THE END OF ART, MODERNISM AND POSTMODERNISM

Abstract

This article tries to offer a contribution with regard to the understanding of the periods of modernism and postmodernism in the arts through a Hegelian point of view. Based on Hegel’s thesis about the end of art, the article tries to show how modernism can be seen, at the same time, as both the realization and the negation of this end, for modernist art embodies the reflective character demanded by the modern spirit and at the same time it tries to resist the loss of relevance of art in the modern world. This type of art, thus, tries to be more than just an aesthetic experience by seeking to influence life and society and to reclaim for itself the primary role of expressing the truth. Postmodernism, in turn, as the negation of modernism, fully carries out Hegel’s reading on the art of his own time, accepting this loss of relevance and turning to representations that no longer have the goal of being spirit’s highest mode of self-apprehension. Postmodernism has, however, two possible readings: it can either be seen negatively, as an art that has become sterile and that demands to be accepted by institutions and the market, or positively, as an extension of the freedom achieved by modernist experimentations to every artistic production without being limited by a programmatic view. Both these readings show the intrinsic contradictions of artistic postmodernism and the role of philosophy in apprehending it.