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Why Matter Matters roscopic level in the oblivion of the canon (people don’ t understand an annunciation

or a flight into Egypt because they do not Maurizio Ferraris know what they are). I would add that the Università di Torino main client of art has changed, as it is no (Italia) longer the Church but the government: art- ists now have to simulate social interests just as they had to simulate religious interests in 1. Work of Aura the past. And the public does no longer go see art in the church, but at exhibitions, ow do you picture your funeral? pushed by the media and advertisements. As If you think you’ ll opt for a civil a result, the only occasions in which there is ceremony, then you know there talk of sacred art is when it comes to provo- H will be relatively improvised cations, such as Piss Christ by Serrano, Kip- speeches and applauses: the impromptu is penberger’ s crucified frog, or Cattelan’ s likely to prevail. There will be no structur- John Paul II crushed by a meteorite. ing ritual, no formal apparatus to make the To counter this trend, the Catholic pain bearable. And yet the same might hap- Church is now seeking to recover a relation- pen in a religious ceremony, if it were to ship with art that would not be subordinated mimic the civil rite and acquire its uncertain- or mimetic, by designing a Vatican pavilion ties and difficulties: imagine it took place in at the Venice Biennale or involving contem- an ugly church with poor ornaments, and porary artists in ancient churches (think of the speeches did not make use of a high reg- the altar by Parmeggiani in the cathedral of ister but of everyday language. The experi- Reggio Emilia, Kounellis’ bishop’ s chair or ment of the funeral is somewhat extreme the candlestick by Spalletti). The results are but, in the end, appropriate (as it affects eve- not obvious, because the difficulties of sa- ryone) to address the difficulties of sacred cred art are only the strongest symptom of art – currently confused with profane art, the difficulties of art in general – as authori- which is not in its golden age either. tative and even conservative commentators Why is it so? Camille Paglia, in Glittering have recently pointed out, see Marc Fuma- Images: A Journey Through Art from Egypt to roli,2 Jean Clair3 and Roger Scruton.4 Art, in 1 Star Wars, speaks of a crisis of the spirit. fact, seems to be realizing Nietzsche’ s Gone are the days of the cathedrals, and re- prophecy about humanity after Copernicus: ligion is no longer the subject of art. Accord- ing to the author, this is manifested at a mac- !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 2 Claire 2011. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 3 Fumaroli 2009. 1 Paglia 2012. 4 Scruton 2009.

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it is “rolling off toward the x”, without an of hyper-conceptuality. It is not true, as is end and without an orientation. always repeated following Benjamin, that in Now, it is easy to see that many sectors of the age of mechanical reproduction art has contemporary art are in crisis. It is even eas- lost the aura resulting from uniqueness. ier to see that the “return to religion” talked What has happened is exactly the opposite, about for the past twenty years has largely the artwork is now essentially a work of been a false alarm: it has not lead to any real aura, the result of a fully spiritual consecra- change of customs or beliefs, which remain tion by which any object is transformed into secular in all respects. However, I find it too artwork, museums are transformed into easy and simplistic to establish (as Paglia temples, visitors turn into pilgrims and peni- does) a direct relationship between a spiri- tents, and art dealers become merchants of tual crisis and an aesthetic crisis. There aura.6 surely is a relationship between the two but, Assuming that, if exposed in a favourable if anything, it is the reverse of what the location and with the appropriate ritual, any- author posits: the hyper-spiritualization of thing can become a work of art, means plac- art, become conceptual, is what has caused ing transubstantiation within artistic produc- the aesthetic crisis. This phenomenon was tion: the artist consecrates any object, trans- described very well by Hegel: while ancient forming it into an artwork, through reading classical art develops an “aesthetic religion” a devotional text written by an art-critic. So characterized by a strict correspondence be- it is true that there is no more sacred art tween form and content, in modern romantic (with sacred subjects) and that we no longer art content (the spirit, the concept) prevails know how to build beautiful churches. But over form. Christ on the cross is not nice to in new and often beautiful cathedrals – mu- look at, what matters is the spiritual signifi- seums – we are engaging in a perpetual ado- cance of the scene: here, in this extreme con- ration. If this is the case, then, art is not ceptualism, we have the most powerful ante- dead, but more alive than ever, and indeed it cedent of Duchamp. has taken the place of religion. All romantic art – as well as its heirs, the One can always object to this interpreta- avant-garde, which not coincidentally tion that “conceptual” is not equivalent to mainly took place in the Christian world (to “spiritual,” that the spirit may be mystery my knowledge there are no Islamic, Jewish, and revelation, while the concept is trans- Confucian, Taoist, or Hindu avant-gardes) parency, clarity, and often a futile game. It – develops this hyper-spiritual vocation. might also be objected that the aura of con- The claim made by contemporary visual art ceptual works is an aura of plastic. Sure, but that beauty is not at its centre5 is a statement the problem is that in order to restore the

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 5 Benjamin 1968. 6 Dal Lago – Giordano 2006.

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myth – perhaps to create a “new mythol- the couple “law and art”,7 we will notice that ogy” as the romantics dreamed two centu- the former is not extrinsic to the latter (un- ries ago – the will to do so isn’ t enough. Af- like what would happen if, say, we tried to ter all, the whole story is already written in explain artworks through their authors’ pa- War and Peace: at the eve of the battle of thologies according to the couple “psychia- Borodino, Napoleon, the bourgeois and En- try and art.”) lightened emperor, contemplates the picture For the past century has, in of his son, the King of Rome. His opponent, fact, been contractual: it deals with the eco- Kutusov, kneels in front of the icons. The nomic data (the world of art is above all the outcome of the battle is uncertain, while that art market) and seeks to broaden the defini- of the war will be disastrous for Napoleon. tion of art, renegotiating the implicit con- But in the long run, in the two centuries that tract between buyer, author and user to the separate us from Borodino, Napoleon’ s point of essentially becoming a contract it- principles have had the upper hand. We are self. In fact, the only concept used by con- now more able to see the limits of those ceptual-contractual art is, after all, the law of principles, in art, economy and politics, as art, the canonical idea that an artwork is a well as in our own lives. But we are also physical thing, made by an author and en- aware (or at least this is my steadfast belief) dowed with an attractive appearance. There- that spirituality and the divine are bound to a fore, it is necessary to contradict the canons, power we have to acknowledge, but with move around them, expand them, remove which we can not reconcile if not in an illu- them, and all this, rather perversely, happens sory form, sacrificing the values, merits and through a tool that is traditionally associated pains of modernity. with the canon and legality: the contract. The powers of the contract are great, as it has a performative dimension and allows one 2. Contractual Art to do things with words, as suggested by the English philosopher John L. Austin,8 the t is important to define the meaning of theoretician of speech acts, who noted that “concept” in the phrase “conceptual the words “I do” at a wedding do not merely art.” In what sense is Duchamp’ s bottle describe a ceremony, but produce two new I rack more conceptual than the School social objects, a husband and a wife. The of by Raphael, who manages to em- same thing systematically happens with body in the single gesture of Aristotle’ s documents, which allow one to certify, half-raised hand the via media character of document, archive, name, and so forth ac- ethical virtues? In hindsight, the notion of conceptual art is a legal concept: if we take !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 7 See Donati 2012, Ajani-Donati (eds), 2011. 8 Austin 1962.

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cording to a dual mode which I believe can ”Empty Artist,” an exhibition without be traced back to the following: “weak works, in which the user was issued a con- document” (record of a fact) and “strong tract for the sale of a “zone of immaterial document” (inscription of an act). To be pictorial sensibility”. Much later, in 2010, clear, all the artists that record performances Etienne Chambaud made a work that con- otherwise destined to disappear produce sists only of contracts, certificates and state- weak documents. The same happens when ments of authenticity. Similarly, the contract artists – such as Gordon Matta-Clark, who can turn the author into an artwork, as in the makes collages with legal papers – take ad- arrangement by which Jill Magid gives a vantage of the aesthetic appeal of paperwork specialized company a mandate to transform and the magic power of archive. its charred remains into a diamond. But the But documents can be used in a stronger extreme case is perhaps that of Robert Mor- form, that is, to literally produce acts: Theo- ris’ 1963 contract, which consists of two dore Fu Wan contractually changes his parts: on the left, an iron plate with a few name to Saskatche Wan, Alix Lambert gets lines engraved on it, on the right a statement married with five different wives in six in which the artist withdraws the artwork months, Maria Eichhorn conceives of her status from the artwork itself, transferring own artistic activity as the drafting of con- the artistic aura onto the document. tracts in order to protect urban areas threat- Immanuel Kant said that the character of ened by speculation. The conferring power art consists in making people think. But of the document is at the heart of practices what thoughts are aroused by these works? such as those by Stefan Bruggemann and Questions of an essentially legal nature. For Robert Barry, who have two of their works example: who is the author, if she merely assigned by contract every five years to one gives instructions for others to make the or the other. Similarly, exploiting the laws of work? She can be intimidating if, as Seth copyright, Philippe Parreno and Peter Siegelaub did, she prescribes in the contract Huyge acquire the rights to use a Manga fig- that even the slightest change involves an ir- ure. The contract can go up to the staging of reversible alteration of the artwork. She can a subversion of the rules that are no longer even be despotic, in a perverse way: this is those of art, but of the Criminal Code, such the case of Daniel Buren who rigorously as when the artist gives the order to rob a avoids signing or authenticating his works. grocery store, or, as in “Corruption Con- And again, can we say that the curator of an tract” by the group Superflex, the buyer – in exhibition or a museum is an author, when obvious derogation from the standard the- his responsibility goes far beyond the man- ory of beauty as a symbol of moral goodness agement of the exhibition space? (For in- – is committed to extort or bribe. stance, an artist like Cattelan has co-curated One can also create artworks by a mere the Berlin Biennial in 2006 with Massimil- contractual fiat. In 1959 Yves Klein made iano Gioni).

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And is the performance really an immate- art, often led to a factor of surprise, a slight rial artwork that escapes the market? It was transgression of the rule, so as to give a so according to the original ideology, but breath of authorship and novelty to the arts now the world is full of recordings of per- that (unlike heavily coded traditions) call for formances. Indeed, the world is full of such things. documents, as in the philosophical conversa- The contemporary variant is precisely the tions with Ian Wilson, of which only a piece thrill of the contract, in which the artist feels of paper with a signature is left. There are the more revolutionary the more he devel- even “scripta”, works that can be assembled ops the sophistication of a shyster. Here and unassembled following instructions for transgression and the surprise element be- use. Or works that only consist in docu- come the most important features of the ments, such as the sheet of the complaint work, and the bureaucratic frisson takes the lodged by Cattelan at the police headquar- place of other elements (information, emo- ters in Forlì, reporting the theft of an invisi- tion, aesthetic satisfaction) that were consti- ble work of art from his car. tutive of traditional artworks. The romantic However, contemporary art simply dream of turning the world into a work of brings to the fore a character proper of the art was realized in the paperwork, where art artworks of all time and type. A documental really comes down to life. The bartender aspect has always defined the horizon of art, that does not give you the receipt is poten- as it has to do with the establishment of so- tially an absolute performer, and the event cial objects in general. So, like any other so- would be even more sublime and complete if cial object, the artwork is defined by a law it is accompanied by a report to the financial which I have tried to formalize in the terms police. of Object = Inscribed Act. That is to say We all await the time when a condomin- that social objects are the result of social acts ium assembly will become a work of art, (such as to involve at least two people) char- whose vestige, the minutes, will be hung on acterized by the fact of being recorded, on a the wall as a decoration. In contractual art, piece of paper, a computer file, or even only an old cartoon by Giuseppe Novello comes in people’ s minds. Therefore, the dimension true. The cartoon depicts a young man of the contract is not a break with the es- whose noble and cultured family wanted him sence of traditional art, which as such postu- to be a composer, but who at night – under lates the cooperation between author and the frowning eyes of Beethoven’ s bust – user suggested over thirty years ago by Um- gave vent to his true Muse: accounting. berto Eco in Lector in fabula.9 The full reali- Nothing wrong with that. After all, Jeff zation of expectations, even in traditional Koons worked in the stock market. Perfec- tion would be reached if Cattelan received a !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! chair of commercial law drawing on the ex- 9 Eco 1979.

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pertise accumulated in his years of artistic the Ugliness,10 grasping the spirit of the age: militancy. beauty is not needed, aura is enough, al- though this took place in the epoch of da- guerreotype – that is, of that technical re- 3. From the Vittoriano to the Urinal producibility which, according to Benjamin, endorses the end of artistic aura. This is a nd beauty? It is no longer a prob- precocious and evident proof, I believe, of lem, of course, provided that it has the thesis I am trying to defend, namely that ever been one. Since 1993, in Bos- the disappearance of beauty and the imposi- Aton, there has been a MOBA, a tion of aura are two concomitant phenom- Museum of Bad Art which organises exhibi- ena. tions and conferences developing an idea Nonetheless, like in any religion, the that is simple but efficacious: take some bad dogma of aesthetic indifference has many paintings and call them by their real name. more followers in theory than in practice. This doesn’ t always work, some pieces are When writing an essay on aesthetics, one is not that bad after all, and overall one gets always ready to affirm that what one is deal- the impression that the percentage of bad art ing with is a conceptual experience in which is not significantly greater than that present beauty is a fossil out of place. One is not as in many museums of fine arts, both ancient ready, though, to affirm the same when buy- and modern. What matters, though, is that ing a table or an armchair, a carpet or a MOBA ironizes about what for a century dress: then the requirement of aesthetic now has been the fundamental aesthetic pleasantness stays unchanged. It is not hard creed of avant-gardes, which I would call to recognise a contradiction here (or, to stick “dogma of aesthetic indifference”. That is, to religious jargon, a double truth), so that the thesis according to which beauty is no we have an age, ours, that carefully culti- longer the primary objective of what used to vates the myth of beauty and yet easily ac- be called “fine arts” to distinguish them cepts that what used to be called “fine arts” from useful arts. no longer have beauty as their primary ob- This aesthetic (or more exactly anaes- jective. thetic) creed comes from afar and goes back Thus we have, on the one hand, the most at least to Romanticism, characterised by beautiful women and men in history, the Hegel (who didn’ t really like the Roman- best-finished objects, the most-selected food, tics) as a prevalence of content over from, as incomparably better wines than all the wines a prearranged and strongly wanted dishar- mankind has ever drunk – and works of art mony. It is not by chance that in 1853 a that are ugly, on purpose so, or unkempt, or Hegelian, Rosenkranz, wrote Aesthetics of !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 10 Rosenkranz 1853.

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meaningless, or at least an art that thinks it a voi, pòveri bozzetti fuggiti od avviati al can be ugly because it sees itself as intelli- manicomio, dinanzi ai quali chi prende la gent. And since looks (and taste) still matter, vita sul tràgico passa facendo atti di sdegno e the consolation for visitors is offered by gal- chi la prende, come si deve, a gioco, si ab- leries, which are beautiful (we shall come bandona a momenti di clamorosa ilarità”.12 back to this later, as it’ s not a detail). Or This was in 1884, that is, in an age of bad perhaps the gratification lies in the free white taste and eclecticism possibly produced by wine and cheese you are offered at inaugura- the vast photographic material at disposal (it tions (unlike the cinema, where you’ re the is on this side, rather than that of the loss of one to pay for wine and cheese, if you want aura, that we should measure the impact of them, since supposedly the aesthetic gratifi- technical reproducibility on art). Beauty was cation comes from the show). Now, there still being searched-for, but it wasn’ t found, are people convinced that between what you and the outcome was the very white, marble see in a gallery and what you put into your writing machine that we can still see in Pi- own house there is an abyss. I (and I doubt I azza Venezia in Rome – which is not so bad, am the only one) believe it is not so, also be- after all, if we compare it with other rejected cause many works are destined to enter peo- sketches that Dossi laughed about. ple’ s houses, just like many other handi- Also, it is not so bad when compared with works. In the following pages I will there- many works of art that fill galleries and mu- fore try to fight the correlated dogmas of seums, and that appeal to what I propose we aesthetic indifference and auratic omnipo- call Great Conceptual Art: the art that has tence attempting an answer to the question: cultivated the dogmas of aesthetic indiffer- what can be done to avoid that any MOMA ence and auratic omnipotence. If the works or MOCA or MACBA or MADRE or of the “nutcases” were often ugly but not on MAMBO becomes indistinguishable from a purpose, those of the Great Conceptual Art MOBA? are just as ugly, but purposely so. One Despite the appearances, the MOBA be- would be tempted to see in this an extra re- longs to an ancient tradition, as its predeces- sponsibility but instead, with a somehow mi- sors can already be found in the situation de- raculous proceeding (as it has to do with scribed by Carlo Dossi when commenting transfiguration) it is not so. While laughing on the sketches for the Vittoriano in I mat- at the Vittoriano, scorning its ugliness and toidi: al primo concorso pel monumento in pitying its author are all accepted attitudes, if Roma a Vittorio Emanuele II (literally, The !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! nutcases: for the first competition for the Victor 12 “Here I am, you poor sketches escaped from – or Emmanuel II monument in Rome)11: “Èccomi made in – the madhouse, before whom those who take life tragically pass showing disdain, and those !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! who take it (as they should) as a game abandon 11 Dossi 1884. themselves to moments of clamorous hilarity”.

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one risked doing the same with Great Con- The Zarathustra of this transvaluation ceptual Art one would be in trouble, accused was obviously Duchamp, thirty years after of nostalgia, incompetence, bad taste and the nutcases of the Vittoriano. But aesthetic insensibility (and it’ s bizarre, given Duchamp’ s genius did not consist, as is that this art does not aspire to beauty). sometimes believed, of his breaking with the Beauty is no longer art’ s business and if you past. Rather, in the opposite way, it con- didn’ t get that you’ re an ignoramus. sisted of his art’ s ultimate continuity with it. If you think about it, this doctrine it is bi- His urinal, as well as the Mona Lisa with zarre because it would be like saying that moustaches, draws together the threads of health is not medicine’ s priority. Given that the aesthetic frustrations accumulated by Great Conceptual Art comes not long after generations of eclecticism and pompierism, the Vittoriano, someone could malevolently together with a forced and semi-religious think that the dogma of aesthetic indiffer- cult of Great Non Conceptual Art. Are you ence is a late version of the fable of the fox tired of showing an aesthetic devotion that and the grapes. Yet the intimidated audience doesn’ t belong to you before the Mona accepts and endures. They go to exhibitions, Lisa? Don’ t worry, draw some moustaches applaud and buy if they can, proving to be on her and you shall be saved by the inter- much less self-confident than the nineteenth vention of Great Conceptual Art. Are you century bourgeoisie, that would perhaps fed up with works that struggle to be beauti- scorn Impressionism, but at least, in doing ful and are just vulgar or ordinary? Again, so, showed that it had its own taste. Great don’ t worry: take a urinal, or a bottle rack Conceptual Art users can, at most, say to (curious tool, by the way) or a bicycle themselves: “I could have made this”. But wheel, exhibit it in a pertinent environment they are wrong: the endeavour is far beyond (a gallery or a museum), give it a title and their reach, it is very, and romantically, sign it: you’ ll have realised the marvellous monumental. In the age when nutcases were conceptual transubstantiation thanks to competing for the Vittoriano, Nietzsche which a common object becomes a work of wrote Beyond Good and Evil proposing a aura. From this point of view, applying the transvaluation of all values. An undoubtedly dogma of aesthetic indifference and auratic- vast project, that nonetheless was realised in ity at all costs is crucial, so as to avoid some art. When the last unprepared visitors – incompetent thinking that the miracle de- those ready to shout “Ugly! Ugly!”, in the pends on the action of aesthetic properties right or the wrong, in front of ugly or beau- instead of the conceptual invention. Here’ s tiful works – were gone, a spell was cast so the first difference from the Vittoriano, a that their very sons or grandchildren say monument that loved beauty, despite not be- “Beautiful! Beautiful!” before works that ing loved back. have only one declared feature, namely that There is a second difference. Dossi could of not aspiring to beauty. easily laugh at the Vittoriano, whereas with

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Duchamp’ s urinal one needs to be very se- cial in its being lateral or environmental), in rious and thoughtful, admiring and concen- a white room, minimal and very elegant like trated. Otherwise one risks ending up like an Apple Store, and the people talking to me Franti, who in Cuore is defined a “villain” were all educated, well-mannered and kind for smiling when the teacher narrates the fu- men and (mostly) women. I was the ill- nerals of king Umberto. Like in every mira- mannered one, unwilling to understand. On cle, a good deal of faith is necessary on the my way back home, I wondered if the part of the observers. You have to believe it. transvaluation of all values wasn’ t moving But once you do, then any transvaluation is from aesthetics to ethics, because perhaps truly possible. It’ d like to demonstrate this aesthetic atrophy, the habit of swallowing with an anecdote. A few years ago an impor- anything, has started to unleash a form of tant foundation of Great Conceptual Art moral atrophy. asked me to organise a cycle of conferences in conjunction with the exhibition of an art- 4. Intimidation and Indulgence ist who proposed, I was told, a profound re- flection on violence. When I requested to n the end the exhibition didn’ t take know what the meditation was about they place, as is was prohibited by animal explained to me that the artist had gone to a rights activists and by the superinten- slaughterhouse in Mexico and had killed, I dent. I wonder: if it had taken place, with a hammer, a dozen horses there. The what would the artist have done? Would he reflection on violence consisted of the re- have stood at the door of the gallery holding cordings of the massacre. I pointed out that I a hammer? Maybe, but even without armed couldn’ t see the meditative side, given that artists welcoming them, visitors normally (if words have any meaning at all) it was not seem quite intimidated in art galleries: they a reflection but an action, a cruel and ex- often pay to see an exhibition, and yet they tremely violent one, a kind of snuff movie walk around with a shy and respectful atti- against animals. I was then told that those tude. One may wonder how much fear peo- animals were going to be slaughtered any- ple have, and who exactly is threatening way. them. Also, one may wonder whether it is So if the artist had gone to the showers in humanly possible to find everything beauti- Auschwitz hammering to death the wretched ful: at a restaurant or in a shop that is never people who entered (and who were going to the case, as there are always things one does die anyway) maybe some critics or curators not like. In art, however, everything is taken would have said that the artist’ s was a pro- to be beautiful, and this – for a further para- found reflection on violence. The entire dox – happens just at the time when Great conversation took place, as it had to (we Conceptual art imposes the canon of aes- shall get back to this point, which might thetic indifference. And yet this paradox seem lateral or environmental but it’ s cru- ceases to be when one realizes that the aes-

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thetic indifference hides an auratic omnipo- a thing without aura or nor art. In reality, tence. though, it isn’ t true that anything can be a One is tempted to reach a very simple work of art, because it would be difficult to conclusion: in this transfiguration (as in all turn a natural event such as a hurricane into transformations) not only is there circum- a work of art. The same goes for an ideal ob- vention but also a good deal of social intimi- ject such as an equilateral triangle (at most, dation. This intimidating factor relies on the there would be a concrete object, the design solid bourgeois element that thinkers from of the equilateral triangle, and that, not the Nietzsche to Bourdieu have called “distinc- triangle itself, would be the artwork).14 tion”.13 It is not distinguished not to appreci- Rather, what Duchamp suggests is some- ate the slaughter of horses. It is not distin- thing very reasonable that I personally fully guished to show hesitation in the face of a agree with: the artwork is first and foremost a work that consists (I happened to see it) of a thing, with certain dimensions, features etc. chainsaw put into a boat – I guess it was Indeed, it is from time immemorial that mu- meant to refer to the transience of all human seums (and the royal galleries that preceded affairs, somehow like a Stilleben created by them) have included all sorts of things that Leroy Merlin. The chainsaw in the dinghy were not intended for aesthetic contempla- was the repetitive and almost paroxysmal tion: weapons, buckles, tombstones, and of version of the readymade, almost a hundred course human bodies (such as in Egyptian years later. Now, I know that this observa- museums, which show how body art has an tion is far from original, but the readymade ancient soul). truly seems to be a gimmick that changes The real desecration, therefore, lies not so with time, with iteration and by imitation, in much in the idea that anything can be a work an intellectual swindle with motivations of of art, but rather in saying that, whatever it economic interest. At its heart there is a is, the work of art can afford to be ugly, i.e. powerful intuition. At a time when the nut- not to aspire to beauty, to the status of what cases of the Vittoriano are looking for Duchamp called “retinal art”.15 Besides, this beauty in vain and are committed to cover does not apply to other things of supposed anything up with an aesthetic patina, the aesthetic value, such as design objects. readymade proposes a radical gesture and Therefore, Duchamp’ s real stroke of gen- says that the search is useless: anything can ius, much more than the readymade, was the be a work of art. practical elaboration of the thesis of aesthetic The first movement, then, is desecration. indifference as auratic omnipotence. This The artwork has nothing special about it, it thesis proves to be valuable and salvific in an can be anything: at least nominally, it can be !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 14 I have developed this point in Ferraris 2007. 13 Bourdieu 1987. 15 Cabanne 1967.

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age of aesthetic confusion, in which the whole heritage of respectability and auratic- eclecticism of many traditions generates the ity. Bow down to this ugliness, to the dis- situation described by Gadda in Acquainted honour of Golgotha (recall that for Hegel with Grief: the villas in Brianza “had some- romanticism found its fundamental para- thing of the pagoda and something of the digm in the scandal of Christ on the cross),17 spinning mill, and they were also a compro- because through this genuflection you shall mise between the Alhambra and the Krem- burn incense to the god unknown. Once put lin”.16 In this grab-bag of styles, classes, on a pedestal, the thing becomes an artwork, tastes and cultures, no one could be sure of and the devotee will contemplate urinals and one’ s own taste, and everyone had reason- bottle racks with the same tension and aes- able grounds to think one was wrong: the es- thetically concentrated attitude dedicated to timators of Impressionism felt insecure be- romantic art. In fact, people at exhibitions cause now that taste had been overcome by behave exactly as in church, or at Bayreuth: Cubism, the lovers of Art Pompier felt the they are often silent or whispering, and same because it was considered “poor in would never dare to act as was common in spirit” by the enthusiasts of Impressionism the eighteenth century, an age in which the and Cubism, and so forth. On the one hand, theatre lights were on and people ate while therefore, there is the path that leads from watching the show. Even the Chardonnay the Vittoriale to the Vittoriano: that is, the and cheddar that they give you at inaugura- inclusive and syncretic path which collects tions somehow have the function of the all kinds of horrors in a museum. On the Eucharist rather than that of “party food” - other hand, there is Duchamp’ s break with as this would reduce the works to a mere or- the past: what matters is not the beauty, but nament and accompaniment. the concept of a work. Once this is clear, Surprisingly, then, while the artist dese- with a radical Copernican revolution, one crates (at least in appearance), the user con- can stop worrying. secrates and feels bestowed with a decisive However, this apparent desecration fully task: making art valuable, auratizing it with capitalizes on the sacred value of art, and her faith – just like a meteorite in the desert here lies the crux of intimidation. Just as the can be transformed by the faithful into the moustache drawn on the Mona Lisa derive symbol of God. The two experiences – the their prestige through transgression and lese rite in the gallery and the one in the desert – majeste, so the readymade presupposes a have a common element: the mystery. It is consecration that is inseparable from its not clear what is expected from the artwork, desecration. Duchamp, in showing its ob- but it’ s a kind of redemption. This is a strik- jects, exploited the canonical value of art: a ing confirmation of the fact that if technical

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 16 Gadda 1969. 17 Hegel 1975.

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reproducibility produced a loss of the aura of later). The situation is that of the Vittoriano uniqueness, the aura was promptly (and and the Vittoriale: taste is no longer sure of much more abundantly) reconstructed by itself, or cannot confess its predilections. If the faith of the users. The outward manifes- one wants to listen to Madonna, much pre- tation of devotion is often inadequate, and ferring her to Stockhausen, or if one likes therefore people’ s saying “beautiful, beauti- Campbell’ s soup cans and understands ful” is an invocation rather than an apprecia- nothing of Picasso, and above all if one is tion. Theirs is a strategy of the sublime, bored to death watching Duchamp’ s urinal which not coincidentally was extensively re- for the millionth time, there is a way out: habilitated in the critical discourse on the one can claim that one likes Kitsch, Camp, avant-garde. Beauty becomes conspicuous and Pop – and will make a great impression by its absence where there’ s nothing beauti- too. This suggests that the common element ful and one is deliberately seeking the com- in the compensatory triad Kitsch-Camp-Pop mon and the ugly. But this lack, this mis- is the fear of being judged and (even more) match between the concept and the object of judging, due to an uncertainty of taste. (this is essentially the sublime, especially the For a full “acceptance” of the phenome- mathematical one, as Kant theorizes it in the non, one has to wait for its outcome and Critique of Judgment)18 gives the impression natural development: postmodernism, which to go far beyond the beautiful, because what follows from it in an explicit form, as one matters are the intentions and thoughts, not can read, for example, in a meaningful con- the sensible appearance – as suggested, with versation between Charles Jencks and Susan terrifying machismo, again by Kant, when Sontag.20 Jencks’ idea is that people ruin he said that a woman can be beautiful, but their lives for the sake of principles and that only man is sublime.19 it is better to be nihilists – that is, among Like all forms of asceticism, intimidation other things, not to care about those who involves more than an indulgence: it implies judge us Kitsch or Camp or Pop. The gene- spaces in which pleasure is returned and de- alogy of postmodern taste is the following. It votion is rewarded. It is no coincidence that begins with Camp (first English and then the era of Great Conceptual Art, as that of global), it continues with Kitsch and Pop, the romantic spirit, is the only one in the his- and culminates with postmodernism and tory of taste that has come up with compen- weak thought, which returns Camp, Kitsch satory sub-categories: Kitsch, Camp, Pop and Pop aficionados (that is, the greater part (Pop was assumed by Great Conceptual Art of humanity) some kind of good conscience: with a stratagem, on which we will return a kind of absolution or indulgence. “Don’ t worry, yours is not bad taste” Or rather, !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 18 Kant 1961. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 19 Kant I. 1951: ch. III. 20 The conversation appears in Cleto 2008 (ed).

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even bad taste has a space and a social dig- camp),22 proclaiming that the work of art is nity: there are essays, handbooks, confer- no less than truth’ s setting-itself-to-work, ences and conventions about it. illustrating his thesis with the temple of Like all indulgences, of course, it leaves Paestum (originally the Nuremberg Zeppe- some doubts: does this forgiveness extend to lin Field set up on the pattern of the altar of Dolce and Gabbana and Lady Gaga? But the Pergamon to accommodate Hitler’ s core of the matter is clear. The Romantics speeches), the shoes painted by Van Gogh, wanted a synthesis between philosophy and and a poem by Conrad Ferdinand Meyer.23 art, they pursued a new mythology. Two outcomes were produced by this dream: as- cetic art, which took its first steps in Beetho- 5. Matter Matters ven’ s late style, and Kitsch, which originally designated the taste of the new bourgeoisie o, this is the crime scene. What to do? of Monaco, who could not suffer Beethoven’ First of all, against the totalitarianism quartets but much enjoyed Loden capes. of the concept, it is worth noting that With time and industry, with capitalism and S there is no art without appeal to per- imperialism, the phenomenon was universal- ception, namely something that is not ized, reaching stronger cultural circuits and thought; therefore, the artwork is not simply more important industrial circuits. This is the reminder of the ideas of a guy who, for how Friedrich Hölderlin’ s solitary Kitsch some reason, chose to be an artist rather than (leading to the saying that that man dwells a philosopher. This is about learning from poetically) was replaced by a Swinging Lon- Hegel, not when he speaks of romanticism don Brian Jones, Gina Lollobrigida, Victor and the death of art, but where he says that Mature, Flash Gordon and the double- “sense” is a wonderful word, because it has breasted Gianni Agnelli. two opposite meanings. On the one hand, it In this context Nietzsche’ s words would refers to the senses – vision, hearing, touch, fit perfectly: “I am all the names in history,” smell, taste – and everything that has to do as he wrote to Burckhardt.21 Or, as Alberto with perception. On the other hand, it indi- Arbasino wrote in Super Eliogabalo [Super cates the meaning, related to thought, as Heliogabalus], “Nietzsche, Adorno, Lacan, when we say “the sense of life.” It is not sur- Toto’ .” All camp, no doubt. If this is the prising that aesthetics – the study of art – case, the campest of all is Martin Heidegger, derives its name from sense perception (ais- in his Tyrolean jacket and a nightcap on his thesis in Greek).24 Trying to prevent the head (this was very well grasped in Old solidarity between these two poles, not con- Masters by Thomas Bernhard, who is also !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 22 Bernhard 1985. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 23 Heidegger 2002. 21 Nietzsche 1885/1889, letter dated 6 January 1889. 24 I have developed this point in Ferraris 1997.

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sidering that matter matters and thinking Ten, Eleven, Twelve Muses that art is the greater the more it deviates from perception: these were the first mis- After the recovery of perception, feeling takes that led to the dead-end of Great Con- and style, we can move further. Very often ceptual Art. And yet, it is by never breaking philosophers, when elaborating theories on with the senses and with perception that one art, only refer to visual art, as if it were can keep the way open for beauty. paradigmatic. And yet, this is not the case. But there’ s more. As Jane Austen noted Contemporary visual art and its church-like in her Sense and Sensibility, there is another museums leads to a form of consecration, duality similar to the “wonderful” duplicity rite and admiration governed by the theory of sense and the senses. The concept must of aesthetic indifference. But there is a great always be accompanied by feeling, because deal of artistic objects (think of videoclips, those who reject feeling in art do so only be- movies, comic books, songs) that occupy cause they confuse feeling with sentimental- our lives much more intensely than visual ity. The idea is very simple. What do we art. Such objects follow completely different look for when we look at artworks? Mainly cults, trying to capture the user with the feelings.25 Otherwise, we would read a trea- most profane things, without being able to tise instead. It is not truth that we look for in afford the luxury of aesthetic indifference. art: this is why art has always been linked to Given that good will is not enough, it can beauty. By the same token, one can under- often happen that these objects are ugly or stand why, as we have seen in the case of the nothing special, but the point is that the user horse-slaughterer, a certain degree of aes- can say, “I like that” or “I do not like that”, thetic atrophy can go hand in hand with while with visual art things are different. So moral atrophy. the death of art prophesied by Hegel two Finally, there is a third element of Great centuries ago was perfectly realized. At least Conceptual Art that we should take into ac- it was perfectly realized in visual art, or count. It is the search for a style that is im- rather, in that part of visual art that under- mediately recognizable, even through the stands itself as Great Conceptual Art. The wide variety of realizations, media, issues. other kinds of art are doing well, and new They say the style is the man himself. But it ones emerge (think of video clips, or graphic is also the artwork, because what we expect novels). It is not the first time that new from the works is something unique and in- forms of art replace old ones (for example, at dividual, just like people.26 some point epic poems disappeared and nov- els appeared) and the really interesting thing is wondering what will be next. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Returning to the issue of aura, we realize 25 I have developed this point in Ferraris 2007. that perhaps things have gone very differ- 26 I have developed this notion in Ferraris 2009. ently from what we expected. Almost a hun-

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dred years ago, Benjamin had argued that price. But it is precisely to remedy this prob- technical reproducibility would lead to a loss lem that the work of aura was devised, that of aura. He was referring to the fact that is, the most spiteful and intractable creation paintings were being replaced by photo- of the last century, the most resolute to dis- graphs, and the single work was substituted please the taste, the most pretentious in de- by many identical copies. Fifty years ago claring that beauty is not on top of its aspira- began to take pictures with tions. I once happened to have a discussion the Polaroid signing the shots, because those with a museum director who told me “Of photos without negative were unique pieces. course, in order to fully understand these But, of course, they were also anomalies, be- works one must be part of the art world.” I cause the ordinary photo has a negative, so it pointed out that it was not very different is infinitely reproducible – even more so in from saying that to understand certain works the case of digital photos. I wonder what one must be Aryan. This is an aspect that Benjamin (who died in 1940) and Warhol normally, to my knowledge, is not talked (who died in 1987) would have said if they about, but I think it is crucial. Why do we had predicted that this reproducibility was condemn the surplus in industrial production going to grow enormously, thanks to the In- and blame the financial capital, while pas- ternet. Concretely, if I type “Brillo Box” + sively accepting the very same things when “Warhol” I will get almost nine thousand it comes to art? hits on Google, and if I select the image Reconsidering the relationship between search I will find almost three thousand re- art and social reality does not mean (God productions of the Brillo Box, the box of forbid) defending some form of realism. steel wool exhibited by Warhol in 1964 and Rather, it means realistically examining what considered a pop icon. But if I do this re- can keep up with some puzzling phenomena, search on my tablet I will have three thou- which affect not only the production of art- sand images available in another place, and works, but the art world as a whole. How is the same happens if I do the same thing on it possible that an architect such as Alvaro my smartphone. As a result, on the same ta- Siza has been able to realize beautiful exhibi- ble, I will have virtually nine thousand im- tion spaces at the Madre in Naples but did ages of the Brillo Box and twenty-seven not put outlets and switches in them? And websites that talk about it or reproduce it. the worst is that this great dysfunctionality Now, the question is: has this infinite re- was motivated by aesthetic reasons, much producibility led to the disappearance of art? like what happened with the infamous Starck Of course not. In a sense, there is too much juicer. of it. There are countless works of , The ones I mentioned are the side effects countless forms of art. The only thing that of the rejection of beauty in art and the fol- disappeared, or that has dropped drastically lowing genesis of the work of aura. The in the case of reproduced works of art, is the great “No” to beauty must be followed by

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other agencies carrying out a supplying cial advancement and enrichment. At this function – generating figures that were once point, the industrial production of works of unimaginable, like fashion victims, design aura began, filling the galleries and museums maniacs, or compulsive exhibition visitors. that proliferated through the establishment Or strange couples like the one between hy- of public expenditure in which officials per-architectural museums and the works bought with the people’ s money. And I’ m contained in them. The museums are gener- not at all convinced that museum directors ally all different, except for the name, which would ever take home many of the works of is a variation of Moma. The works con- aura they expose, nor would they ever buy tained, however, are all the same, all equally them if they had to pay out of their pockets. transgressive, all equally decided not to seek Mind you: there have always been bad art- beauty (because if they did, they would be works, the Louvre or the Alte Pinakothek relegated in a more modest space, for exam- are full of them, as anyone can see. Man is ple, a design shop). Hence a paradox on not perfect and, above all, perfection is rare. which it might be worth pondering. Intimi- But what the twentieth century has managed dated common sense agrees that anything to achieve is the ideological legitimacy of can be a work of art (and not a work of aura, ugliness through the work of aura. I wonder a thing to which some conventionally auratic what the archaeologists of the future will value is usually attached) . But at the same think, if and when they find the works of time design has taught us how difficult it is aura. Maybe they will not even notice, and to produce good objects: it is not true that consider as works of art those that are cur- any object can be an object of design. As a rently regarded as minor productions. result, if it is true that being a work of art is, for an object, something like a sanctification, Future Archaeologists while being a design object is, so to speak, a promotion of lesser rank, than it seems that In this regard I would like to suggest a re- in the twentieth century it was easier to be flection. In George Bernard Shaw’ s Pygma- saints than blessed. lion, a professor (Henry Higgins) is commit- Now, the salt-cellar by Cellini is cumber- ted to transform a simple girl (Eliza Doolit- some, but it still can contain salt, if neces- tle) into a woman of high society. The topos sary, while the Starck juicer will never is turned upside down by Mauro Covacich in squeeze a decent juice. What happened be- L’ arte contemporanea spiegata a mio marito tween Cellini and Starck? After all, it is a [Contemporary art explained to my hus- good question. I think the answer is simpler band],27 where an educated wife or girlfriend than it appears. The middle class (not neces- takes a wealthy but unruly man out of the sarily very educated, unlike the courtly and aristocratic patronage that had preceded it) !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 27 Covacich 2011. saw the work of aura as an instrument of so-

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abyss of ignorance and distrust of contempo- available elsewhere, in the form of technolo- rary art, by explaining word by word (but gies and innovative objects of which the without too much arrogance) the sense of works displayed here are often the verbose provocation wished for by Duchamp (urinal echo? So, while listening to Eliza’ s explana- in the gallery) , Cattelan (Pope hit by mete- tions, Pygmalion could bring out another orite) and Manzoni (poop in the box). Or book: Parole chiave della nuova estetica why Marina Abramovic has spent her time [Keywords of the new aesthetics], edited by stripping the flesh off some bones at the Richard Fennel and Daniel Guastini.28 In Venice Biennale. Or what is beautiful in this book there are 82 entries written by 38 Koons’ Kitsch. authors, and at least fifty of them concern Covacich beautifully explains thirty art- precisely the age of technology: the smart- ists starting from a paradigmatic work, and phone, the camera, the flash memory and so does so with clarity and without technical on, while a significant minority regards the jargon, as a good professor of senses, taste, and slow food: the profit, the would (even though he is trained as a phi- pleasure, the practical side and the repressed losopher and is a professional writer). In of the work of aura. Covacich’ s book, the husband is finally re- Moral of the story: the work of aura does deemed by the wife, and eventually under- not prevent the peaceful or even aesthetic stands. A happy ending, then. According to enjoyment of objects. The Transfiguration of me, however, even if she wins almost all her the Commonplace29 that Arthur Danto at- battles, Eliza loses the war – and it’ s not her taches to Duchamp and Warhol has a spe- fault, but the object’ s. While the initiation cific background in Dutch interior painting, takes place, Covacich notes over and over particularly Vermeer’ s, who successfully again that Pygmalion, as she explains the art, engages in a “transfiguration of the every- thinks about his technological gadgets, that day” (which becomes “acceptance of the really fascinate him. What if Pygmalion was everyday” in Edouard Vuillard). In fact, the right? In fact, many of the recent works that Dutch have taught us long before Pop Art Eliza explains to him (from Viola Calle’ s, that there is always a potential artwork in the still in the pre-digital era, to Barney and object. Nevertheless, this comparison re- Hockney’ s, which concludes the review) veals a deep affinity between the inhabitants hint precisely to those objects he longingly of seventeenth century Amsterdam and thinks of while she drags him into museums. those of twentieth century New Amsterdam: One is tempted to think that those objects, they share a deep bourgeois pride of posses- filling advertising and the web as well as sion of properties. Now, the affinity between Pygmalion as Eliza’ s lives, do not emerge by contrast, but by association. This brings !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 28 an afterthought: why come here to watch Finocchi, Guastini 2011. 29 Danto 1981. videos and installations when all this is

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furniture and museums, as well as between artworks. Thus, beauty migrates elsewhere, object and artwork, is greater than one may hovering in the environment, with a transi- think. This is the teaching of Mario Praz’ s tion from the ergon to the parergon, from the An Illustrated history in Interior Design30: the work of aura to its frame (already less au- representation of a chamber of the Prinz- ratic). Then, from the frame, the aesthetic Max-Palais in Dresden dates back to 1776, appeal may return to the fore, but not in the one of the first pieces of evidence of a genre works of aura: it re-emerges in the museum that was extremely successful in the nine- shop, where you can find objects that par- teenth century, that of “an interior portrayed ticipate in the ritual and allow you to make it by itself” without human figures. This is fit in your life in the form of bags, ties, pen- similar to the watercolour at the Malmaison, cils and stationery. started in 1812 and completed twenty years later, representing a sitting room with a sofa The Nude Readymade and an abandoned cashmere shawl on it. From another watercolour made in 1807 it is The work of aura has accustomed us (and inferred that the shawl belongs to Josephine, I say “accustomed” to be polite, because as Napoleon’ s first wife, who had left that we have seen, there is also a bit of intimida- chair twenty years earlier. A slight shiver tion) to accepting the thesis that “anything runs through these desert interiors – perhaps can be a work of art” (while it is true that, this is why in furniture catalogues the adver- rather, “anything can be a work of aura”): tisers generally place happy people as well. buy a coffee-maker, exhibit it in a gallery In the room in which every living thing is entitling it “Melancholy at dawn”, and it will absent, there lies the secret of being, of what be a work of art. However (this, in my opin- was there before our birth and will still be ion, is the original experience underlying there after our death. Nespolo’ s works), if you take the same In the end, there is a relationship between corkscrew and put it in a design shop, saying the object and the environment on which we it is a work of design, the users will not should reflect more. Goethe once wrote that agree to consider it as such, unless it actually it is not necessary that the real should take works. Is it not strange? There seems to be a form: it suffices for it to hover around.31 singular antithesis between the design object This principle is indecipherable as per the and the ready-made. truth (what would an environmental truth In the case of ready-made, in fact, the be?) but it fits perfectly to the museum. Art- idea is that anything taken from a standard- ists argue that beauty is not the priority of ized production environment can be a work of art if it receives the blessing of the art !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! world. In the case of design there is rather a 30 Praz 1964. search with the purpose of producing a good 31 Quoted in Heidegger 1969. object, for which (unlike in the case of art)

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the consent of the critics and a gallery is not mass society and advertising (with the enough. You have to deal with the needs of soups, the divas, the powerful television) functionality, technical reproducibility, in- that is to say, “look at how beautiful your dustrial feasibility and so forth. Design, un- world is, look at that glow, look at the beau- like Great Conceptual Art, cannot afford the tiful women, look at the powerful men.” romanticism, the surplus of meaning and Warhol gives his works a strong aesthetic aesthetic indifference. No, it must retain dimension: he literally magnifies (i.e. makes some classical balance between inside and bigger and more obvious) Campbell ‘ s outside, as well as between form and func- soups, Brillo Boxes and, of course, Marilyn tion. This highlights the unsaid of ready- Monroe and Liz Taylor. He does so for a made, its dark side and its truth. As sug- simple and decisive reason, namely, that gested by the example of the museum, there they are beautiful – which , again, can not be is a relationship between the object and the said of the urinal, or the bottle rack , nor of environment. The urinal out of a museum, Duchamp’ s mariée. One might almost think for example in a landfill, would not generate that is the only similarity between Duchamp any kind of conflict – which shows that and Warhol consisted in having worked in Duchamp was not fully sincere when he de- New York. clared his indifference of “retinal art .” On Brillo Box metaphorically refers to the the contrary, he was very sensitive to this ready-made only because it reproduces fact , but kept it to himself. things that belong to the world of consumer Now let’ s come to the unique transfigu- items. So, it makes aesthetically pleasing ration of the ready-made known as Brillo what was just bad or insignificant in the real Box. It would be wrong to think that such a ready-made, that is, in Great Conceptual thing as a Brillo Box resumes Duchamp’ s Art. More than a transfiguration of the urinal. Strictly speaking, the former has commonplace promoted to art, Brillo Box nothing in common with the latter. First of appears as a secularization of the ready- all, it is not a ready-made: it was manufac- made, which limits the harsh and ugly pro- tured, with no practical purpose, especially vocations of Great Conceptual Art to the for an exhibition, and inside there is no steel welcoming land of Pop. This process has the wool, because the box is much larger than same dynamics and the same motivations as the original, and if it contained steel wool the relationship between haute couture and would it weigh a ton. Just like the Pietà by prêt-à-porter: take a abstruse phenomenon, (and unlike Duchamp’ s urinal an intellectual game without any aesthetic or bottle rack) the Brillo Box was manufac- appeal and re-propose it in an infinitely tured to be an artwork. Far from being found more attractive and sensual frame (sensual and exhibited with a nihilistic gesture, it is and attractive at least as the boxes). Very lit- literally (given its increased size) the magni- tle remains of the original phenomenon: es- fication of aspects of our lives, the life of sentially nothing, because Warhol’ s are not

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real ready-mades, no more than Lichten- thousands of other objects classified in detail stein’ s are real comics. However, their col- (how would you find them otherwise?) there ourful and ornamental pleasantness is enno- is an inventory of worlds and therefore of bled by a metaphorical call for the big game: possible stories, from which to draw hun- the game of Great Conceptual Art. dreds of novels (such as the couple buying Here is the secret that makes the work of hammer and nails to hang paintings in the aura tolerable. The public bears vexations new house, where he or she returns a few (in the sense in which, with lucid humour, years later to get the locks changed) and es- Eric Satie’ s titled his piano piece to be per- pecially of potential shapes whose aesthetic formed eight-hundred times in a row Vexa- resources are under the eyes of all, and in a tions) because beauty has taken refuge else- much less intimidating way than the works where, away from the intimidation of Great of aura. Conceptual Art and the indulgence of Let me make an easy prediction. It is hard Kitsch-Camp-Pop. It is in the elegant walls to think that many of the works of the twen- of the gallery, in the design of furniture, ho- tieth century will remain, the priority of tels and restaurants, and especially in the which was not beauty. Maybe a few will be amount of wonderful items that are pro- saved for documentary and ethnographic duced industrially: things like the Olivetti reasons, or as a somehow sadistic curiosity, lettera 32, smartphones and tablets, Japanese just as there are museums of torture or of the cars and markers, Moleskine diaries, juke Inquisition. But objects will certainly re- boxes and Mont Blanc pens. These things main. Designer ones, probably. But most are beautiful, and of course they are: their certainly, more profoundly, objects tout beauty makes them likelier to be purchased. court: they are the ones that remain by defi- They have a culturally recognized aesthetic nition. Duchamp thought he showed that dignity, so that at the MOMA and elsewhere anything can be a work of art, but what he they are exposed in the Design section. really showed is (thankfully) something But wasn’ t this the best kept secret of completely different. On the one hand, as we ready-mades, namely the fact that the object have seen so far, he expressed a tautological has its own character, its own hidden argument: anything can be a work of aura, it beauty? In these objects, which are hastily suffices that we come to an agreement as called “minor art”, there is now the basis for with the emperor’ s new clothes. On the the major art, for something that can over- other hand, however, he brought attention come the era of Great Conceptual Art. This to a condition that was far from obvious and beauty has always been there, waiting wher- yet is crucial, as well as antithetical to the ever these objects are: in attics, flea markets, hyper-conceptualism of the work of aura: or in those wonderful archives of objects namely the fact that the work of art is above that are hardware stores. There, between all a thing. nails, pliers, hammers, keys, screws and

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Many artists have followed Duchamp on - 1985, Old Masters. A comedy, Chicago, the first path, that is, on the track of the Chicago University Press work of aura, in a pursuit of gimmicks and Cabanne, P. wonders increasingly less surprising and - 1967, Entretiens avec Marcel Duchamp, more repetitive, in which the basic rule is the Paris, Belfond idea – worthy of the worst bureaucrat – that Clair, J. a certificate is enough for a toothache to be- - 2011, L’ Hiver de la culture, Paris, Flam- come a masterpiece. Far fewer have fol- marion lowed him (or rather, contradicted and per- Covacich, M. fected him) on the second path, that is, on - 2011, L’ arte contemporanea spiegata a mio the thesis that the artwork is first of all a marito, Roma – Bari, Laterza thing. But it is not too important, because in Dal Lago, A., Giordano, S. this struggle of concepts the big winner is - 2006, Mercanti d’ aura. Logiche dell’ arte always the object, with the Egyptian charm contemporanea, Bologna, il Mulino of its survival. Danto, A.C. - 1981, The Transfiguration of the Common- Bibliography place. A Philosophy of Art, Cambridge (MA), Harvard University Press Ajani, G. M. – Donati, A. Donati, A. - 2011, I diritti dell’ arte contemporanea, - 2012, Law and Art. Diritto e arte contempo- Torino, Allemandi ranea, Milano, Giuffrè 2012 Austin, J. L. Dossi, C. - 1962, How To Do Things With Words, - 1884, I mattoidi al primo concorso pel monu- Cambridge (MA), Harvard University mento in Roma a Vittorio Emanuele II, Press Lampi di stampa, Milano, 2003 Benjamin, W. Eco, U. - 1968, ‘ The Work of Art in the Age of Me- - 1979, Lector in fabula, Milano, Bompiani chanical Reproduction’ in Hannah Arendt Ferraris, M. (ed.), Illuminations. London, Fontana - 1997, Estetica razionale, Raffaello Cortina, Bourdieu, P. Milano (n. ed. ivi 2011) - 1987, Distinction. A Social Critique of the - 2007, La fidanzata automatica, Bompiani, Judgement of Taste, Cambridge (MA), Milano Harvard University Press. - 2012, Documentality: why it is necessary to Cleto, F. (a cura di) leave traces, New York, Fordham Univer- - 2008, “Riga”, numero monografico di sity Press PopCamp, Marcos y Marcos, Milano Finocchi, R., Guastini, D. Bernhard, T. 2011, Parole chiave della nuova estetica, Roma, Carocci

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Fumaroli M. Rosenkranz, J.K.F. - 2009, Discours de réception de Jean Clair à l’ - 1853, Ästhetik des Häßlichen, Königsberg, Académie Française et réponse de Marc Bornträger Fumaroli, Paris, Gallimard Scruton, R. Gadda, C.E. - 2009, Beauty, Oxford, Oxford University - 1969, Acquainted with Grief, Brazilier, New Press York Hegel, G.W.F. 1975, Aesthetics. Lectures on Fine Art, Ox- ford, Clarendon Press Heidegger, M. - 1969, Art and space, http://pdflibrary.files.wordpress.com/20 08/02/art-and-space.pdf - 2002, ‘ The Origin of the Work of Art’ in Off the Beaten Track, Cambridge, Cam- bridge University Press Kant, I. - 1961, Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime, Berkeley, Univer- sity of California Press - 1951, Critique of Judgment, New York: Hafner Publishing Marangoni, M. 1933, Saper vedere, Roma, Tumminelli Edi- tore Nietzsche, F. - Letters 1885-1889, nietzsche- source.org/#eKGWB/BVN-1885 (1886/1887/1888/1889) Paglia, C., - 2012, Glittering Images: A Journey Through Art from Egypt to Star Wars, New York, Pantheon Books Praz, M. - 1964, An Illustrated History of Interior Deco- ration from Pompeii to Art Bouveau, Lon- don, Thames and Hudson

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