Is it the end of art? an inquiry on loss of autonomy and the problem of criticism in contemporary art

Since the beginning of 1980s, an important change in the categories by which we think about art has been taking place. The reason of this change is that the contemporary art works show significant differences from traditional art works. Contemporary works cannot be explained with available definitions and theories of art. Therefore, in the art world, several theses about the end of art have been brought up. Some of these theses with a Hegelian approach claim that the end of art means that art and history's ways are branching and art has a post -historical character now. In the other end of the art theses, longing for "high art works" of art age combined with the fear of missing authenticity and uniqueness of contemporary art works thus it becomes a total denial of contemporary art. In our dissertation, we scrutinized Arthur Danto's and Donald Kuspit's theses as exemplary. In our dissertation, we evaluated the process of art from 19th century until our time and the crisis that it created that caused the thoughts of end of art. In this context, we analyzed Modern, Avantgarde and Contemporary art and determined how the irremediable changes caused this crisis in art. Our aim is to defend that the end of art claim which was raised from this crisis is not a valid thesis.