From Performance to Corporeality: A Possible Path for Gadamer’s Aesthetics

This contribution aims to highlight the presence of a performative paradigm underlying Hans-Georg Gadamer’s aesthetics. In line with Erika Fischer-Lichte’s performative aesthetics, in Gadamer’s reflection, art exists in its performance. The latter is based on the interaction between the artist and the audience, and displays a transformative and social character. On this basis, my contribution seeks to indicate the possible opening of Gadamer’s aesthetics to body and corporeality, using the hermeneutical concepts of “gesture” and “presence,” going beyond Gadamer himself. In particular, the first section is dedicated to showing how the performative paradigm of art is already present in Truth and Method, expressed through the two concepts of Darstellung (which has a broader performative sense) and Aufführung (which is restricted to the “performing arts” of drama and music). The second section shows how, in Gadamer’s subsequent writings, this performative paradigm is extended to the figurative arts and expressed through the concept of Vollzug. Finally, the third and fourth sections attempt to pave the way for a hermeneutical reflection on the body that brings together its corporeal and historical aspects, sketching the concept of gesture and the possible contribution of Gadamer’s notion of presence to the debates on Body Art.