Arte, estetica e politica. Spunti per un approfondimento

For several years now, aesthetics has pulled its analysis beyond the frontiers of artistic practices. This has happened for two basic reasons for which the logical and chronological order remains surely problematic. The first one is related to the evolution of contemporary arts, the second one to the development of the idea and practice of beauty. This panorama complicates all discussion related to the subject of aesthetic experience, the multiplicity of its characters, its functions and its outcomes. The aesthetic experience is no longer exclusively set up as an experience of art and, even less, as an experience of beauty in art, taking on new characters, though not always original. This framework encompasses the relationship between art, aesthetics and politics though this is a subject which won’t be treated extensively in this paper. Nevertheless, through references to Kant, Schiller and Rancière as well as contemporary public art and architecture, the author will try and draw a possible configuration on which to build in future discussions.