The deelitisation of art in the era of the «new sincerity»

Abstract

Contemporary art and, accordingly, art criticism are faced with an unprecedented problem, since their traditional concepts and criteria, which have lost their epistemological significance and the predominance in the artistic process of the ideas of synergetics, pluralism, participation and immersion, today are by no means adequate to the ideological and artistic transformations that gave rise to collapse of modernism. In addition, the traditional criterion (high, elite art and the public) is losing its importance for creativity and its evaluation. At the same time, according to the author, more «tolerant» criteria are being actualised, based on the increasing importance of satisfying creative, artistic needs and, consequently, the need for respect, veneration, authority, i. e. artistic prestige (art prestige).