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In this episode of the Contested Territories series, Arthur C. Danto reflects on the intellectual and historical context behind his groundbreaking 1964 essay The Artworld, a foundational text in contemporary aesthetics. Delivered at Tate Britain in 2006, Danto’s talk explores the ontological shift that occurred in the 1960s with the rise of Pop Art and its challenges to traditional aesthetic boundaries.
Drawing on his firsthand encounter with Warhol’s Brillo Boxes, Danto recalls how seeing indistinguishable objects—one an artwork, the other a supermarket product—raised profound questions about what qualifies something as art. He retraces his philosophical motivations, the theoretical debates that followed, and his eventual formulation of art as “embodied meaning.”
Woven with wit, memory, and critical reflection, this talk offers a rare window into Danto’s thinking from the philosopher himself. It’s a deeply personal and intellectual account of how the Art World became a philosophical issue—and why it still matters today.
