The power of imagination? Aesthetic autonomy and critique in contemporary art

Abstract

The need for the flexibility of “aesthetic frameworks”, and to expand this framework beyond the Western notion of aesthetic autonomy and/or universality in contemporary art, has become more emphatically transparent in the past two decades. One of the problems of the contemporary art scene is that the inherited framework of the Western notion of art seems too narrow, and does not suffice to account for art’s present scope and varied forms. The art practices of the “global contemporary” challenge the Western concept of art as a universal given, and also pose the question of how widely understood the boundaries of “art” can be. Thus, there is the recognition that aesthetic autonomy is not a given, but rather a socially constructed reality dependent on its post 18th century institutional background. In search for a more inclusive and relevant framework, then, art theory and art practice turn to the “imaginary” and to art as a form of critique in defining contemporary art and imagining new forms of citizenship claiming social relevance for art.