Article:

Kraft der Dinge. Notizen zu einer Kulturtheorie des Designs

The widespread antagonism of a self-reflective, critical art on the one hand and a merely decorative and affirmative design on the other hand has to be considered as obsolete since the times of minimal art and institutional critique. Starting with the 1960ies, the framing conditions of art and the art space, its displays, lighting, the publication et cetera are comprehended and fathomed as cardinal conditions of art production. It became impossible to separate a piece of art from its designing setting. In consequence, it appears to be too abridged to constrain design as uncritical aesthetics of everyday life, particularly regarding the range of interlacing among designed products and the world of cultural practices, modes of subjectivization, and techniques of the body. On the evidence of mutual bonds between art and design, it is argued for a revision of their interrelation concerning the cultural and aesthetical siginificance of things.