Autonomous art is inherently dialectical, blending magic with freedom rather than being reactionary
Evidence
I now find it somewhat disturbing – and here I can see a sublimated remnant of certain Brechtian themes – that you have now rather casually transferred the concept of the magical aura to the ‘autonomous work of art’ and flatly assigned a counter-revolutionary function to the latter. I do not need to assure you just how aware I am of the magical element that persists in the bourgeois work of art …. However, it seems to me that the heart of the autonomous work of art does not itself belong to the dimension of myth – forgive my topical manner of speaking – but is inherently dialectical, that is, compounds within itself the magical element with the sign of freedom. — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 260
Categorization
- DEFINE: Clarifies Adorno’s specific meaning of ‘dialectical’ applied to autonomous art — as a compounding of mythic/magical and freedom elements, directly opposing Benjamin’s aura-as-reactionary reading.
- XREF: Directly relates to the Benjamin-Adorno aura debate (The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction) — connects to the reader’s broader critical-theory background. — connects to: Art preserves magic’s self-enclosed enclave even as it renounces magical influence; Art resolves real social contradictions through purely formal means — Fredric Jameson, The Political Unconscious, 1774; Art liberates by giving contingent things an inner necessity. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 345 (+5 more)
Broader Connections
- Art’s autonomy internalizes the very social domination it claims to escape
#complicates(0.85) — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry, 296 - Art and play preserve depth only by retaining life’s traces in autonomous forms
#expands(0.75)