Der Wille zum Kanonisieren. Kunst und Bildung im Wechselspiel

Art and education have had a close and tautological connection since the Enlightenment: education through art leads to a state of cultivation that can be measured by the attitude of the individual towards art. Yet what turns an object, a sequence of notes or a series of sentences into art and literature? The article is concerned with the powerful role that the educational canon plays in such processes and with the mediating discourses of art, education and culture in the form of art critics, teachers and academics. The author concludes that adult education is challenged to examine the existing canon in the educational course offerings, to make the conditions of its development clear and to address as a central topic the political character of these conditions as well as to make it possible to reflect in general on the function of the canon and the process of canonization.