Die moderne strewe na artistieke outonomie: 'n Waardering vir 'n gefaalde projek

Abstract

This article argues that the modern quest for artistic autonomy contributed to emancipation in general, essentially by undermining the violence that results from correspondence thinking.1 It starts out by noting that a significant percentage of the world's most totalising, violent moments were and often still are rationalised on correspondence thinking. Thereafter the article analyses how the intellectual tradition in question attempted to conceptualise and realise art as a truthful correspondence with a supposed aesthetic essence, and how these attempts eventually became so paradoxical that this correspondence project was abandoned by the tradition itself. However, as "other" intellectual traditions often still rationalise potentially violent self-interests on correspondence thinking, this tradition's early,voluntarily abandonment of such thinking and practices makes it an emancipatory force in history.