Adorno on culinary (or false) beauty vs. authentic beauty and resistant art
The term “culinary” is used by Adorno to describe artworks that offer:
• Immediate gratification
• Easily digestible pleasure
• Unquestioned harmony and sweetness that soothes or gives pleasure.
He uses the term almost as an insult: art becomes a recipe (like a dish) you consume without reflection or discomfort. It is art with No critical engagement and it is to Satisfy a craving, a need to “own.” It becomes a commodity with an exchange value.
In Aesthetic Theory, Adorno argues that Resistant Art:
• Preserves truth content by refusing reconciliation.
• Its formal negativity (fracture, dissonance) exposes reality’s contradictions.
• It demands active interpretation and thinking rather than passive consumption. It resists commodification.
• Resistant art formalizes the contradictions of living in a hierarchical society, where there is domination and control by means of exploitation, racism, sexism, war and inequality. Yet, each of us also has the full human experience of birth and renewal, along with the capacity for resistance. Art needs to encapsulate the truth telling of this suffering, yet, can also show the human spirit in utter joy, love, and compassion found through human connection and by its resistance.
Art by Kate W 