In this article I analyze the synchronic presence, within the German academic production of the last decades, of works which can be together understood as part of an uncoordinated effort of epistemologic renewal and historization of the artistic episteme. From the contributions of different authors I synthesize the constitutive lines of those two issues, which were distinct, although convergent in their consequences for the comprehension of art and critique. First, I show how the epistemologic renewal was intermeshed with new patterns of perception of time and with the scientific concept of emergence; then, I discuss how the historization of the artistic episteme was strongly devoted to the institutional critique. Throughout the article, I highlight the critical component of those two forms of historization, both of which were motivated by a sense of dissatisfaction with the current condition - in the 1970s and 80s - of the aesthetic thought.
Aesthetics; Art History; Literary Theory; Contemporary Thought