Arthur Danto, "The Artworld"

Danto, Arthur. “The Artworld.” Journal of Philosophy 61, no. 19 (October 1964): 571-584.

- Socrates: reflect; Hamlet: reveal
- Socrates focuses his discussion of art on mimesis because at the time artists were engaging in imitation
- Photography - discarding of mimesis in art
- "telling artworks from other things is not so simple a matter, even for native speakers, and these days one might not be aware he was on artistic terrain without an artistic theory to tell him so."
- Art theory does not just distinguish/identify art, it make art possible
- Changes in art necessitate changes in art theory, or else new artworks would be deemed bad or not-art (expand/revise to include)
- "Non-facsimile"
- "To mistake an artwork for a real object is no great feat when an artwork is the real object one mistakes it for." - how to distinguish?
- A bed cannot not be a bed
- Not a bed with paint on, an artwork made up of a bed and some paint (mistaking the artwork for part of itself)
- Different senses of "is" - "the is of artistic identification" - some property or part of the artwork must be designated by this "is"
- "One artistic identification engenders another artistic identification," requires/precludes others
- Making artworks different from one another even if they contain the same real objects
- (Obviously must be linked to the real objects)
- We must master this "is" in order to understand why a work is art
- "To see something as art requires something the eye cannot decry - an atmosphere of artistic theory, a knowledge of the history of art: an artworld."
- Context
- [Popular artworlds?]
- Why can't the Brillo company make art, while Warhol cannot but make art? (Has the distinction between art and reality broken down?)
- Cannot separate the work from the (gallery) context - mistake the part for the whole
- The differences is in the theory of art, which supports the work (historically specific, "occasionality")
- "The world has to be ready for certain things, the artworld no less than the real one. It is the role of artistic theories, these days as always, to make the artworld, and art, possible."
- Art as a discourse
- The Brillo box of the artworld is distinguished (if by nothing else) by the "is" of artistic identification
- "Retroactive enrichment of the entities in the artworld" - previous works can now be discussed in terms of new predicates/criteria/theories/works
- "Pure" paintings can only exist in relation to impure paintings - the same predicates apply!
- Perpetual intensification of the matrix of artistic possibility that also enriches the entire rest of the artworld
- Importance of institutions in structuring this artworld/matrix of possibilities (For Danto, this is only of sociological interest...)