Adorno and Art : Aesthetic Theory Contra Critical Theory

If the advancement toward the administered world is nearing completion, if spectacularised societies, industrialised cultures, and reified consciousness have taken control, then, __Adorno and Art__ shows how radical and revolutionary Adorno's aesthetic theory of art's double character remains, and how complex, imaginative and oppositional, forms of art offer, perhaps, the best hope for overcoming damaged life. The caricatures of Adorno, his politics and his aesthetics, are well known errors of judgement - widely repeated both by the academy and by the Left. Adorno's aesthetics has been accused of failing to keep pace with progressive artistic practices and for being socio-politically aloof. Despite the persistence of these caricatures, this book shows how significant images and themes in Adorno's theory remain relevant to the current situation of art, aesthetics and politics. The Adorno on show in this volume was no bourgeois mandarin, no arrogant aesthete, no esoteric mystic, no melancholy pessimist, and no academic expert holed up in the proverbial ivory tower. Anti-introduction: Paint It Black -- Part I: Messages In A Bottle: Aesthetic Theory Contra Critical Theory -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Critical Messages In A Bottle And Restoration -- 3. Excursus I: The Prevalence Of A View: Being Uncompromisingly Critical At The Grand Hotel Abyss -- 4. Excursus Ii: The Prevalence Of A View: 'don't Participate:' The Politics Of Social Praxis -- 5. Aesthetic Messages In A Bottle And Progress -- 6. Messages In A Bottle As The Work Of Art -- Part Ii: Art Itself Thinks: The Politics Of Aesthetic (mis-)education -- 7. Introduction -- 8. The Politics Of Artistic Practice: 'what Artist Isn't Socially Engaged?' -- 9. The Politics Of Spectatorship: Shocking Spectators -- 10. The Politics Of Aesthetic (mis-)education -- 11. Contemporary Art Itself Thinking: Making The Invisible Visible? -- Anti-conclusion: The Russian Ending. James Hellings. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. Front Matter....Pages i-xiv Anti-Introduction: Paint It Black....Pages 1-20 Front Matter....Pages 21-21 Critical Messages in a Bottle and Restoration....Pages 23-30 Excursus I — The Prevalence of a View: Being Uncompromisingly Critical at the Grand Hotel Abyss....Pages 31-37 Excursus II — The Prevalence of a View: ‘Don’t participate:’ The Politics of Social Praxis....Pages 38-54 Aesthetic Messages in a Bottle and Progress....Pages 55-70 Messages in a Bottle as the Work of Art....Pages 71-78 Front Matter....Pages 79-82 The Politics of Artistic Practice: ‘What artist isn’t socially engaged?’....Pages 83-101 The Politics of Spectatorship: Shocking Spectators....Pages 102-110 The Politics of Aesthetic (Mis-)Education....Pages 111-128 Contemporary Art Itself Thinking: Making the Invisible Visible?....Pages 129-143 Anti-Conclusion: The Russian Ending....Pages 144-152 Back Matter....Pages 153-199 A comprehensive, critical and accessible account of Theodor W. Adorno's materialist-dialectical aesthetic theory of art from a contemporary perspective, this volume shows how Adorno's critical theory is awash with images crystallising thoughts to such a degree that it has every reason to be described as aesthetic.