Contested Territories: Thierry de Duve - Kant After Duchamp

In this episode of the Contested Territories series, Thierry de Duve presents a powerful rethinking of modern aesthetics through his work on Kant after Duchamp. Speaking from a deeply personal trajectory—from his early days as a design student in Ulm to his critical encounters with Pop Art and Duchamp’s Readymades—de Duve unpacks the transformation of aesthetic judgment in modern and postmodern art.

Positioned between Danto and Shusterman in both age and perspective, de Duve explores how objects once seen as non-art (such as urinals and Brillo boxes) came to challenge not only institutional authority but also philosophical criteria for what art is. He proposes a critical shift from art as object to art as discursive judgment, emphasizing the spectator’s role in legitimizing aesthetic claims.

Blending historical analysis and political edge, this talk revisits the philosophical implications of modernism, pluralism, and aesthetic responsibility—reminding us that the Artworld is not just a realm of objects, but of contested claims.