The Materiality of Beauty -- On the Theory of the Art Work of Theodor Adorno

Author: Sheng-jer Huang(Adjunct Assistant Professor Department of Sociology, Soochow University)

Vol.&No.：Vol. 47, No.1
Date：April 2002
Pages：1-10
DOI：10.6210/JNTNULL.2002.47(1).01

Abstract：

Adorno's aesthetic theory is in fact a sociological discourse of art whose core is the priority of the art work. The concrete art works must be treated concretely, they cannot be handled with the theoretical subsumption or with the reduction of style or genre. The art works are self-closed monads: they are not related to the subjective intentionality of the creator and have nothing to do with the theoretical thinking or knowledge background of the interpreter. They follow their own laws of form and structural logic. It means methodologically that the researcher has to face the individual art work immediately. The autonomy of art , which is the criterium of Adorno's aesthetics, appears when art take the position of being opposed to society. This article would argue that Adorno doesn't distinguish strictly between the autonomy of art and the autonomy of art work. The autonomy of art work means first of all that it opens the aesthetic experiences of the audience and extends its knowledge. After the theoretical construction of Adorno, the focus of the sociology of art has to be the concrete analysis of the individual art work, to reconstruct its immanent structural logic.

Keywords：Adorno aesthetic autonomy art work material materialism

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