Aesthetics and philosophy of art

Who?

Section of Philosophy, Faculty of Arts, University of Lausanne

When?

12 to 16 May 2025

Where?

Campus de Dorigny, Université de Lausanne

For?

Doctorates and Postdoctorate

How many?

CHF 50.-

ECTS credits?

Course without credits, certificate of attendance delivered

Language?

French

Carole Maigné, Université de Lausanne

Carole Maigné is a full professor of general and systemic philosophy at the University of Lausanne.Her research focuses on German and Austrian philosophy in the 19th and 20th centuries. She is particularly interested in the philosophy of culture (Warburg, Kracauer, Cassirer), the aesthetics of photography, and the philosophy of the arts;photography and the philosophy of art (aesthetic formalism, Viennese school of art history, Wölfflin, Klein). She has published, récemment : The Idea and Practice of Philosophy in Gilbert Simondon (with Jamil Alioui and Matthieu Amat), Schwabe, 2023 (open access) ; Philosophie de la culture. Textes clés (with Matthieu Amat, Vrin, 2022), edited « Austrian Herbartism », Meinong Studien / Studies (2021) and « Philosophy of Photography », Archives de Philosophie (2022) and co-editedé (with Enno Rudolph and Magnus Schlette) the dossier « Logos », Zeitschrift für Kulturphilosophie (2020).
 

Audrey Rieber , École normale supérieure de Lyon

Audrey Rieber is a senior lecturer in philosophy at the ENS Lyon and a member of the IHRIM UMR 5317 research laboratory. Her research focuses on aesthetics and the philosophy of art, in particular questions of form, image, symbol and historicity. This philosophical reflection draws on theoretical and methodological contributions from other fields which have developed in an original way in the German-speaking world: art history, art science (Kunstwissenschaft), image science (Bildwissenschaft), cultural science (Kulturwissenschaft), media science (Medienwissenschaft). List of publications available at : https://ens-lyon.academia.edu/RieberAudrey 

Other speakers will be announced soon.

This graduate school is aimed at doctoral and post-doctoral students in philosophy. It is also open to young researchers in art and art history, cultural history, French and foreign literature, and film studies, if they wish to examine their subject of research philosophically. The call for applications is international.

This year's theme, “The concreteness of the arts”, is first and foremost an invitation to think about the arts in terms of their “concreteness”. This can mean anything from the material and technical aspects of artworks, to their physical and gestural dimensions, to their economic, social, historical and political roots. The appeal to the concrete signifies the refusal of a disembodied aesthetic reflection that sees the “concrete case” merely as the illustration of a ready-made theory. Close attention to the concreteness of painting”, to borrow from detail theorist Daniel Arasse, also reflects a desire to grasp cultural productions in their singularity. We also hear echoes of the “concrete science of art” (konkrete Kunstwissenschaft) with which Edgar Wind aims to reflect on empirically given works of art, rather than on art in general. To speak of the concreteness of the arts, then, is to take a methodological stand, namely that a reflection on the fine arts, the applied arts and the media cannot take place in a vacuum. Rather, it must consider its objects in an informed way, so as not to reduce them to examples for an overly generalizing philosophy of art. 

From a notional point of view, a common philosophical distinction separates the concrete from the abstract. The technical, material and formal properties of a painting (a certain way of treating color, line and space; the choice of format, materials and techniques employed) would be concrete, while the artist's intention, the meaning or symbolism of the work would be abstract. In the field of painting and sculpture, “art brut”, l'Arte povera and the Supports/Surfaces group would be on the side of the concrete; symbolic art and lyrical painting would be on the side of the abstract. In the field of art theory, a sociological approach would study the concrete (the social and economic context of production: from the role of the commissioner to the running of a film studio); hermeneutics or iconology, on the other hand, would focus on the abstract, ideal, intellectual elements. But the history of the arts and their theories immediately complicates this division. Is formalism, for example, abstract in the sense that it is concerned with form rather than content, or is it concrete in the sense that what is truly artistic in a work resides in its form rather than its meaning? That the primacy of form is on the side of concreteness is suggested by the manifesto of the “Art concret” group (1930), for whom the work of art, entirely conceived and formed by the mind before its execution, must be independent of nature, sensuality and sentimentality, exclude lyricism, dramatism and symbolism, and proceed with plastic elements alone, i.e. planes and colors. The result of an exact, mechanical technique, the painting has no meaning other than itself. 

The difficulties and challenges posed by a reflection on the concreteness of the arts can be introduced by two cases. The first is so-called abstract art. The canvases of Wassily Kandinsky seem to suggest that the renewal of the arts, their modernity, lies in abstraction, in this case in the absence of figuration. But this painter, who places a premium on the spirituality of creation, also describes his work as concrete. This terminology comes as a surprise, as it was realist painters such as Auguste Courbet who claimed that painting should be concrete, in the sense of representing reality and life. When the Hegelian philosopher Alexandre Kojève theorized his uncle's painting, he also considered Kandinsky's painting to be concrete, as it was not extracted (abstracted) from a non-artistic reality, and therefore not fragmentary either, but total. This displacement of traditional aesthetic dividing lines is inherited from Hegel. A proponent of a philosophy described as absolute idealism, according to which it is the mind itself that gives form to culture, Hegel is at the same time a critic of abstract thought, i.e. thought that is one-sided, uncomplex and overly generalizing. This is what led him, in the field of fine art, to accord a lesser status to symbolic art, i.e. to the statuary and architecture of the ancient East, which express as yet undetermined thought. We can see that the identification of the concreteness of the arts with sensibility, materiality and vitality will need to be reworked and made more complex, starting with works, objects and theoretical texts, including artists' writings and studio or worksite comments.

A second interesting case for introducing the annual theme is musique concrète, which paradoxically does not start from “natural” sounds, but composes from sounds that have been recorded and then manipulated. So it's not the sensitive or natural dimension that is claimed as concrete, but the highest level of artificiality. Is this artificial, technical concreteness an empiricist or rationalist gesture? In any case, such a position opens up the question of the relationship between art, technology and science, as well as the status of ultra-contemporary, highly-technicalized productions such as the literary, visual and musical productions generated by AI, when hyperrealism is achieved by manipulating numbers on a scale of a million.

Finally, one last meaning of concrete deserves attention. According to an old-fashioned meaning, concrete refers to what is solid as a result of precipitation, sublimation or fixation. In this sense, every work of art is a concretion. Exploring this image allows us to reflect on the processes involved in producing works of art. This is what Dora and Erwin Panofsky suggest when they describe the way in which the artist synthesizes and reinvents his influences to produce a singular work “as does the small piece of string which, suspended in the solution of a crystallizable substance, triggers the process of crystallization there” (La boîte de Pandore, p. 110).

The Summer School in Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art will offer participants the chance to work intensively on the annual theme, using a multi-faceted methodology that is deliberately international and interdisciplinary, in order to measure and shift usage. Everyone will be actively involved; this summer school rejects a passive learning situation, betting on young researchers building networks. Each participant is invited to present his or her current research work (thesis, article in progress, translation in progress) from the angle of the problem posed by “The concreteness of the arts”. In addition to an opening lecture by the organizers, the joint work will be enriched by plenary lectures. Half a day will be devoted to a translation workshop. A film screening will also enrich the discussions, as will visits to cultural institutions in Lausanne and Switzerland. 

The main working language is French. Presentations can be given in English, provided students have a very good passive understanding of French. 

The aim of the School of Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art is to provide students with the following opportunities:

• work intensively on the theme of the school
• benefit from a plural methodology borne out of the different teaching and research habits of the teacher-researchers who will be involved
• work in an interdisciplinary manner by developing tools to make this process practical, with the practice of interdisciplinarity having to be learned
• begin to form their own network, among students of the same discipline
• open up research internationally
• breaking down the passive situation of acquiring knowledge in order to learn through research

A provisional programme will be published soon.

Sessions are reserved for students selected for the summer school. For all other requests, please contact the organisers in advance.

CHF 50.-

Price includes:

• The tuition fees
• Lunch meals
• Coffee breaks
• A welcome apéro
• Cultural activities

Accommodation can be arranged, subject to availability. Please let us know if you require accommodation when you submit your application, in the Remarks section.

Interested students are asked to send a single pdf document :
- a curriculum vitae, including a list of publications if applicable. Please indicate the title of the thesis and the name of the thesis supervisor.
- a one-page cover letter explaining how participation in the summer school fits into your research career.
- A summary of the presentation to be given during the summer school, focusing on work in progress. Particular attention will be paid to the link with the annual theme. Candidates are also invited to highlight any methodological aspects they would like to discuss. They may present their thesis or part of a thesis, an article in progress, or even a translation in progress of a text dealing explicitly with the end of art.

The deadline for applications is 17 March 2025.

This summer school is organised by the UNIL Philosophy Department, with the support of the International Relations Office, as well as the IHRIM UMR 5317  and the ENS de Lyon.