Art and Resistance in Adorno

The avant-garde artwork as the foundation of social critique

Achilleas Sarantaris

§1. Introduction

Adorno’s ideas on avant-garde art are found scattered in fragments throughout his opus, with the most
rigorous study of it found in the unfinished ‘Aesthetic Theory’. Much like his other major ideas, they are not
articulated as a clear and concise exposition in any single work. In this paper, I will attempt to formulate,
and consequently scrutinize, his conception of art as critical of the social totality in a streamlined
argumentative form. In §2, I will examine what, for Adorno, is to be resisted by art (namely enlightenment’s
‘instrumental reason’, manifested in late capitalism as commodification and the culture industry). In §3, I
will examine why, and how avant-garde art exhibits resistance to the ‘reified consciousness’ – namely, its
status as autonomous and mimetic. . In §4, I look specifically at Kafka’s work as exemplary of these
attitudes. In §5, I explore worries concerning his understanding of avant-garde art. I conclude in §6.

§2. Resistance to what?

For Adorno, the concept and process of Enlightenment has led to a form of the very barbarism1 it
vehemently tried to eradicate. Although its proponents (Bacon is used as an example throughout)5 aimed at
liberation & mastery, it is now a totalitarian2 dogma. Anything that does not fit under its method is disposed
of; positivism, being the ‘judicial office of enlightened reason’3, does not talk about what cannot be reduced
to systematization. Anything non-classifiable (even justice4 and language5) is rejected. ‘Nothing is allowed to
remain outside’ the enlightened thought. All that is left is, hence, method - the world as a ‘giant analytical
judgment’.6 In order for enlightened reason to systematize –as it must, since the two are synonymous- the
world (nature and humans alike7), it conforms to standardization. Bacon’s mastery over nature8 becomes
mastery over human beings.9 The ‘in-itself’ becomes ‘for him’;10 everything is to be manipulated - rationality,
together with its objects, is an aid to the ‘all-encompassing economic apparatus’.11 Domination and social
coercion are entangled with rationality, and vice versa.12 In the same way that a myth deceived the ancient
masses, enlightened thought, taken to the extreme, deceives the contemporary ones. In a phrase,
Enlightenment’s aim for control through knowledge is referred to as ‘instrumental reason’.13

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
1 Jarvis, p.1
2 DE, p.4
3 DE, p.19
4 DE, p.12
5 DE, p.2
6 DE, p.20
7 Ibid
8 DE, p.33
9 DE, p.13
10 DE, p.6
11 DE, p.43
12 Jarvis, p.15
13 Geuss, p.299

! 1!
The dialectic of enlightenment outlined above translates to contemporary and more tangible phenomena in
capitalist society. The process of commodification is a manifestation of systematization, equalization and
standardization of the enlightenment – the process of commodification, is the manifestation of domination,
deception and the totalitarian nature of enlightenment.

§2.1. Commodification

In ‘Capital’, Marx argues that the way a commodity is priced (its exchange value in the market) is not related
to its use value (that which Jarvis calls the ‘real’ or ‘natural’ need)14 under neither his labor theory of value or
traditional supply and demand economics. Thus, two products with different use values can have the same
exchange value, and two products with different exchange values can have the same use value. In a world of
increasing commodification (almost everything is a potential object to be bought and sold15), a fetishism
occurs in which the only way to reach the ‘real’ value is mediated through the arbitrarily assigned exchange
value, assigned by the bourgeois economy.16 A Cadillac is ‘superior’ to a Chevrolet simply in virtue of its
exchange value, even though only minor rearrangements would be needed to turn the latter to the former.17
Commodification is hence now Enlightenment’s systemization applied in economical relations. What is not
commodifiable is abandoned, left for the appendix – not to be talked about.18 Similarly to the ubiquitous
‘method’ of the enlightenment, commodification is also totalitarian, pervading all relations (not only
economic ones). Since time is money and thus a commodity, straight-forwardness and matter of factness is
‘moral’ if we are to be practical – e.g. save time and money. Tenderness and ceremony is abolished in the
name of social economics – we treat people as things, because relations are themselves now businesses,
means to ends.19 Gift-giving has decayed to a social function obeying method and ‘never going out of one’s
way’.20 The clear distinction between business and leisure is a sign of the deprivation of joy from work; if joy
creeps in the working hours, we lose purpose and the workday world is ‘set on fire’.21 Interchangeability is
becoming the norm not only in the material production, but also in the workplace. The commodification of
the worker results in her de-individualization;22 ‘the individual is a mere reflection of property relations’.23
Hence, viewing the world though the lenses of commodification, as we must in the face of its
totalitarianism, one rejects everything outside its scope and ‘flattens out’ not only economic relations, but
also in turn personal relationships. This loss of the particular is, for Adorno, equivalent to fascism.24

§2.2. Culture Industry

It can be argued that the culture industry is a result of commodification; even things which initially seemed
un-commodifiable are now part of the market. Music, film, television and radio, thought of by some as art,
are part of what Adorno calls the culture industry. Homogeneity, interchangeability and systematization are
defining of all aspects of the culture industry. The radio, exposes everyone to the same programs, albeit
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
14 Jarvis, p.2
15 Geuss, p.2
16 Tucker, Marx, Engels, p. 208
17 MM 77
18 MM 25
19 MM 20
20 MM 21
21 MM 84
22 MM 83
23 MM 99
24 DE, p.95

! 2!
from different channels. The value of a movie is determined by its budget25, and the fame of the actors,
reflecting on their status as ‘commodities’ in the star system: they are all merely homogenous ‘copies of
themselves’26. Mainstream music is composed almost entirely of jingles; the difference between seeing an
advertisement and a music video is many times minimal. That is because the song in itself nothing but an
interchangeable commodity27 – it sells beauty, accessibility and reproducibility. What Benjamin called the
aura of traditional art (the ‘here and now’)28 is absent in the culture industry; only a decaying aura is left. For
Adorno, in order for something to be genuine it needs to be non-reproducible.29 Since the products of the
culture industry lie within the confines of the Enlightened rationality, within the interchangeable
commodified market of cultural ‘unity’30, they are untrue.

Following the Enlightenment ideals, there is a systematized plan to be followed by the products of the
culture industry;31 there is no room for spontaneity or creativity, and hence no critical potential. Writers
compose a song ‘tailored for the masses’. 32 Film plots are ‘ready-made cliches’ 33 and fit a preexisting
‘schema’34: ‘the jazz arranger excludes any phrase which does not fit the jargon’.35 The culture industry
assembles its products in a controlled manner.36

This systematization also translates to instrumental reason’s domination in the culture industry. The formula
of the culture industry ‘crushes equally the whole and the parts’37 of whatever does not fit its schema. The
omnipresence of the culture industry means that everything passes through its filter; it crates the idea that
the world is a seamless extension of the film,38 thus blatantly deceiving the masses. The machine of culture
rejects anything untried as a risk – it excludes the new and daring.39 Under its filter, ‘recommendation
becomes command’40; it is not the consumers who choose the schemas, but those whose ‘economics
position is the strongest’,41 who then supply for the stimulated demand. .

§3. Avant-garde art as resistance

The only candidate for resistance against commodification is the genuine, the non-reproducible, the
critical42: the only thing that fits these criteria is autonomous, avant-garde art. Even though, according to
Huhn, there is no ‘satisfactory answer’43 as to why art came to have its critical role, an analysis of Adorno’s
work can provide the answers to why and how art can exhibit resistance.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
25 DE, p.97
26 DE, p.112
27 CIR, p.2
28 Benjamin, p.21
29 MM, p.99
30 DE, p.103
31 CIR, p.1
32 Ibid
33 DE, p.98
34 DE, p.101
35 Ibid
36 DE, p.132
37 DE, p.99
38 Ibid
39 DE, p.105
40 DE, p.129
41 DE, p.95
42 MM 99
43 O’Connor, p.154

! 3!
A reading of the siren allegory in the ‘Dialectic of Enlightenment’ can shed light as to the reason for ‘true’
art exhibiting resistance. Odysseus, symbolizing the contemplating figure, is drawn to the Siren’s song,
symbolizing absolute knowledge of the past and future not merely because of its beauty but because of the
temptation of destruction. The lure of the song lies in its danger; in its ‘threat to the existing order’44; in its
possibility for annihilation of the hegemony. Neutralized through the fettering of Odysseus to the mast of
the enlightened reality, 45 the song becomes art: the glimpse of the past as ‘living’, genuine and true.
Odysseus and his sailors (the deceived masses who cannot contemplate the art) do not let go of the mast; if
untied, Odysseus will be destroyed. Neutralized, however, the song (as avant-garde art) is enough to
question the order; it can resist extreme enlightenment.

For Adorno, the only way for art to be critical, and thus exhibit resistance, against the reified ‘instrumentally
rational’ society in which he lives, is if it is at the same time autonomous, mimetic and as a result ‘true’. This
allows art to produce a ‘negative utopia’, and thus criticize society not positively, but negatively. Thus,
avant-garde art is the best, and perhaps only, example of critical art.

Mimesis is not representational imitation; mimetic art, unlike Brecht’s plays, does not specify its elements as
corresponding to such and such thing of society. However, by ‘immersing itself in the world’, it expresses
the world for what it is – it is ‘true’ in virtue of ‘producing the world once over’. Contrary to the ‘impotent
utopia of beauty’46 of the culture industry, mimesis acts negatively; through ‘abstract negation’ we criticize
the world for its lack, and we arrive at a substitute for truth.47

Critical art needs to be, however, simultaneously autonomous. It needs to not fall in the pitfalls of
Enlightenment by adhering to its principles of instrumental reason, systematization and reification.
Autonomy in art is exhibited, firstly, by the fact that in a commodified world where everything is used as a
means for achieving something else (‘universal functionalism’48), art is ‘purposeless [and] serves no aim’49.
Since, therefore, art lies outside the scope of instrumental reason, it is uniquely ‘independent of society’, and
thus unable to be manipulated by the totalitarian instrumental reason.50 This freedom gives it potential to
‘criticize rationality’.51 Secondly, art is autonomous in that it is non-conformist. Because the ‘material’ used
by the artist is, apart from acoustic data or paint or words, the collective narrative of the schools preceding
the artwork. Thus, the avant-garde artist, with an acquired ‘need for originality’, will manipulate the material
and create an artwork that carries the tensions of the narrative it emerged from. For example, a Pollock
carries within it the tensions between the figures of expressionism and the anti-figurative52 style of abstract
schools. Merging its ‘desire for the new’ 53(thus in a sense ‘negating its artistic tradition’54) with ‘being true to
its history’55, autonomous art becomes critical through its very style and structure –by being internally
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
44 DE, p.26
45 Bowman
46 MM 58
47 Ibid
48 Geuss, p.302
49 AT, p.152
50 AT, p.255
51 AT, p.55
52 Shapiro, p.189
53 AT, p.55
54 Geuss, p.307
55 Geuss, p.306

! 4!
revolutionary-56 when superimposed to society.57 Its constant revival stands in opposition to homogeneity,
and its uselessness allows it to oppose systematization.

Autonomous and mimetic art exhibits resistance in various ways. Since we find art enjoyable, and since
according to the commodified hegemony it is ‘useless’, 58 and thus not worth having, we question the
obsession reification has with functionality - it serves as a ‘critique of the practical positing of purposes’59
simply by being art. Secondly, by being a ‘replica of empirical life’60, art is very much critical of the world.
Thirdly, unlike other aspects of commodified society, art has a ‘life of itself’.61 The lack of a schema (in the
form of non-intentionality) present in all of the products by the culture industry, as well as the commodified
society, produces an artwork which is still meaningful, thus again questioning the totalitarian nature of
systematization. Critical art gives us a negative glimpse of how the world could be better, through showing
us how it is horrible as it is – it acts as resistance by being the ‘social antithesis of society’.62

§4. Resistance in Kafka

In order to better understand the process of arts resistance to commodification, I will look at Adorno on
Kafka; a writer who Adorno thinks, in the words of O’Connor, ‘disturbs the settled experience of
everydayness’63 by showing ‘what becomes of people under the total social spell [in a powerful and faithful
way]’64, thus combining mimesis and autonomy in a powerful negative utopia.

Kafka is mimetic through form; his work captures the empirical reality through its structure, (the way Kafka
uses language), and not through its content. Adorno does not even talk of the potential meaning of Josef
K.’s story; for him, ‘each sentence says interpret me, and none will permit it’.65 The reader of Kafka should
focus on the ‘incommensurable, opaque details’, because the mimesis lies in the fact that Kafka’s
uninterpretable words which seek interpretation, sentences which are meant to be taken both literally and
metaphorically reflect the ‘irrationality of late capitalist society’, his ‘language’ reflects the ‘absurdity […] that
has actually become in society. The Kafkaesque is, for Adorno, not naming the falseness of social totality,
but mimesis through the form and structure of the works; the ‘perpetual deja-vu’ of Titorelli’s repeated
painting of the judges mimics the homogeneity of society- the acquaintances of K., reminding Adorno of
‘Huxleyian epsilons’ mimic systematization.66

That is also why his works are autonomous: his ‘cryptograms’67 are uncrackable by instrumental rationality,
the absurdity of K.’s death ‘like a dog’68 does not conform to the culture industry schema of rewarding the
innocent. That is why Kafka’s work is a great negative utopia; it immerses itself into empirical reality, while

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
56 AT, p.228
57 Geuss, pp.307-308
58 O’Connor, p.186
59 AT, p.255
60 AT, p.251
61 AT, p.245
62 AT, p.8
63 O’Connor, p.163
64 AT, p.230
65 Prism, p.246
66 Prism, p.253
67 Prism, p. 256
68 Prism, p .248

! 5!
simultaneously staying independent of it. For Adorno, Kafka defines society ‘all the more precisely in the
negative’. There is no positive utopia in its image, but the resistance happens because of the panic K. feels in
the perpetual deja-vu; relating to it through our experience of commodifed homogeneity, we gain
knowledge of the neurosis of our social totality – ‘Kafka arouses the fear which existentialism merely talks
about’69. And this knowledge, combined with the experience of fear, makes us resistive to commodification
because it ‘unsettles the unthinking relationship’ we have with it70 – we question and criticize and the
ideological foundations of our society.

§5. Criticisms

Even though the value of a negative utopia is visible, it is still not clear why Adorno wants a ‘ban on graven
images’71 when it comes to art – positive utopias still have a potential to motivate humanity towards a better
future, and thus they should play their part in Adorno’s aesthetic theory. However, positive art fails on two
fronts; firstly, it offers an image of an emancipated world while emancipation is not possible – it is
deceiving. 72 Secondly, it is dangerous in that it motivates ideals of ‘perfection’ that are actually
technologically attainable – in the same way that Wagner influenced Hitler, positive utopias breed
nightmarish implementations akin the ‘dystopias’ of the 20th century.73 In the words of Adorno, ‘for the sake
of happiness, happiness must be renounced’.74

A second worry is that in order for art to reach its resistive potential, ‘intellectual interpretation’, through
careful conversation with the artwork is needed.75 By first analyzing the way the work internally ‘overturns
tradition’, and thus placing it in a historical context, the artwork’s use of form and structure makes us,
eventually, understand the way it ‘works’ (as explained in the previous paragraphs). This understanding is
what induces a radical criticism of the world to the viewer.76 Thus, philosophy (in the sense of scrutiny and
analysis) is needed in order for art to be truly critical.77

There are two problems with the idea of the artwork as only reaching its potential through intellectual
interpretation. Firstly, if interpretation is needed, then what is the point of an artwork anyway78: the
philosophy that is used for understanding it (e.g. the Dialectic of Enlightenment, Adorno’s aesthetic theory
and generally critical theory) should be enough for resistance on its own. Secondly, this also implies that the
artwork is only used as a means to an end, thus impossible to also fulfill Adorno’s conception of the
artwork as an ‘end in itself’, a ‘whole’.

There are two responses to the first worry; firstly, interpretation is only needed in order to art to reach its
full potential. It can still shake and unsettle audiences through its form, much like the Viennese public in
1913 got outraged and received his music, in the words of Geuss, with ‘horror, shock and rage’.79 This
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
69 Commitment, p. 86
70 O’Connor, p. 160
71 Geuss, p.306
72 O’Connor, p.157
73 Geuss, p.306
74 AT, p.13
75 O’Connor, p.183
76 Geuss, p.308
77 AT, p.391
78 Lecture 8
79 Geuss, p. 308

! 6!
reaction shows that atonality shook the totalitarian schema of tonal romanticism, reflected in their form of
life – they felt assaulted.80 Secondly, there is a certain ‘spirituality’ in art manifesting itself in the ‘moment of
shock’, during which ‘the recipients lose their footing’ and ‘disappear into the work’81. This is not found in
political manifestos, and combined with the aforementioned reasons for arts uniqueness because of its
independence from the social totality means that the artwork itself has a special capacity for criticism.
Theory itself is not enough; the impetus of art’s effect on the viewer (as exemplified in the Viennese public’s
horror) cannot be reduced to theory because it is experiential (‘the irrational [social norms] are […] not
named; they are experienced)82, and thus the artwork is valuable for is own sake.

The response to the second worry is that to view interpretation complimenting art’s critical potential as a
denigration of art’s autonomy (or wholeness) is wrong. 83 It’s critical relation to society is an intrinsic
dimension of art,84 in virtue of its statue as mimetic and autonomous art – analyzing it is not reducing its
status, but helping it ‘fully discharge its vocation’.85

§6. Conclusion

For Adorno, mimetic and autonomous art allows us to question, criticize and resist a world dominated by
instrumental reason and commodification. By mimicking the social totality while remaining independent of
it, avant-garde art has the unique ability of showing us the falseness of the world through philosophical
interpretation of its internal criticisms. By realizing this ‘lack’ in society, we understand where instrumental
reason has failed us. Avant-garde art induces the ‘moment of shock’, essential to aesthetic appreciation and
resistance.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
80 Ibid
81 AT, p.244
82 O’Connor, p.157
83 Geuss, p.308
84 O’Connor, p.180
85 Ibid

! 7!
References

• Adorno, T. (1974). Commitment. New Left Review, I87-88.

• Adorno, T. (1980). Minima Moralia. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.[referenced as MM followed by

aphorism number]

• Adorno, T. (1983). Prisms. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press.

• Adorno, T. and Rabinbach, A. (1975). Culture Industry Reconsidered. New German Critique, (6), p.12.
[referenced as CIR]

• Walter Benjamin (1968). Hannah Arendt, ed. "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical
Reproduction", Illuminations. London: Fontana.

• Bowman, C. (n.d.). Other Voices 1.1 (March 1997), Odysseus and the Siren Call of Reason: The
Frankfurt School - Critique of Enlightenment by Dr. Curtis Bowman. [online] Othervoices.org.
Available at: http://www.othervoices.org/1.1/cubowman/siren.php [Accessed 12 Jan. 2015

• Geuss, R. (1998). Art and Criticism in Adorno's Aesthetics. European Journal of Philosophy, 6(3), pp.297-
317.

• Horkheimer, M., Adorno, T. and Schmid Noerr, G. (2002). Dialectic of enlightenment. Stanford, Calif.:
Stanford University Press. [referenced as DE]

• Jarvis, S. (1998). Adorno: A Critical Introduction. New York: Routledge.

• O'Connor, B. (2013). Adorno. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.

• Oesmann, A. (2005). Staging history. Albany: State University of New York Press.

• Regier, W., Adorno, T., Adorno, G., Tiedemann, R. and Lenhardt, C. (1986). Aesthetic Theory. MLN,
101(3), p.705. [referenced as AT]

• Shapiro, D. (1990). Abstract expressionism. Cambridge [u.a.]: Cambridge Univ. Pr.

• Tucker, R., Marx, K. and Engels, F. (1978). The Marx-Engels Reader (Second Edition). W.W. Norton &
Company.

! 8!