Philosophical Contexts of the Attitude of Contemporary Artists to Time, History and Tradition
Philosophical Contexts of the Attitude of Contemporary Artists to Time, History and Tradition

Summary/Abstract: The present text tries to reconstruct the postmodern view of tradition, currently forming in culture. The purpose of the paper is not to describe specific artistic practices which document the ongoing changes, but rather to analyze their cultural and philosophical context. Artistic action will be discussed here as the material that illustrates the new way of experiencing the past. The change of our attitude towards history, prepared by philosophy, should be regarded as a particularly vital feature of postmodern culture. The article presents the conceptions of time advanced by H. G. Gadamer, F. Nietzsche, G. Deleuze and the views of the constructionists – H. White and F. Ankersmit, who point out the rhetorical dimension of historical writing. The estheticization of history leads to the upsetting of the sense of reality and then to the blurring of the line between artistic fiction and documented history. I ask the question: Can the recognition of the artistic narrative and academic history as equally legitimate in imparting the knowledge of the past be regarded as yet another achievement in liberating art from its obligations to science, tradition, and history? My answer is that the attitude of contemporary artists cannot be unequivocally described in terms of freedom from external and internal constraints, because an opposition of this kind is not a good point of reference for postmodern culture.

• Details
• Contents