Relevance, Contingency, Work
Annual Conference of the Collaborative Research Project 626 “Aesthetic Experience and the Dissolution of Artistic Limits”, Free University, Berlin
When we aesthetically engage with a work of art, we always ask ourselves, which of its qualities are truly relevant for our reception and appraisal of the work, and which are not. This conference addresses the question of how such a differentiation emerges and how it might be justified when we engage with artistic objects and events. Since the onset of modernity, contingent factors – including volatile processes and coincidences, which do not seem to relate directly to the work of art – have been viewed as being intrinsic to it. As a result, the task of distinguishing between what belongs to a work and what does not becomes even more difficult.
The dissolution of the arts, the experiential turn within the humanities, as well as the problematization of the works constitution, hardly renders this differentiation obsolete; rather, this unresolved issue simply reemerges in a new context. Thus, a reflection on the authorities and criteria that we rely on – or should rely on – when distinguishing between the relevant and irrelevant qualities of a particular work represents another central objective of the conference.
In German and English
Organized by
SFB 626 in cooperation with the ICI Berlin
