The problem is that in contemporary art […] the temporal core of truth is also lost.

Interviewee: Roger Behrens

The problem is that in contemporary art, no longer comprehendible in terms of work aesthetics, this temporal core of truth is also lost. Today, art is still “autonomous” at the very most in relation to its social function within the institution. All that we can bring to the work so as to “understand” it, for instance the willingness to tap into experiences or be open to knowledge, is already integrated into the pedagogical staging of art in museums, in the gallery, in the illustrated book, in the television report and so on. To speak of autonomy today, including in the sense of an aesthetic determination of what constitutes the “critical” substance of art, borders on the ridiculous in my view: when I undertake a project and the result of this project is a bus that provides medical care for the homeless, then this project is very important and it can even make sense to declare this to be art for specific reasons, for instance to gain financing or inspire follow-up projects. But it has absolutely nothing to do with an aesthetic dimension that makes this project “critical” as art which enables “unregimented experiences”. The question here is however: is that so terrible?