Oana SERBAN

This article takes up Lipovetsky‟s discussion on artistic capitalism in L’esthétisation du monde. Vivre à l’âge du capitalisme artiste, to trace its definitions and methodological construction, but also in order to create a critical theory of artistic capitalism, based on the following working-hypothesis: the production of art and the production of self, understood in the sense of a Foucauldian project of the aesthetics of existence, represent correspondent purposes in artistic capitalism. My research will be focused on examining previous attempts of developing such a critical inquiry, claimed by Luc Boltanski, Eve Chiapello, and Luc Ferry. It is my thesis that the failure of a homogeneous critical theory of artistic capitalism is owed to different inconsistent interpretations of contaminating ethics with aesthetics in order to create an ideal of morality and authenticity for the existence of the individual inspired by contemporary techniques of art production, aspects that were conceived by Lipovetsky as parts of the process of the “aestheticization of the world”.

This interview is inspired the most important working-hypothesis presented in the volume Aesthetic Revolutions and the Twentieth-Century Avant-Garde Movements, edited by Aleš Erjavec, that questions the legitimacy of the distinction between aesthetic and artistic avant-gardes, supported by the relationship of each concept with the modern revolutionary politics. The relevance of this contrast for determining modernity both in its ideological shape and its continuity, in the terms of postmodernity will be criticized in our discussion with professor Erjavec, reflecting on the manner in which the artistic communities representative for Surrealism, Russian constructivism, Situationist International, Dadaism, Italian Futurism, 1960s American Art, as well as for Slovenian, Mexican or Romanian artistic movements of the 20th century opened the path for different democratic or totalitarian political attitudes, practices and ambitions.

The main aim of this article is to examine and define the de-aestheticization of art, from Harold Rosenberg’s perspective, as a phenomenon specific to the artistic capitalism, following three major wok hypothesis. The first one is that de-aestheticization, criticized as de-definition of art, is an aesthetic revolution of the artistic modernism, specific to artistic capitalism, treated in the acceptance of Gilles Lipovetsky. This level of de-aestheticization allows to comprehend the connection between ethics and aesthetics nowadays, the first one delimitating three ages of the artistic capitalism, each of them corresponding to one of the next values: excellence, merit and authenticity, and reshaping the status of the artist as individual. Based on this paradigm, I will argue, in the light of Rosenberg’s and Ferry’s arguments that the de-definition is a direct consequence of the Subject’s moral self- representations in the individualist-democratic societies of consumption, preparing the field for the second hypothesis, which considers de-aestheticization responsible for reinforcing the concept of materiality of the work of art, because it reconfigures the theories about mass art production, consumption and exposure. This approach will inspire the second conclusion of the current research, according to which the materiality of the work of arts provokes, in the terms of de-aestheticization, the aesthetic de- territorialisation, remarked not only at the level of the artistic production, but also on that of artistic exposure and consumption. Lastly, the third hypothesis will justify the process of de-aestheticization as expression of social and economic capitalist inequalities between individuals reflected in artistic discourses and representations, as well as its consequences on the process of the institutionalization of art and culture.

This book reflects the most recent research devoted to a systematized perspective and a critical (re)construction of previous theoretical attempts of explaining, justifying and continuing Kuhn’s ingenious hypothesis in arts. Hofstadter, Clignet and Habermas revealed to be the most engaged scholars in solving this aesthetic "puzzled-problem". In this context, the structural similarities between science and arts are attentively evaluated, thus satisfying an older concern attributed to the historical Kuhn-Kubler dispute, extensively commented along the pages of this book. How can we track the matter of rationality and truth in art and aesthetics, inspired by scientific perspectives? Are artistic styles similar to scientific paradigms? Are we entitled to pursue paradigms and masterpieces as rational models in science, respectively in arts? On what possible grounds can we borrow from science notions such as progress and predictability, in the study of the evolution of art and its aesthetic backgrounds? Are the historical dynamics of science and art affected by political factors in the same manner? This book will be of interest to philosophers, but also to historians of science and historians of art alike in the reassessment it provides of recent debates on reshaping the art world using Kuhn's "paradigm shift".