Non-fiction
Wolfgang Ullrich
Die Kunst nach dem Ende ihrer Autonomie
[Art after the End of its Autonomy]
Translation Grant Programme
Italian rights already sold.
Adorno doesn’t live here anymore
Wolfgang Ullrich demonstrates in an insightful book-length essay how art, the consumer world, and political activism come together – and why the era of the autonomous artist is coming to an end.
Artists design sneakers, activists appeal to artistic freedom, and luxury labels advertise with prestigious names. What is considered art today, and why does a growing group of artists create its meaning from a fusion with other areas? It cannot be overlooked that in the twenty-first century, the boundaries between art, fashion, and political activism have begun to blur – and yet up to now, aside from specialist journals and feature articles, there have been hardly any books that have focused on such developments for a wider, art-interested audience.
Fortunately, Wolfgang Ullrich’s book-length essay Art after the End of its Autonomy does more than simply fill this gap. In seven chapters, as readable as they are disputatious, the art historian expounds on the history of autonomous art, analyzes contemporary art discourse and markets, and asks what future postautonomous art might look like. Ulrich’s publications – Tiefer hängen. Über den Umgang mit der Kunst (Hang Lower: About Dealing with Art, 2003); Habenwollen. Wie funktioniert die Konsumkultur? (Wanting to Have: How Does Consumer Culture Work?, 2006); and Siegerkunst. Neuer Adel, Teure Lust (Winning Art, New Aristocracy, Expensive Desire, 2016), to name just a few – stand for art and social criticism that aims to deflate many phenomena, from an art-religious longing for redemption to the lonely creative genius to the image of “consumerism” as an enemy in the tradition of Critical Theory.
In his new essay, Ullrich first of all states that contemporary art is comprised not only of paintings, installations, and performances; instead, make-up, protest rallies, and handbags can be “varieties of art.” In contrast to the old, autonomous art, which was intended to be intellectually challenging and not for consumption (even antipodes like Adorno and Heidegger were agreed on that point), postautonomous art displays virtually contradictory features. It generates a feeling of wanting to have or be in on something, letting – as Ullrich says – “a new thing culture” emerge.
Before this new relationship between art objects and participating subjects is analyzed in detail, Ullrich addresses the old ideals of autonomy and the radical change of recent decades. Along with the revaluation of art around 1800 came the nimbus of the divine and infinite, but this art idealism became obsolete in the late twentieth century: “The promise that art is different and more than everything else started to fade.” With that the notion of autonomous art also eroded. Ullrich mentions two factors that support this weakening: first, the “globalization of art institutions,” which are more and more strongly oriented toward a market and brand logic. And second, the pull of social media: artistic works should be “instagramable.” On top of that, the online community wants to participate, something that was not intended for high culture art. Postautonomous art, on the other hand, incorporates fans and is oriented around demand.
Ullrich devotes the next chapters to this new art world: He describes the features of postautonomous art using the example of an art toy made by the FriendsWithYou label. The cloud with a baby face, known as Little Cloud, is a branded product, a collector’s item, a cute space that if necessary can also project a politicized message (such as in combination with an LGTBQ rainbow) and offer comfort. Anyone who considers so much banality to be undignified is asked by Ullrich if the feel-good atmosphere that sometimes offers relief and sometimes facilitates integration might not in fact have some special quality. The museum as a “dispute between old and new ideals” poses another question. Ullrich uses the painting by John William Waterhouse that was temporarily taken down in the Manchester Art Gallery to depict the turf wars surrounding identity politics, wokeness, and artistic freedom. The question “Who decides what can hang on the wall?” is juxtaposed with accusations of censorship countered by accusations of discrimination.
Perhaps the most exciting and contentious theories are discussed near the end of the book. Ullrich presents “forms of failure” and “forms of success” of postautonomous art. Logged in as failures are the installations and objects of the artists Daniel Arsham, Ai Weiwei, and Anri Sala, and on the success side are the handbag designs by Virgil Abloh, the paintings by Kerry James Marshall, and the video Apeshit by Beyoncé and Jay-Z. To name just one objection: It seems questionable whether the consumer culture that does in fact have a positive connotation for Abloh, the empowerment video, and ultimately also for Ullrich himself, truly “facilitates the participation of those who are otherwise excluded” (because once again only the “happy few” can financially participate).
Ullrich’s essay is a book worthy of discussion in the best sense of the word, as shown not least by the lively agreement as well as critique that has appeared in German-language feature articles. It is accessible, intellectually stimulating, and with impressive themes. And because the genre of essay once belonged to the fine arts, you could say that this analysis, with its eye-opening world knowledge, is a classically autonomous work of art.
Translated by Allison Brown
By Jutta Person
Jutta Person, born 1971 in South Baden, studied German, Italian and Philosophy in Cologne and Italy, and gained a doctorate with a dissertation on the history of physiognomy in the 19th century. A journalist and cultural commentator, she is based in Berlin and writes for the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Die Zeit and Philosophie Magazin. From 2004 to 2007 she was an editor at Literaturen; since 2011 she has been in charge of the books section at Philosophie Magazin.
(Updated: 2020)
