The social world of art and aesthetic experience of the audiences[Monde social de l'art et expérience esthétique des publics]

The article proposes a didactic approach to art in our societies today, as resulting from a specific game of interactions and social mediations, in which the subjective experience of audiences nevertheless holds a fundamental place. It begins by recalling how art is today a real social world that has gradually been built and defined, especially since the nineteenth century, around particular conventions. An exclusive focusing of aesthetic theory on the specific qualities of works of art, which allows them to be defined as such, thus gives way to an approach where the dynamics of artistic status are more relative and variable. Nevertheless the attachment remains to a function of the work of art that is not directly utilitarian, to its originality and novelty, or even to its negativity that opens our minds to criticism and reflection towards the world of humans as it is. The rising power of the service society also strengthens the relational dimension of artistic activity. In the art world that is from now on both structured and plural, the audiences appreciate the works according to partly predefined criteria even if there are obvious differences related to the social position of each person. People's singular aesthetic experience remains unavoidable though. It enables each of us to keep our distance from our ordinary utilitarian practices and would open new avenues to our ability to understand our individual and collective realities. Some works and some of their singular traits – which we rightly describe as artistic – would then be able to make this aesthetic experience more intense, and that could be partly transposed to other objects or events of our everyday life.