Topicality and Timelessness as Artistic Allergies
Topicality and Timelessness as Artistic Allergies

Summary/Abstract: The terms “topicality” and “timelessness” may evoke both positive and negative emotional reactions. The present article is a reflection on their role in the context of art. In various perceptions of art, offered both by artists and by theoreticians, one may find traces of their underlying approval or rejection. Praising the supertemporal profundity of various works has led to negative reactions to the actual; the reverse situation, although much less common in the past, consisted in emphasizing present significance at the expense of eternal endurance. The above situations may be regarded as symptoms of the artistic allergies manifesting themselves in the instinctive fear, hatred or distrust of certain qualities and in attempts to formulate such theoretical models that would lead to the reduction, or even complete elimination, of the qualities lying outside the scope of what is (consciously or unconsciously) valued as positive. The article consists of three parts. The first presents the allergy to topicality as manifesting itself in the concept of the masterpiece (developed in the 17th century and supposedly characterized by the “strategy of assumed immortality”); the concept of timeless content in art; and the idea of autonomous form, independent of cultural contexts. The second part of the article analyses the ways in which elements of supertemporality were introduced into art history. The third part depicts the allergy to the seemingly eternal, invoking 20th century notions of art. Examples of actualism typical of the Dada movement are analyzed; furthermore, contemporaryism is depicted as a present-day strategy of approaching art in a democratic and pluralistic society.

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