Il valore performativo della fruizione artistica

Abstract

When considering artistic fruition as a communicative-educational performance rather than as the mere observation of an artwork, the focus shifts from the status of the artwork as such to the modalities through which it communicates, and to the definition of the relationship between the artwork and its public. In this perspective, artistic fruition can be understood no longer as a contemplative state (in the Romantic sense of the term), but as a performative act – in other words, as a dynamic and participative act which produces sense and content (H.G. Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode, 1960). The implied notion of chronological duration (S. Bettini, Cinema e architettura, 1956) connotes this act as a process (see G. Genette, L’Œuvre de l’art, 1: Immanence et transcendance, 1994), which is relational in that it is not limited to a mere transmission of data (from artwork to public), but enhances the audience’s cognitive and emotional involvement.