Art work and truth

pp. 138-167

in: Joseph Kockelmans, Heidegger on art and art works, Berlin, Springer, 1985

Abstract

We have seen that for Heidegger the origin of the work of art is to be found in art. On the other hand, art is actually at work in the work of art. According to Heidegger, we must now ask the question of in what the Being-at-work of the work really consists. We have seen also that works of art without exception show a thingly character, albeit that in each case they show it in a different way. We have seen finally that the attempt to explain the thingly character of the work with the help of the common thing conceptions fails. And this is so not only because of the fact that these conceptions do not really grasp the thing-Being of the thing, but above all because, by asking for the thingly substructure we prejudge the work's genuine, ontological status and, thus, bar for ourselves access to its own work-Being. Therefore, we cannot really discover anything about the thingly character of the work as long as the self-subsistence (Insichstehen, the standing-on-itself, the insistence) of the work has not yet clearly manifested itself.