Art as we know it today, like any other human activity, has undergone various conceptual and functional developments - it has been considered craft and technique, become an intellectual activity, and formed an independent and distinctive framework of itself. Ultimately, it has become so complicated that it is almost impossible to describe what it is now. New art, or at least a large part of it, is called conceptual art. An art that deals with concepts. One of the concepts that is most dealt with is art itself: the nature of art. Conceptual art is, in a sense, the final step in the process of art’s self-consciousness. An art that obscures the borders of art (in its historical sense) and philosophy. This amalgamation is, for some, problematic, and it is considered impossible to bring the two together. In this conflict, one of the two ends of the spectrum, the artist and the philosopher, disappears, or becomes the other. This has led some people to speak of the end, or the ends. The End theories encompass various aspects of art; one is art theory. Art and theory have long been interconnected, in different ways, and the end of one may be the end of the other. Victor Burgin, the British artist and theorist, has discussed the end of art theory and described how theoretical foundations no longer exist in art today. Burgin's theory, of course, stands alongside other end theories, and is indebted to some of them. This article attempts to summarize the state of the art in reaching this "end" point, and explain Burgin's arguments with references to other historical and philosophical issue |
