The leading art theorist takes on art in the age of the Internet
In the early twentieth century, art and its institutions came under critique from a new democratic and egalitarian spirit. The notion of works of art as sacred objects was decried and subsequently they would be understood merely as things. This meant an attack on realism, as well as on the traditional preservative mission of the museum. Acclaimed art theorist Boris Groys argues this led to the development of "direct realism": an art that would not produce objects, but practices (from performance art to relational aesthetics) that would not survive. But for more than a century now, every advance in this direction has been quickly followed by new means of preserving art’s distinction.
In this major new work, Groys charts the paradoxes produced by this tension, and explores art in the age of the thingless medium, the Internet. Groys claims that if the techniques of mechanical reproduction gave us objects without aura, digital production generates aura without objects, transforming all its materials into vanishing markers of the transitory present.
Über den Autor Boris Groys
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Boris Groys, geboren am 19. März 1947 in Berlin, ist ein Philosoph, Kunstkritiker, Medientheoretiker, Essayist und international anerkannter Experte für die Kunst und Literatur der Sowjetära, besonders für die Russische Avantgarde. Groys lehrt als Global Distinguished Professor of Russian and Slavic Studies an der New York University, ist Professor für Philosophie an der European Graduate School und Senior Research Fellow an der Staatlichen Hochschule für Gestaltung Karlsruhe.
