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Art text: Theoretical "perspective” and/or media-critical evaluation // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2025. Issue 4 (46). P. 44-57

The article presents semiotic and media-critical aspects of art texts. The material of the scientific review are artistic comments of modern art critics, including Kazakh authors. Art criticism in this perspective ceases to be only an external “replica”, it essentially becomes a form of philosophical thinking. Art criticism is directly involved in the production of meanings, not merely in their descriptive registration. In this case, the art critic takes responsibility for the intellectual accompaniment of art. The article confirms that art criticism as a modification of cultural discourse is a theoretical “perspective” for artists, with only the media-critical aspect of the artistic comment being important to the reader. The unifying theoretical attitude and subjective assessment of art criticism for both possible groups of readers is the aestheticization of reality by the artist in art texts. Creative texture as a principle of organizing the artistic comment is the main one for the modern art critic (Clement Greenberg, Victor Misiano, Valeria Ibraeva). As actual practice shows, a critical essay can be more interesting than the artwork itself. The article analyses texts by Boris Groys, who presented the visual semiotics of modern artistic practice, especially current art. The art critic in relation to modern art performs the role not only of a traditional commentator, but also of a mediator between artists and “spectators”, as well as between different cultural contexts. In the article, the art text is presented for the first time as a hybrid creative text, distinguished by the characteristics of expert opinion, professional journalistic material, and authorial work. In art-critical texts you can find fragments of artistic, political and social theories, philosophical excourses, rhetorical and ideological comments, scientific art history data, personal stories or reflections, examples from life situations. As a result of the analysis, the art text appears as an important link in the chain of modern artistic discourse, combining aesthetic observation, media critical evaluation and interpretive practice.

Keywords: contemporary art, art text, discourse, culture, media criticism, artistic commentary, aestheticization