Artistic Autonomy and Heteronomy

Abstract

In the article, the author discusses the so-called aesthetic (or heteronomous artistic) avant-gardes, i.e. those that in the previous century insisted on the fusion of art and “life”. The author discusses one of the first such outstanding examples, namely Russian constructivism, which was often (Benjamin H.D. Buchloh, Boris Groys, Jacques Rancière, etc.) the subject of such discussion. The author shares with the mentioned writers the opinion that in the cases noted the established “formation paradigm” is insufficient for it limits the designation of modernism to its “Western” (autonomous) part. The author mostly confirms Rancière’s views on this topic and draws attention to the third variant of heteronomy, namely that which was developed by the Situationist movement.