Art, Multiplicity and Awareness (original) (raw)

2005, Noema, online magazine, http://noemalab.eu/ideas/essay/art-multiplicity-and-awareness/

What is often exhibited is not only – and sometimes not at all – the artwork itself, but the communication it evocates and which it is evocated from. We could say that, at least from the rising of the avantgardes in the second half of the 19th Century, the artworld has always worked in such a way. In the end, what are art critics and historians, museums and galleries, press offices, collectionists, amateurs, art events and exhibitions, art magazines, art merchants, academies and universities, if not also a wide, complex and articulated communication system which presents, contextualizes, promotes and possibly sells the artworks?