Negative utopia and catastrophe: art as determinate negation of administered culture in Adorno’s aesthetics

Abstract

 This paper has as main goal to analyze the relation between negative utopia and catastrophe in Theodor W. Adorno’s Aesthetics. The philosopher argues that modern art is associated to a kind of utopia which is not a positive representation of how the society should be. The negative utopia only shows how the society should not be. The artwork thus is charged with the contradictions of an unreconciled society. That explains why modern and new art is so recurrently characterized by the ugly, the repulsive, the dark and the catastrophic. In Adorno’s formulation, the artwork is a determinate negation of the administered society. As such, the artwork is also a determinate negation of the administered culture, i.e. your constitution is given by the determinate negation of the culture industry’s standards and of art tradition.