Can aesthetics criticize contemporary art?

The subject of the study is the possibility of aesthetics to criticize contemporary art. Contemporary art is not understood by aesthetic criticism. Aesthetics, detached from the process of creating and evaluating art, reveals a deficit of critical ability. Today, it is no longer aesthetics that criticizes art, but art that criticizes aesthetics. In the modernist era, aesthetics was an important means of understanding art, but it never criticized a specific work of art, but only analyzed the art as a whole, at the level of generalization. The purpose of this study is to examine the crisis of aesthetics due to which aesthetics cannot criticize modern art. Contemporary art gives rise not only to a new critical aesthetics but also to a philosophy of art, as it contributes to the affirmation of a value system appropriate to the times. The study was conducted through philosophical reflection on the crisis of aesthetics and application of the method of philosophical analysis. The research methodology is based on the concept of "practical aesthetics", the methodology of sociocultural analysis of contemporary art, methods of traditional aesthetics, and a comparative analysis of concepts of the development of modern aesthetics: the reconfiguration of aesthetics and practical aesthetics, which comprehends the phenomenon of aestheticization of everyday life as a means of expanding the scope of aesthetics. However, the evolution of aesthetics leads to its self-annihilating, and practical aesthetics is nothing more than the form of self-deception. Contemporary art is characterized by violating prevailing aesthetic norms and creating new aesthetic trends. Since the 1990s, an ethnographic emphasis in contemporary art has deconstructed conceptual oppositions in the political context of decolonization, destroying such polarities as First and Third World, center and periphery, West and East. In contemporary art, the critique of identity and hybridity have become central themes. Postcolonial discourse has sharpened the challenge to traditional aesthetics. The critical force of aesthetics must move to the practical level, that is, to open boundaries, i.e., accept contemporary art, actively participate in the evaluation and criticism of current artistic events, so as not to avoid the real artistic process, but to regain the ability to analyze current artistic processes.

Aesthetics, contemporary art, art criticism, poetics, philosophy of art, practical aesthetics, aestheticization, philosophy, aesthetic autonomy, crisis of aesthetics