The Return to Kalokagathia: Curating as Leverage in the Ongoing Dialogues between Aesthetics and Ethics

Suzana Milevska

doi:10.3390/philosophies5040029

Abstract

This essay argues that curating brought back a kind of leverage that redressed the otherwise imbalanced relationship between aesthetics and ethics. Curating lends out to art its innocent and aspirational belief in such a balance because the ethical concerns in art theory and art criticism have long been toned down while form was prioritized over content. Ever since the curatorial profession created its own niche in the art world—started, for example, in the West, in the late 1960s with curators such as Siegelaub, Szeemann, or Lippard—curating began to mediate this relationship, thus helping to activate the catalyst potential of art without having to compromise its formal aspects. More specifically, this essay explores the ways in which theories and practices of curating brought back to mind the ancient Greek notion of kalokagathia, the intertwinement of aesthetics and ethics and, with it, other ethical responsibilities, principles, and values that art forgot to address while giving privilege to its formal aspects.

Highlights

Ethical concerns in art, art theory, and art criticism have often been toned down while form in those disciplines and practices has been prioritized over content
The “l’art-pour-l’art” dictum still has its supporters, long after it enjoyed widespread acceptance after the Second World War.1. This strict division between aesthetics and ethics was prompted and enhanced by various modernist art discourses and debates that were central to Western European aesthetics and art theory
Everything slowly changed in the late 1960s, when the curatorial profession entered the art world and started to mediate this relation between aesthetics and ethics

Summary

Introduction

Art theory, and art criticism have often been toned down while form in those disciplines and practices has been prioritized over content. The “l’art-pour-l’art” dictum still has its supporters, long after it enjoyed widespread acceptance after the Second World War.1 This strict division between aesthetics and ethics was prompted and enhanced by various modernist art discourses and debates that were central to Western European aesthetics and art theory. This division dominated Eastern Europe during the same period, and in what concerns me personally (I hail from North Macedonia), the ex-Yugoslavia with its academic and museum programs, even after their cultural policies broke off from the socialist realism that dominated the region at the time [1].

The Sublime and the Evil in Art

The Death Grip of Formalist Aesthetics’ “Invigilators”

The Ethical Conundrums of Autonomy of Art and Curating

Curating as Institutional Critique and Self-Instituting

Conclusions