Kunstverkets nødvendighet

Abstract

A work of art is never just a thing or an object. In the art experience, a relationship is established between a person and a part-subject/part-object, never between a person and just a “thing”. These claims are in a certain tension with the well-known critique of the traditional western focus on music as works or objects. The discussion in this essay is based on three premises. The first premise is that our object-oriented understanding of music is historically and socially constructed. The second premise is that the historical and social origins of all ways of thinking in no way prevent some ways of thinking from being “better” than others. This opens up the possibility of being able to think that some ways of relating to music are more meaningful than others. The third premise is that a fundamental prerequisite for moving encounters between the human subject and music is the very idea of music as a work of art (as a part-subject/part-object). The necessity of a rethinking of the work of art as a part-subject/part-object is related to the possibility of re-romanticization, re-describing the world poetically.