«When Critique Becomes a Product: Art and Critical Education under Neoliberalism»
Neoliberal culture naturally turns the artist into an "entrepreneurial unit", for which self-presentation in social networks, market success and critical comment are often more important than art itself.Â
The artist ceases to be just a creator - he becomes a brand, a product, an object of promotion. Such a transformation undermines the ability of art to real criticism - one that could resist the dominant economic structures and ideas.
What is Art? Art constitutes one of the highest forms of human expression precisely because it exceeds the limits of instrumental reason. Art does not transmit information or utility; it articulates the irreducible complexity of human existence, giving form to what cannot be fully conceptualized. The fact is, that can't be fully formulated, can't get a consequent answer. We cannot put art in a strict framework because our judgments cannot be justified and critical theory should assume flexibility and the ability to argue, pushing opinions. Therefore, a human in his fear of the unknown can't understand it rationally. This leads to restrictions. So, the restriction is — human thought attempts to impose explanatory patterns in order to neutralize uncertainty. These patterns function as provisional frameworks of control rather than as genuine understanding. Yet such efforts are ultimately futile, as they seek to rationalize what is irreducibly non-rational at its source. In doing so, art is not clarified but diminished, reduced to schematic interpretations that fail to engage with its mystery. While such patterns are historically and socially conditioned, under neoliberalism they become systematic and productive. Standardizing not the art itself, but its interpretation.
So, the main point is the criticism of art, considered as a separate subject of immanent interrogation. The presence of criticism as a phenomenon of a separate discipline, directly affecting the artist's work, automatically implies an educational system that will be responsible for teaching rational specifics in critical disciplines.
Modern education and social conditioning have reduced our encounter with art to surface perception alone. The struggle, tension, and reflection that constitute its essence are often overlooked, leaving art as a mere aesthetic object. Without critical training, contemporary art is perceived as an aesthetic object rather than as a site of confrontation. The absence of an analytical apparatus renders both the viewer and the artist complicit in the neutralization of art’s critical function. Instead of provoking affect, conflict, and discourse, art is consumed visually, stripped of its capacity to challenge prevailing norms. In this sense, the failure is not located in art itself, but in the conditions of its reception.
From the perspective of the Frankfurt School, contemporary art under neoliberal capitalism has largely been absorbed into the culture industry, where it functions as a standardized, commodified visual product. What was once a site of critical reflection and social interrogation is now subordinated to visibility, market logic, and mass consumption. The proliferation of easily produced images, coupled with the democratization of artistic production, does not empower society; rather, it neutralizes art’s capacity to provoke, challenge, or generate critical discourse. In this sense, the critical and disruptive potential of art — its ability to confront dominant ideologies — is systematically eroded, replaced by a culture of aesthetic pleasure and distraction. As Adorno and Horkheimer argued, the logic of mass culture transforms even potentially radical art into a mechanism of social pacification, turning critique into consumable spectacle while masking the structural conditions that produced it.
The erosion of art’s critical potential under neoliberalism is not only a cultural issue but a social and political one. Art that cannot provoke, question, or generate discourse becomes complicit in reproducing dominant ideologies.
Therefore, the preservation of critical art is a matter of societal responsibility, requiring both artists and audiences to actively engage with the frameworks that shape perception and production.
