tailieunhanh - EVERYTHING IN ITS RIGHT PLACE: FOUCAULT AND THE 'IDEOLOGY OF THE AESTHETIC'

Two distinct notions of closure, and relatedly, of unity, might be invoked in aesthetic contexts. The weak notion of closure is that of boundedness: an entity with clear limits separating it from other entities is, in this sense, closed. This sense of closure comes to mind when Dewey mentions, of mere experience, that its elements ‘are neither definitely included nor decisively excluded’ (p. 40). This sense of closure generates a related sense of unity: the ten provinces and three territories of Canada, despite their cultural, geographic and linguistic diversity, are united, in this weak sense,. | Postgraduate Journal of Aesthetics Vol. 1 No. 3 December 2004 Everything in its right place Foucault and the Ideology of the aesthetic Dominic Paterson university of Glasgow There are several ways in which we rediscover things. Sometimes rediscovering means finding something we had thought lost to take a relevant example let s say a painting that was stolen or thought destroyed that turns up in a dingy attic from where it is rescued and then authenticated valued and preserved finally restored to its rightful place. in such an instance there will be a place waiting for the rediscovered painting from where it has been missing and known to have been missing a blank space on a gallery wall. Rediscovery in this mode is a kind of restoration. But there is another sense in which we rediscover when for example re-reading a book and finding something in it that was overlooked the first time around it might be that a book which had meant little when read as a child is rediscovered as a classic when re-read as an adult. In this sense what is rediscovered has been overlooked not lost and such a rediscovery has the character of a re-appraisal. In a recent issue of thejournal Art History devoted to the rise of visual culture Peter Osborne argues persuasively that the philosophical tradition of aesthetic theory in its Kantian form has become divorced from the critical task of thinking about the specificity the historical ontology of contemporary Contemporary art is post-conceptual Osborne claims and as such has moved beyond aesthetics. Nonetheless he sees philosophical or critical thought as key to the possibility of re-empowering art critical discourse and assessing its relationship to art history. His 1 Osborne p. 2004 . 111 Dominic Paterson aim which I endorse is to think through the historicity of contemporary art criticism and its relationship to art history. That this aim derives from a conscious need is axiomatic for my argument here. I will return later in this .