Art of the second half of XX — early XXI centuries as visual philosophy

Abstract

Introduction. The article is focused on studying the area of intersection of contemporary art and philosophy, it is a continuation of the research project on conceptual art and its intersection with philosophy, which we started earlier. By conceptual art, we mean art aimed at intellectual comprehension of what has been seen, art that appeals to thinking and generates philosophical meanings. But if earlier we explored conceptual cinema and mainly visual art of the early 20th century, then in this article we want to turn to the visual art of the second half of the 20th century — the beginning of the 21st century, which is also called contemporary art by art critics. The empirical material of the study was the works of such contemporary artists as E. Warhol, D. Koons, D. Hirst, J. Ono, F. Bacon, I. Kabakov, D. Kossuth, the movement of “new realists” and photorealists, the movement of Moscow conceptualists and etc. Contemporary art is one of the ways of understanding the world, visual philosophy, which is of interest for philosophical understanding. The purpose of the article is to conduct a philosophical analysis of visual art of the second half of the 20th — early 21st I centuries in order to identify its philosophical sources and content. Methods. The author uses the following general scientific methods: analysis and synthesis, induction, deduction, abstraction. When analyzing works of conceptual art, we use hermeneutic and phenomenological methods, a semiotic approach. We also use the symbolic-contextual method of analyzing exhibition concepts, which is based on identifying the philosophical meanings and ideas of exhibitions of contemporary art. Scientific novelty of the study. We regard contemporary art as a visual philosophy. Philosophizing, in our opinion, can exist in various forms and forms from everyday practical (the so-called naive philosophizing) to artistic-figurative, that is, visual. Philosophical ideas or concepts are born not only from professional thinkers, but also from artists. The artistic concepts of contemporary artists are similar to the concepts of philosophers, since the goal of both is to cognize the world and grasp being. We find and describe the area of intersection of modern philosophy and contemporary art, each of which is in a situation of crisis separately and continuous dialogue together. Results. In the course of our research, we identify and describe the philosophical origins of visual art in the second half of the twentieth century - early twenty-first century: postmodern philosophical consciousness, conceptualism, the idea of “death of the author” and “death of art”, simulacrum, kitsch and camp, the method of deconstruction and its application in modern art. Conclusions. Visual art of the second half of the 20th century — early 21st century is a visual form of philosophical questioning about the essence of art itself, about the existence of a person and being in general. The works of contemporary artists are based on philosophical problems: meaning, speech and meaning, the ratio of the rational and the irrational, the problem of abandonment and loneliness of a person, the problem of the “death of the author” and the alienation of the creator from his work, the idea of the impossibility of objective knowledge of reality.