Pragmatic reconciliation between art and ordinary life

Abstract

One of the features that provided Postmodernism with its own physiognomy was the modernization and democratization in the production and consumption of art. The indolent non-differentiation and the artistic popularization became the risks Postmodern Aesthetics was exposed to. With it, it was retained the existing rupture between the refined aesthetic experience and the ordinary life linked to a practical everyday context. We will try to show the inability of the postmodern and technical democratic proposal -more political than artistic- in order to resolve this discontinuity. In addition, it will be proposed the rehabilitation of the pragmatic framework as an alternative which may join the refined art together with the ordinary art and which may give them continuity within an aesthetic and useful frame. Thus, the isolation of the former and the vulgar deviations of the latter will be overcome. From a pragmatic conception of the aesthetic experience, dualism between art and everyday life may be dissolved, something that cultural Postmodernism failed to achieve.