Art is everywhere, but not everything is art. Art, in other words, has “boundaries”. What do art’s boundaries look like? Where do they come from? Which types of boundary do we deal with? Which functions do they have? Are these functions different, seen from the inside and from the outside, respectively? Do the boundaries create liminal zones, including specific positions of perspective, and which kind of transition takes place crossing them? Who is in charge of watching them, and why?

                           These are research questions of “Art’s New Boundaries”, a project in progress, investigating the boundaries of art, primarily how (if so) these boundaries are changing in our contemporaneity. The lecture will present the research project and its fields of investigation. These include considerations concerning the form of art (as different from art’s forms), concerning the quarrels about art’s so-called autonomy traditionally and contemporarily – and not least considerations concerning the historical role and position of aesthetics. Art today is under a considerable critical pressure. New demands are made to its agendas, positively as well as negatively, are made to the artists’ connections of identity vis-a-vis theirs works, are made to art’s ways of addressing its audiences. In general, the traditional position of art within the culture of modernity is questioned. Do these demands and this critique alter or even threaten the boundaries of art, art’s distinctive status and roles in contemporary culture? In consequence of this: Does that change the distribution and negotiation of research agendas between the art sciences and other sciences of culture and society? If so, in which way?

• See Aesthetic seminar Poster
• See Aesthetic seminar Programme

Aesthetic seminar is organized by Morten Kyndrup and Jacob Lund
on behalf of School of Communication and Culture, Aarhus University

All are welcome