In Theory of the Avant-Garde Peter Bürger describes the transformation of art from

sacral, to courtly, to bourgeois.1 Art is autonomous in bourgeois society in the sense

that autonomy ‘defines the functional mode of the social subsystem “art”: its (relative)

independence in the face of demands that it be socially useful.’2 Bürger states that

art in bourgeois society depends upon the individual contemplation of a single

artwork made by a single artist because its purpose is the ‘portrayal of bourgeois

self-understanding’.3 Art in bourgeois society satisfies needs and cultivates a sense of

individuality suppressed by the demands of praxis: ‘The citizen who, in everyday life

has been reduced to a partial function (means-ends activity) can be discovered in art

as “human being”. Here one can unfold the abundance of one’s talents, though with

the proviso that this sphere remain strictly separate from the praxis of life.’4 The sep-

aration of art from life in bourgeois society permits ‘non-productive’ intellectual specu-

lation excluded in other areas of society, which can later be applied beyond art and

exploited for profit.