Urban Art Practices in the Vision of Projective Aesthetics

Abstract

Modern urban art practices (public art, street art, flash mob, performance, etc.), are engaged in a radical aesthetic transformation of everyday life. The problem of projective aesthetics is taken as a variant of the praxis of modern aesthetics. Projective aesthetics suggests that one should mark out art projects which are created in the real aesthetic experience and which represent topical cultural issues in daily human life. Being the subject of projective aesthetics, the main examples of that kind are the projects of actual art in the urban environment. It is a group of artifacts at the border of art and everyday life that is called urban art practices. This article is devoted to the study of the features and possibilities of projective aesthetics in relation to contemporary urban art. Interacting with the developing practical aesthetics – environmental and urbanistic – the projective aesthetics allows us to include in the philosophical discourse the urban culture where actual art practices work. In the relations between urban art and projective aesthetics a special place is given to the idea and practice of potentiations (Epstein’s concept). According to this concept, the potential of the contemporary city is revealed by means of art for creating a polylogue for intertwining various aspects and forms of city life and for developing a rhizome of urban culture. City art practices, being a phenomenon of everyday life, represent in a single image all aspects of everyday life – from political, ethnic, national, and regional to aesthetic and artistic meanings. Article received: April 25, 2020; Article accepted: June 30, 2020; Published online: September 15, 2020; Review article