Towards an aesthetics of production

Auteurs

• Sebastian Egenhofer

Paramètres

• Art / Culture

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Throughout the twentieth century, critical art history often aligned with a restrictive brand of formalism, leading to representation- and ideology-critical analyses that reduced artwork to its material signifier in social contexts. In contrast, the texts assembled here combine elements of critical materialism with a reevaluation of the metaphysical implications of modern abstraction and art since the 1960s. Starting with Gilles Deleuze’s interpretations of Spinoza, Nietzsche, and Bergson, the author explores how an artwork's capacity for resistance is rooted in its connection to an immanent infinity: Spinoza’s substance, Nietzsche’s Becoming, and Bergson’s durée. This infinite dimension is examined in temporal and ontological terms, representing the vertical past of production, which is accessible only in fragmented and technically encrypted forms within the artwork's present shape and materiality. The notion of an aesthetics of production does not evoke nostalgia for artisanal craftsmanship or singularity. Instead, it seeks a realm beyond finite representation, understood in materialist terms, challenging the circulation of standardized knowledge. Through case studies on artists like Piet Mondrian, Marcel Duchamp, Thomas Hirschhorn, and Michael Asher, along with essays on Kant, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Spinoza, the book articulates a concept of artwork in the “long” modern era, addressing the twentieth century’s critique of

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• Année de publication: 2017