Martin Heidegger Critiques Contemporary Art Writing in Posthumous Interview

In a posthumous interview format, German philosopher Martin Heidegger critiques contemporary art writing for its focus on commercial status over meaning. He contrasts current preoccupations with artist transfers to galleries like Gagosian against his own philosophical concerns about art's capacity to reveal truth, developed over decades. Heidegger's essay 'The Origin of the Work of Art,' first published in 1950 and revised over nearly 30 years, examines art's essence through Van Gogh's painting of shoes, arguing it manifests world-experience rather than symbolism or feelings. He dismisses aesthetics as secondary to art's primary function of truth, noting that some painters in Germany and the USA are recasting abstraction without irony. Heidegger criticizes art publications Frieze, Artforum, and The Guardian for revelatory sentimentalism, and specifically targets Brian Sewell's autobiography 'Outsider' for lacking substantive ideas about painting while focusing on sensational personal anecdotes. He argues that contemporary critics combine whimsical opinions with confident assertions of selfhood, avoiding concrete engagement with reality.