Art Measures

Ingvild Torsen (University of Oslo)

Art is a way for truth to happen, according to Heidegger, and art is a way truth is “set to work”. That means that art is incredibly important, but it is not immediately clear how art works. I have argued that the artwork can be understood as a measure that anchors the happening of truth. In this talk I distinguish between different measures in Heidegger’s thought: Hölderlin’s claim that “there is no measure on earth,” the measure of dike(justice) in Greek tragedy and the different measures of science.

In the end I want to suggest that the concept of an art measure can help us develop a novel, Heideggerian inspired understanding of characteristic features of artworks from the last century.