Descripción

Paperback. 4to. (28 x 21 cm). Edition in English. [6], 135 p., b/w ills. Aesthetics and art in the 20th century. [= 20. yüzyilda estetik ve sanat]. Why this topic? Why now? SANART is the only association of aesthetics in Turkey. It has the mission of enthusing and building up a public for the raised awareness of issues related with aesthetics and art. For the past ten years now, it has carried this mission to the practical realm in Ankara, where it is based, through the organisation of symposia, exhibitions and publications. To coincide with the closure of the twentieth century, on its tenth year, SANART decided to re-evaluate the century in terms of various approaches to the field of aesthetics and art. Twelve participants, who were invited and whose texts are included in this book, were asked to bring forth specific issues within the general problematic of the twentieth century. The objective was more to do with understanding our concerns with the new century, while reflecting upon the previous one, than providing all encompassing accounts of historiography. Why the book? Publications are very important for SANART because as an association it seeks to maintain permanence in the cultural sphere of Turkey, and to achieve that permanence, although the continuity of temporal events help, it is essential to accumulate written material. All of the symposia that SANART has organised have been published or are pending publication. Because of the significance and timely relevance of the topic, this book aims to disseminate the ideas discussed in the symposium to a wider public than that of the locality of Ankara, to a world audience, which is why it has been decided to publish it in English. The programme of the symposium was arranged so that the first half focused on art work and aesthetics followed by the "avant-garde" discussion and the second half concentrated on issues of architecture, politics and aesthetics. In editing the book, the order of the sessions of the symposium was maintained so that the lines of thought that emerged during the Symposium can be followed in the Discussion and Afterwords without much difficulty. In an overview of the texts, it is possible to discern that one of the major shifts that occurred in art in the twentieth century was that with the advent of new technologies and the possibility of wider dissemination, artists vocally assumed new roles to themselves while simultaneously critics and theoreticians assigned new tasks to the domain of art.