30 Consecutive of Blogging (X)

Some intersting quotations from Chapter 9 of Adorno's Aesthetic Theory: **************************************************************************************"For aesthetic judgment to be charitable is to do more harm than good. Such leniency quietly cancels the truth claim of these works. As long as the boundary between art & reality is not completely fudged, tolerance for bad art is a transgression against the very idea of art" (236).

"For the art work as well as for aesthetics, subject & object are moments. Their relation is dialectical, which means that the several components of art--material, expression, form or whatever--are each simultaneously subjective & objective...The reciprocal relationship of object & subject in art works is a precarious balance, not an identity of the two...The work of art aims at the balance between subject & object without any assurance that it will succeed" (238).

"Art is true to the extent to which it is discordant & antagonistic in its language & in its whole essence, provided that it synthesizes those diremptions, thus making them determinate in their irreconcilibility. Its paradoxical task is to attest ot the lack of concord while at the same time working to abolish discordance" (241).

"In Marxist terms, art cannot help but reflect a relationship of living labour as though it were congealed into an obejct. The consistency of art works is the aspect that enables them to share in truth, but it also implicates them in falsehood" (242).

"Works of art perforce pretend they are able to accomplish the impossible. This is a reformulation of the idea of perfection. No matter how dubious this notion has been, no work of art could ever afford to ignore it or else it would be completely insignificant" (242).

"No external authority shall judge the rank of art works. Works of art are their own standard of judgment. They themselves stipulate the rules they then follow" (243).

"Works of art are not creations & human beings are not creators. What is wrong with the aesthetics of genius is that it denies the inportance of the moment of making of fabrication, overemphasizing the aspect of art's absolutely primordial status & viewing art as natura naturans" (244).

"To be ingenius also means to be able to cause the new, on the strength of its novelty, to appear & shine forth as though it had always been there...imagining of authentic solutions in the framework of the pre-existing totality of a work" (246).

"Oringinality is a product of historical change. It is therefore implicagted in the injustice of histroy, specifically in the hegemony consumer goods have in a bourgeois market society. In order to attract customers these goods, which are forever the same, must pretend to be forever new & original" (247).

"Every step that art works takes in the direction of perfection is one towards self-alienation...with increasing integration, works of art become more contradictory in themsleves...Just as it is essential for art works to be like things, so it is equally essential for them to negate their likeness to things" (250-1).