that incorporate theory into their body and mode of action. I understand this incorporation similarly to Arthur Danto, Robert Jauss and Scott Lash. Within the domain of aesthetics these developments are related to a new philosophical, conceptual framework, open to the changes taking place in contemporary culture (particularly its mediatisation and aestheticisation). This involves de-differentiation and the blurring of borders between the aesthetic and the non-aesthetic rather than the Kantian criteria of differentiation. It acknowledges the tendencies of late modernity (e.g. the avant-gardes) to autonomise the aesthetic and rewrites them as a temporary element of cultural transformations. The aesthetic no longer occupies a separate domain; it concedes the existence of borders, but at the same time, points to the processes in which they dissolve.

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