From Appreciation To Consumption: The Contemporary Change Of Art Reception

The rapid development of social productive forces provides more consumer goods to people, which results to a large surplus. Consequently, the society shows a transformation from production to consumption. This transformation is the context of words of modern art, which makes an impact on each link of art's whole activity. As one of the art's whole activity, the acceptance of art is no exception. In the consumption society, the acceptance of art shows a tendency from aesthetics to consumption.In modern society, overproduction not only appears as a surplus of general material product, but also cultural artifact. The former is the base of commodity esthetic, while the latter is the premise of art commercialization. The richness of material product, on the one hand, pushes the producer to look for new marketing strategies and pay more attention to the cultural added value and aesthetic added value; on the other hand, it satisfies the need of cultural artifact. The aesthetic appreciation of commodity and the commercialization of art make the boundary among commodity, arts and aesthetic more and more vaguer, which makes the growing up of art's consumption possible. The consumer, as the subjective condition of art's consumption, appears in the process of urbanization. As the new blood of art reception, they are in large quantity, high education level, well financial capacity and have more leisure time. The most important one is that their way of life changes and they have the needs of art's consumption which is with the aim of entertainment. The subjective needs of consumer combine with the surplus of cultural artifact make the art's consumption grow up in the entire society.In modern society, art reception subject and popular art production has changed greatly, which are different to high rank and elegant works of art in the traditional society. In the traditional society, the art reception required the engagement of the reception subject's all attention to hunt about for the art's inner aesthetic value, which could reach the metaphysical extent of finding the hidden meaning of art. Only when the recipient observes the aesthetic object with an aesthetic eye, and surpasses it to search for the long and deep aesthetic value, can it be called art reception. As above mentioned, the traditional art reception had a sharp aesthetic character. As to the art reception in modern situation, the action of art reception shows a trend of change from aesthetics to consumption, and has obvious expendability characteristics, which are mainly shown as follows:Firstly, sensorial transformation: From the traditional pursuance of sublimation of perceptual joviality to the respect for the sensorial stimulation which are brought by objects. In the process of it, with its sensorial character, convenience and cheapness, the turning of image transformation caters for people's esthetic needs. By dint of advanced mass media, it changes to the main esthetic objective of consumers.Secondly, complanation: From the pursuance of acceptant objectives' deep esthetic meaning to the respect for the art production's surface layer consumption. Art reception in consumer society are no longer pursuing for hidden meaning of objects, but staying in the layer of surface image, which satisfies the surface layer consumption of image. Moreover, the hidden meanings are not deeply or spiritual.Thirdly, fashion: From the pursuance of individuation of creation and acceptance to the art reception of pseudo- individuation. The fashion of art reception displays in its function of imitation and demarcation. The function of imitation can help the recipient pass the buck of themselves, while the function of demarcation shows the art reception's character of pseudo- individuation, by the way of group.Fourthly, fast food transformation: From the pursuance of the engagement of the reception subject's all attention to the respect for surface layer pleasant sensation. The fast food transformation of modern art reception shows that, on the one hand, consumers' esthetic objectives are public art which are not having much spiritual value or deep historical value, on the other hand, consumers pay more attention to the momentary experience and entertainment.However, we can not negate the spiritual character of art reception completely because of its new characters. We can not consider that the function of arts' aesthetic education and enlightenment disappear, or the modern popular art are of no aesthetic value. The modern popular art has no direct practicability. By the consumption of it, Consumers can obtain self- identification and show to the society their individualized pursuance and esthetic sentiment. They can also get experience and inspiration about life. All of them exceed simple sensorial entertainment and show extrasensory. Therefore, even though the aesthetic value of modern art acceptance is different from traditional ones, they are still not short of aesthetic value. In Benjamin's discussion on film's artistic value, he pointes out that even though the work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction losses its "unique" and "aura", they have the value of show and can astonish the audiences. Consequently, the modern art acceptance has the trend to consumption, but it is still between aesthetics and consumption, and the character of aesthetics is still its underlying character. We should have dialectic understanding on this change. On the one hand, it enriches the art experience of the recipient, facilitates the trend of populace and improves many new art fields; On the other hand, because of the overemphasis of sensibility, people are lack of rational experience in the process of art reception, which is not propitious for the creation of perfect personality.