Against domesticated art. A further reading on “The Origin of the Work of Art” and Nazism

Abstract

Many scholars have read Martin Heidegger's “The Origin of the Work of Art” from his political commitment to National Socialism. Is the essay on art an embodiment of his true political position? The aim of this research is to re-explore the links of this work of Heidegger with National Socialism in the light of some fragments of the so-called Black Notebooks, especially those of volume 94 of the Gesamtausgabe that compiles the notes elaborated by the philosopher between 1932 and 1938, years in which the different versions of “The Origin of the Work of Art” were conceived and exposed. The hypothesis I defend in this paper is that reading the essay on art from its political commitment is an unjustified interpretation. It will be shown that, in the years that the essay was being conceived and exposed, Heidegger was critical of the cultural and artistic policies in National Socialist times. With this I do not pretend neither to deny the political dimension in general sense that the writing can have, nor much less the proven and indisputable adhesion of Heidegger to Nazism. But if we ask ourselves if the latter is relevant for his philosophy of art, the answer, in my opinion, is no.