Dialectically exploring the relationship between art and society
The most important aesthetic theory of the 20th century

The complete translation of Theodor Adorno's 『Aesthetic Theory (Asthetische Theorie)』, which is said to be "the starting point of all modern aesthetic discussions," "the most important aesthetic theory book of the 20th century," and "the final fruit of critical theory," has been published.
Adorno transferred the problematics of Dialectics of Enlightenment and Negative Dialectics to the realm of aesthetics, exploring how art, amidst the contradictions of modern reason, can become a form that reveals truth and preserves the possibility of liberation.
It is a contemporary classic that continues to inspire debate and influence in various fields such as philosophy, aesthetics, and social theory, and continues to exert influence to this day.
Aesthetic Theory was published in 1970, a year after Adorno's death, by Rolf Tiedemann, a philologist and second-generation Frankfurt School researcher, and Grete Adorno, Adorno's wife, by compiling his unfinished manuscript and editorial notes.
In Korea, it has been a steady bestseller since its publication in 1984 by Munhak-kwa-Jiseongsa with a translation by Adorno scholar Hong Seung-yong.
This revised edition, which has been newly published after 40 years, corrects the existing translation and includes translations of the "Appendix," "Draft Introduction," and "German Edition Editor's Note" that were omitted from the first edition.

Adorno gave several lectures on aesthetics from 1950 to 1968, and based on these lectures, he began working on the oral draft of "Aesthetic Theory" in earnest in 1961, undergoing numerous revisions, edits, and compositions until 1969.
However, this work, which he considered his life's work, was left unfinished when he passed away suddenly from a heart attack in August 1969.
Despite being an unfinished work, Aesthetic Theory provides an example of dialectical thinking.
In order to realize a narrative form that was consistent with his philosophical thinking, Adorno rejected a hierarchical system and attempted to structure the book in a fragmented and parallel structure so that the discussions and propositions on each topic would have equal importance, and so that meaning would be created through mutual tension.
The German editors stated that they made minimal interventions in the formatting or refining of the text, even when it appeared that repetition or inconsistency in the text was in need of correction during the manuscript editing process.
The revised Korean edition faithfully follows the editorial principles and structure of the German edition, but by referring to the notes Adorno left in his first draft, the content that was treated as headings at the top of the text in the German edition was added as subheadings of each section so that readers can check them.

It has become self-evident that nothing is self-evident when it comes to art.
Neither art itself, nor its relationship to society as a whole, nor even art's right to survive are self-evident.
Things that could be dealt with without reflection or as if they were no problem have disappeared, but the infinite possibilities opened up thanks to reflection do not compensate for this.
In many dimensions, expansion appears to be contraction.
The sea of ​​unforeseen things boldly pursued by the revolutionary art movements around 1910 did not bring the promised adventurous fortune.
Instead, the process that was triggered at that time eroded the very categories that had been the very reason for its departure.
[…] everywhere, artists, rather than rejoicing in their newfound freedom, immediately reverted to a nominal order that was now largely ineffective.
--- From "The Loss of Art's Self-Obviousness"

Even the most sublime work of art is not permanently free from the bonds of empirical reality; rather, it always confronts, at a historical moment, its state of bondage, polemically and concretely, albeit unconsciously, and thereby takes a definitive position on empirical reality.
Works of art, as windowless monads, 'represent' something other than themselves. This can only be grasped through the fact that their inherent historicity, which can be called the dialectic of nature and its mastery, is not only identical in essence with the historicity of the external world, but also becomes similar to it without imitating it.
Aesthetic productivity is identical with the productivity of useful labor and has the same teleology within itself.
Moreover, what can be called aesthetic relations of production, that is, all areas in which aesthetic productive forces are established and operate, are sediments or copies of social relations of production.
The dual nature of art as both autonomous and social fact also constantly manifests itself in the realm of autonomy.
--- From "The Relationship Between Art and Society"

Argumentative cognition also reaches reality and, in its own way, reaches various irrationalities arising from the laws of motion of reality, but some aspects of reality are difficult to deal with through rational cognition.
Suffering is alien to rational perception.
Rational cognition can comprehensively define suffering and provide means to alleviate it, but it is difficult to express suffering in experience.
That very expression would be irrational to rational cognition.
If we conceptualize suffering, it would be meaningless and inconsistent.
This can be seen in post-Hitler Germany.
Perhaps in an age of incomprehensible fear, Hegel's proposition that truth is concrete, which Brecht chose as his slogan, will still be fulfilled only through art.
Hegel's motif of art as a consciousness of need has proven true beyond anything he could have predicted.
In this way, it became a counterargument to Hegel's own judgment on art, namely cultural pessimism.
--- From "The Language of Suffering"

In recent times, people have often criticized Samuel Beckett for repeating his own ideas.
He took these accusations rather provocatively.
At this point he was conscious, and rightly so, of the necessity of continuing to move, but of the impossibility of doing so.
The gesture of standing still at the end of "Waiting for Godot" is a basic form of all his works, responding to just such a situation.
His response has unconditional power.
His work is derived from moments of negative opportunity.
The fullness of this moment is transformed into endless repetition and touches nothingness.
--- From "The Dialectic of Integration and 'Subjective Perspective'"

Art is a refuge for mimetic reactions.
In art, the subject confronts the other in a state of separation, even though the level of autonomy changes, without being completely separated from it.
Art's rejection of its magical ancestors implies that art has become involved in rationality.
The fact that art, a mimetic being, can exist in the midst of rationality and even utilize rational means is a response to the false irrationality of the rational world, the managed world.
For the ends of all rationality, which are the essence of the means of dominating nature, will not again be means, and therefore will be irrational.
Capitalist society conceals and denies this very irrationality.
On the other hand, art represents truth in a double sense.
That is, in that it maintains the image of the purpose covered with rationality, and in that it proves the irrationality or self-contradiction of the existing situation.
--- From "Mimesis and Rationality"

Music reveals the secrets of all art.
In music, social science, the movements and contradictions of society, appear only as shadows, saying something, but only when one tries to discern them, and this is true in all art.
--- From "The Two-Sidedness of Art"

It is also inappropriate to try to imagine what art will look like in a changing society.
Perhaps it will be a third entity, neither the art of the past nor the art of the present.
But even in a better age, we should rather hope that art disappears altogether than that it forgets the pain that is both its expression and its form.
Lack of freedom is nothing other than the falsification of human thought content into a positive state.
If, as hoped, the art of the future becomes positive again, the question of whether negativity still exists in reality will become truly urgent.
Such doubts are always pressing, and the threat of recurrence remains.
Moreover, freedom would be freedom from the principle of ownership, but this freedom is never something that can be owned.
But if we shake off the memory of accumulated suffering, what then is art as a historical account?
--- From "The Problem of Infantism and False Reconciliation"

In the case of Paul Celan, the most important representative of modern German hermetic lyric poetry, the experience of the hermetic was the opposite.
His lyric poetry is full of the shame of art, confronting the pain of not only sublimation but also escape from experience.
Celan's poems seek to express extreme astonishment through silence.
The truth content itself becomes something negative.
His poems imitate the feeble language of human beings, even the language below that of all organic beings.
That is, it imitates the language of dead things such as stones and stars.
The last remnants of the organism are also removed.
What Benjamin referred to as auraless lyricism in relation to Baudelaire's lyric poetry takes on its true form in Celan's poetry.
--- From the "Appendix"

Adorno did not complete his Aesthetic Theory.
It was because of the death that came suddenly.
However, his thoughts are summarized in 『Aesthetic Theory』.
Here, Adorno presents his own well-founded answers to the major problems of art and aesthetics, such as the autonomy and social nature of art, the cultural industry serving the interests of monopoly capital by deceiving the masses, the resistant meaning of genuine modern art, the historicity of major aesthetic categories including beauty and ugliness, the relationship between natural beauty and artistic beauty, the spirit or ideological content of art and the truth content, technology and materials, form and content, mimesis and composition, the necessity of immanent criticism and dialectical aesthetics, etc.
Adorno's answers may not be definitive or unique, but his dense discussions provide a wealth of insights and stimulation that are worthy of serious reading and debate even today.

--- From the "Translator's Note"