"The Spectator's Contribution"

Special Report: Revisiting Adorno
On the Limits of the Activities of the Modern Onlooker
By Christian Ruby
English

Based on T.W. Adorno's studies of the spectator and his/her relations with the work of art, this article considers two questions. First, how does the philosopher relate to the classical spectator-contemplator, naturalized and set by the type of autonomy of art elaborated by Immanuel Kant. Second, why does Adorno affirm that the spectator reified in classical art through its constituent rules facilitates the growth of the culture industries? These two questions lead to a third: what can then be said about modern art which Adorno praises for its participative practices, and does such participation facilitate criticism of the impact of the culture industries on people's minds? In this respect, Adorno's answers hardly seem convincing. The author of this article considers that Adorno fails to give substance to a practice of emancipation that would not simply encourage each of us to re-appropriate culture but would be able to awaken in us new capacities to struggle for our own emancipation.

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