Representation and Artistic Normativity

Abstract

Visual art of our century can be divided into two main forms, one being the traditional one (with much of modernist art acting in this regard as its extension) which privileges recognition and the pleasure such recognition offers. The other is that which begins with ready-mades and continues with conceptual and neo-conceptual art. Although in this second case theory is of much greater importance than in the first and precedes a work of art, the latter can end up playing a similar role as traditional art, for it too may offer an indirect form of recognition. The precondition for this is that it functions as a social phenomenon, instead of erecting its artistic relevance solely on the act of production or creation. An artistic appreciation which defends the notion that all artworks are not equally art requires that the position of the Cartesian subject remains intact for it is only in this way that the distancing gaze identified with the aesthetic and artistic appreciation is achieved.