The Transient Truth of Art : Aesthetics after Luhmann

The author shows, with and against Luhmann, that the art system is not a functional system in the conventional sense, such as the economic or science system. Rather, the social system of art is a system of reflection that follows a "counter-systemic" coding: a coding that stems from the spirit of the avant-garde and is capable of generating resistance against the system in the system. Only the reference to truth in art, however, ensures that the art system works in this mode and that artistic innovations are not merely simulated. The permanent question of the truth of art thus immunizes the art system against its inherent tendency to self-programmed heteronomy. This insight forms the starting point for a philosophical aesthetics after Luhmann