The territory of contemporary art: art criticism versus art practice

Continuous specification of the contemporary Art boundaries remains the main goal of art criticism, as well as the point for growth of Art itself. The usual association of practical activities with sensuality, and theoretical - with the intellect, within the contemporary Art boundaries is replaced by their synthesis, caused by diversity of the contemporary Art practices and offset, or sometimes total destruction of any visible boundaries of Art. The dialectical relation between the various ways of our practical actions in the Art is based on their supposed identity, but distinction and contrast of these ways is only on the habit of our thinking to divide the subject for demonstrate its own analytical action. In conversations on Art, a theorist uses the sensory-based individual judgments, which are quite practical in their essence. Although, according to Thierry de Duve, it does not permit for theorist to continue holding of his own judgments in the future, butit gives him, at the same time, a way to touch the reality of the Art-practice, feeling a small changes for the context of artistic events themselves. The idea that there is no difference between the theoretical and the practical - except for our habit of distinguishing the theory and the practice depending on an accepted way of considering an action - agrees, in particular, with the arguments on necessary relation between impressions and ideas presented in David Hume's studies. The center for attention of David Hume is the processes of mutual transformation for our impressions and ideas. The emphasis on immediacy of relation between impressions and ideas allows us to speak not only simple consistency for our theoretical and practical actions, but also their identity. For example, a demonstration of this identity can be a triangle of comparisons three sides of which reveal the synthesis for theoretical and practical actions like the Lucien Solvay's statement (an art critic of XIX century), that addressed to Francisco Goya's picture "Portrait of the Family of Charles IV", the very picture and a series of intuitions by Gilda Williams (an art critic of XXI century), serving as a practical guide for the actions, which we could call "the Art of Seeing". On the contrary, a surplus attention to distinguishing these actions and ignoring of the idea of a relation between them entails a misunderstanding of the social processes that make up the context of contemporary Art practice. According to Bruno Latour, speaking on the social we have in mind only these relations as a kind of a traces that bear witness to the hic et nunc actions, which are themselves such a relation, and not requiring explanations. The vision of these traces and their interpretation understood as a judgment on Art, are quite capable of creating this Art itself.

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