High and low art are inseparable torn halves of freedom under capitalism

Evidence

Both bear the stigmata of capitalism, both contain elements of change …. Both are torn halves of an integral freedom, to which, however, they do not add up. It would be romantic to sacrifice one to the other, either with that bourgeois romanticism which seeks to uphold the ‘personality’ and such-like mystification, or with that anarchistic romanticism which places blind trust in the spontaneous powers of the proletariat within the historical process – a proletariat which is itself a product of bourgeois society. — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 275

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Autonomous high art was founded on excluding the lower classes — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 106; Capitalist commodification displaces the aesthetic value of art — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism: A Critique of…, 69; Art’s autonomy internalizes the very social domination it claims to escape — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry: Selected Essays…, 296 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• The high-low art split itself, not either pole, reveals truth about society #exemplifies (0.85) — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry, 20
• Art’s autonomy internalizes the very social domination it claims to escape #expands (0.78) — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry, 296
• Capitalist commodification displaces the aesthetic value of art #expands (0.75) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 69
• Art works expose social contradictions through their internal formal tensions #expands (0.72) — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 19
• Art expresses utopian harmony negatively by embodying contradictions unresolved #expands (0.72) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 549
• Fine art loses aesthetic value when removed from its creative location into wealth #expands (0.72)