Kunst und Leben

The book aims to disclose the relevance of art for life. Through a critical examination of the art theories of Heidegger, Adorno and Benjamin, who embed their consideration of art in their own systems of thought, the book opens up the systematical connection between art and life from an immanent perspective both to life and to art. Starting from the individual man and from the individual artwork, man is defined as the conscious process of self-realization that freely shapes his own life in a world of normative practices and the artwork is defined as an autonomous experience-form. Consequently, the analysis shows that the aesthetic experience, that makes the artwork as experience-form, is distinguished by an immanent normativity that suspends all other normativities. This causes a ‘sublation’ of the validity of the normative structures of the world and confronted the viewer with the task of self-realization.