THE ROLE OF ART IN CONTEMPORARY CULTURE: BETWEEN AESTHETICS, POLITICS AND POST-ANTHROPOLOGY

Abstract

In contemporary culture, art increasingly transcends the boundaries of traditional aesthetics, emerging as a complex intersection between aesthetics, politics, and post-anthropological thinking. Given the transformations within the contemporary artistic field, a philosophical analysis of these shifts is needed. This study aims to examine art as a phenomenon that simultaneously embodies an aesthetic form, a political act, and a mode of post-humanist sensibility. The study is analytical and synthetic and is focused on identifying transformations of the artist’s figure and aesthetic experience in a culture that goes beyond the human-centered worldview. The paper argues that contemporary art not only reflects reality but actively intervenes in it, acting as a tool of philosophical critique, social transformation, and symbolic renewal. The study focuses on performative, installation, and conceptual art practices – particularly the works of Ai Weiwei – which exemplify the political and post-anthropological dimensions of artistic expression. Special attention is given to installation art as a form that dissolves the boundaries between author, viewer, and artwork, turning the artistic act into a material, spatial, and bodily interaction. Art festivals are explored as synthetic environments where art operates as both a political and cultural practice. Within a post-anthropological framework, art is understood as a space of interspecies, inter-agent, and post-human interaction. In the contemporary philosophical context, art should be seen not merely as a form of aesthetic expression but as an ontological practice capable of producing new modes of being, subjectivity, and political agency. Its deep entanglement with the social, corporeal, and material renders art a privileged site of critical thinking and cultural innovation.