AESTHETIC VALUES IN CONTEMPORARY ART: THE CLASSICAL AND THE POST-NONCLASSICAL

Abstract

The problem raised in the paper concerns genuine “aesthetic” content in contemporary art, factors of contemporary art content problematization. First, problematic issues of today’s art are related to new art techniques, their interaction with real world, new languages and forms. Both classical and post-nonclassical art form new, unexpected objectivity of art objects difficult for a perceiver. The second factor of contemporary art aesthetic problematization is that aesthetic values generalize and express (in terms of content) essential existential human situations for the people’s value world. The existential human situation of economically sound and successful capitalism (consumer society) brings the positions of elite and mass culture closer in terms of values. In the author’s opinion, the example of the tragic as an aesthetic value demonstrates that the tragic is irrelevant and excessive both for postmodern elite and consumerist mass. And the general crisis of culture turning into the crisis of humanism leads to reduction of the tragic in the works of formerly humanistic –oriented artists (L. von Trier, A. Balabanov).