Montag, 12.12.2005
Duchamp’s message, or: The postman always rings late

It is now legitimate to make art out of anything and everything. Since when?
Art without aesthetics versus aesthetics without art.
Is art what the art institution calls art?
The Richard Mutt Case and the passage from the Fine Arts system to the Art-in-general system.

Dienstag, 13.12.2005
The Salon des Refusés, or: Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, but who’s to tell?

A short history of the (French) art institution from 1648 to 1917.
Artistic conventions as social pacts.
"The jury has only one thing to say: this is a painting, or that is not a painting."
The invention of non-art.

Mittwoch, 14.12.2005
Aesthetics revisited, or: Making Kant look simple, and to the point

Why is the sentence "this is beautiful" entitled to claim universal validity?
Re-reading Kant after Duchamp, replacing "this is beautiful" with "this is art".
On aesthetic disputes, negativity and the incomparability of avant-garde art.
Sensus communis and the social function of art.

Donnerstag, 15.12.2005
The art institution revisited, or: Sometimes a pipe is just a pipe, but what’s an eagle?

Marcel Broodthaers: the artist as museum director.
The Eagle from the Oligocene to the Present.
"This is a work of art" + "This is not a pipe" = "This is not a work of art."
Why did Broodthaers need Magritte in order to negate Duchamp?

Freitag, 16.12.2005
Of art itself and other "modernist myths", or: Who are we?

Art in general, or: the conditions of present-day art practices.
Art as such, or: the expressive content of “This is art" as aesthetic judgment.
Art altogether, or: the comparative basis for aesthetic judgments about art.
Art itself, or: the mere regulative idea of what is common to all works of art.