And so I began my art classes and I must say, they are the best classes I have been enrolled onto in a long time (at University of Oslo). We have best lecturers here with their philosophy and their thoughts that I can definitely relate to. Through art, we are given a possibility to get a better perspective on this world' events, and life in general. How does art relate to the sociatal structure of our world, even to political events perhaps. I can greatly appreciate it especially, taken all my previous experiences with people who had more materialistic view of art. I do not deny that art can be also materialistic and practical.
But I am more interested in its cultural aspect, how it unites people, ideas, how it can change our perspective on things, and, most importantly, the power of it, how it helped and helps to shape and change history. And these are topics that are being discussed!
But I am more interested in its cultural aspect, how it unites people, ideas, how it can change our perspective on things, and, most importantly, the power of it, how it helped and helps to shape and change history. And these are topics that are being discussed!
Couple of further posts will be extracts from my current readings, and notes from lectures and seminars, so stay tuned if you are interested in the topic!
Art in Theory
Habermas, Jürgen: “Modernity” - An Incomplete Project” (1980) in Art in Theory 1900-1990 An Anthology of Changing Ideas, Ed. Charles Harrison & Paul Wood, Blackwell Publishers 1992, pp. 1000-1008
p.1004
Max Weber characterized cultural modernity as the separation of the substantive reason expressed in religion and metaphysics into three autonomous spheres. They are: science, morality, and art. These came to be differentiated because the unified world-views of religion and metaphysics fell apart. Since the 18C, the problems inherited from these older world-views could be arranged so as to fall under specific aspects of validity: truth, normative rightness, authenticity and beauty. They could be handled as questions of knowledge, or of justice and morality, or of taste. They could then be handled as questions of knowledge, or of justice and morality, or of taste. Scientific discourse, theories of morality, jurisprudence, and the production and criticism of art could in turn be institutionalised. [...]
Enlightenment thinkers of the cast of mind of Condorcet still had the extravagant expectation that the arts and sciences would promote not only the control of natural forces but also understanding of the world and of the self, moral progress, the justice of institutions and even the happiness of human beings. The 20C has shattered this optimism. The differentiation of science, morality and art has come to mean the autonomy of the segments treated by the specialist and their separation from the hermeneutics of everyday communication. This splitting off is the problem that has given rise to efforts to 'negate' the culture of expertise. But the problem won't go away: should we try to hold on to the intentions of the Enlightenment, feeble as they may be, or should we declare the entire project of modernity a lost cause? I now want to return to the problem of artistic culture [...] 
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