From the 1990s until just before his death, the legendary art critic and philosopher Arthur C. Danto carried out extended conversations about contemporary art with the prominent Italian critic Demetrio Paparoni. Their discussions ranged widely over a vast range of topics, from American pop art and minimalism to abstraction and appropriationism. Yet they continually returned to the concepts at the core of Danto's thinking-posthistory and the end of aesthetics-provocative notions that to this day shape questions about the meaning and future of contemporary art. Art and Posthistory presents these rich dialogues and correspondence, testifying to the ongoing importance of Danto's ideas. It offers readers the opportunity to experience the intellectual excitement of Danto in person, speculating in a freewheeling yet erudite style. Danto and Paparoni discuss figures such as Andy Warhol, Marcel Duchamp, Franz Kline, Sean Scully, Clement Greenberg, Cindy Sherman, and Wang Guangyi, offering both insightful comments on individual works and sweeping observations about wider issues. On occasion, the artist Mimmo Paladino and the philosopher Mario Perniola join the conversation, enlivening the discussion and adding their own perspectives. The book also features an introductory essay by Paparoni that provides lucid analysis of Danto's thinking, emphasizing where the two disagree as well as what they learned from each other.

From the 1990s until just before his death, the legendary art critic and philosopher Arthur C. Danto carried out extended conversations about contemporary art with the prominent Italian critic Demetrio Paparoni. Their discussions ranged widely over a vast range of topics, from American pop art and minimalism to abstraction and appropriationism. Yet they continually returned to the concepts at the core of Danto's thinking-posthistory and the end of aesthetics-provocative notions that to this day shape questions about the meaning and future of contemporary art. Art and Posthistory presents these rich dialogues and correspondence, testifying to the ongoing importance of Danto's ideas. It offers readers the opportunity to experience the intellectual excitement of Danto in person, speculating in a freewheeling yet erudite style. Danto and Paparoni discuss figures such as Andy Warhol, Marcel Duchamp, Franz Kline, Sean Scully, Clement Greenberg, Cindy Sherman, and Wang Guangyi, offering both insightful comments on individual works and sweeping observations about wider issues. On occasion, the artist Mimmo Paladino and the philosopher Mario Perniola join the conversation, enlivening the discussion and adding their own perspectives. The book also features an introductory essay by Paparoni that provides lucid analysis of Danto's thinking, emphasizing where the two disagree as well as what they learned from each other.

Drawing on the philosophies of art developed by the continental authors and studies of Anglo-American philosophers, this book presents a panorama of the philosophy of art. It discusses definitions offered from the analytical school including Arthur Danto's representationalism, Dipert's theories of artefactualism, Dickie's institutional and procedural theories and Levinson's historical and cultural theories. From the continental theories it reflects on Hegel's notion of philosophy of art, Martin Heidegger's and Hans Georg Gadamer's hermeneutic tradition and Alexius Meinong's theory of objects. This range of definitions and theories are judged and defended using a form of representationalism that begins with the results of Arthur Danto's thinking and integrates the aesthetic reflection of the Baumgarten School. The result is not only a presentation of philosophy of art from the beginning of the twentieth century to present day, but a study that proposes a theory capable of synthesizing the finest contributions of the analytic and continental traditions.