Statt Kunst

Prof. Dr. Lambert Wiesing

doi:10.5771/9783465147268

Summary

When something is considered art, it is regarded as worth seeing, good and important. Because they are works of art, objects are collected and exhibited in gigantic museums; people go to great lengths to view art and sometimes buy it at exorbitant prices. This enormous appreciation of art is accompanied by broad intellectual and political support: countless philosophical, sociological and educational studies argue that art is of the utmost importance for people to live successful lives and for society to be worth living in. The essay
Statt Kunst takes a radically sceptical stance: considering something to be a work of art is an aesthetically irrelevant opinion. Any object can be a work of art, but no object becomes noteworthy simply because it is a work of art. Works of art may often be fantastic things and have many positive effects, but they do not have these effects because they are works of art. In a fictionalised form – by means of a thought experiment – this essay defends the notion that indifference to a claim that something is art is a gain in enlightenment. The text is both a plea to refrain from discussions about art questions and a plea for a return to the things themselves.