The Liquidation of Art in Contemporary Art

Wolfram Bergande

doi:10.7146/nja.v24i48.23068

Abstract

In this paper, the concept of liquidation (Verflüssigung) from the chapter on Self-consciousness in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit is reconstructed and then used to deconstruct the systematic transition from sculpture to painting in the passage on the “System of the individual arts” in G.W.F. Hegel’s Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine Art. The aim is to show that such a deconstructed version of Hegel’s art philosophy provides a valid conceptual framework for the analysis of modern, particularly postmodern and contemporary art, which results as liquid or liquidated art. Damien Hirst’s For the Love of God is discussed as major evidence for the concomitant neo-Hegelian claim that modern art has discursive reflection as its necessary supplement.

Highlights

Is discursive reflection a necessary supplement of modern art? In what follows I want to argue that: yes, it is essential to modern art, the term modern including post-modern and contemporary art
My argument will run along the lines of a deconstructive extrapolation of Hegel’s aesthetics which by the same token will be defended as valid theoretical framework for the analysis and interpretation of contemporary art
The defense builds on a deconstructive reading of some passages from the section “The System of the individual arts”[2] of Hegel’s Aesthetics, a reading which will allow to extrapolate Hegel’s liquidation of art and to project it onto the work of contemporary artists like Gerhard Richter or Damien Hirst

Summary

Introduction

Is discursive reflection a necessary supplement of modern art? In what follows I want to argue that: yes, it is essential to modern art, the term modern including post-modern and contemporary art.

Results

Conclusion