To speak of aesthetic rationality is not simply to pronounce a verdict that a work of art is good or bad. What constitutes the real aesthetic judgment is the process of explaining valid reasons to justify the artistic qualities of a work attributed to it. In contemporary art, each language game of an artistic practice defines the standards of what it is willing to consider artistically significant. However, we are not always able to invoke convincing reasons to legitimize the title of work granted to it. It is about artistic practices that seem to escape any classical artistic qualities that can be identifiable as that of “art”.
Such is the painting of Francis Bacon, a painter of violence, which is expressed in bizarre and disturbing forms. Often misunderstood by the general public, Bacon’s paintings are highly valued by art dealers. Sold for $142 million at Christie’s in 2013, his triptych Three Studies of Lucian Freud, for example, has become one of the most expensive works of art in the world (1). The question that arises is by what criterion, apart from the criterion of price, Bacon’s paintings can be better than hundreds of other works in the same language game.
Similarly, we can be interested in the ready-made of Marcel Duchamp which moves the creative act towards the level of the gesture and the artistic idea. Looking at, for example, Duchamp’s Bottle Rack, the viewer wonders on what to base his or her judgment if an art object is not made by the artist himself. How can one escape the triviality of the ready-made and a total freedom of judgment of taste in the absence of explicit criteria?
Finally, the traditional aesthetic criteria no longer seem to operate in the judgment of installations where we are no longer in front of an object to contemplate. These are often immersive spaces leading the visitor to new sensory discoveries. However, to speak of the aesthetic pleasure of immersion, it is necessary to determine the factors that can be called the experience of perception. Based on an installation Blind Light by Antony Gormley, I will therefore reflect on the renewal of the aesthetic experience which involves an inventive re-elaboration of the criteria for the judgment of taste in contemporary art.

Références:

(1) It’s about works of art sold at auction. See http://www.lemonde.fr/culture/article/2013/11/13/un-triptyque-de-bacon-devient-l-uvre-d-art-la-plus-chere-au-mond_3512682_3246.html.