Abstract

The main aim of this article is to examine and define the de-aestheticization of art, from Harold Rosenberg’s perspective, as a phenomenon specific to the artistic capitalism, following three major wok hypothesis. The first one is that de-aestheticization, criticized as de-definition of art, is an aesthetic revolution of the artistic modernism, specific to artistic capitalism, treated in the acceptance of Gilles Lipovetsky. This level of de-aestheticization allows to comprehend the connection between ethics and aesthetics nowadays, the first one delimitating three ages of the artistic capitalism, each of them corresponding to one of the next values: excellence, merit and authenticity, and reshaping the status of the artist as individual. Based on this paradigm, I will argue, in the light of Rosenberg’s and Ferry’s arguments that the de-definition is a direct consequence of the Subject’s moral self- representations in the individualist-democratic societies of consumption, preparing the field for the second hypothesis, which considers de-aestheticization responsible for reinforcing the concept of materiality of the work of art, because it reconfigures the theories about mass art production, consumption and exposure. This approach will inspire the second conclusion of the current research, according to which the materiality of the work of arts provokes, in the terms of de-aestheticization, the aesthetic de- territorialisation, remarked not only at the level of the artistic production, but also on that of artistic exposure and consumption. Lastly, the third hypothesis will justify the process of de-aestheticization as expression of social and economic capitalist inequalities between individuals reflected in artistic discourses and representations, as well as its consequences on the process of the institutionalization of art and culture.