Arthur C. Danto, answered from the texts and cited to the page.
With Andy Warhol's Brillo Boxes exhibition at the Stable Gallery in April 1964, the master narrative of Western art history reached its conclusion. The thesis is not that art-making has ceased — art-making continues and will continue indefinitely — but that the historical development of art-making-driven-by-the-question-what- is-art has reached the point at which the question itself becomes the work, and what follows is post- historical art: a period of unprecedented pluralism in which anything is possible because no further structural development of the historical sort is required.123
The claim is Hegelian in inspiration. Hegel had said that art on the side of its highest vocation is for us a thing of the past, meaning that art's role in the development of Spirit had been superseded by religion and philosophy. My version is more specific: art's historical development reached its self-consciousness in Brillo Boxes, where art became philosophy of itself.
After that moment there is no master narrative to be the next chapter of, no progressive direction in which art-as-such must develop, no Greenbergian path of self-purification to pursue. What remains is the pluralism we observe in the contemporary artworld: figurative painting, abstract painting, installation, performance, photography, video, conceptual work, all side by side, none privileged as more advanced than another.
The end of art in this sense is a liberation from the constraints of an exhausted master narrative, not a verdict of decline.45
Warhol defined his time more, I think, than any artist living then, but that does not mean his particular artworks were more essentially of their time than anyone else's. In fact, on reflection, it would be strange if he were unique in bringing forth what the historical moment required. And this brings me to the second and linked thesis about the philosophical shape of the history of art.Beyond the Brillo Box, pp. 7–8
The Post-Historical Period may have begun in 1965, but no one knew that in 1965. There were no headlines in the Times. And, in fact, there are a good many unconvinced that it has ended at all and who are banking on its starting all over again. One can in truth be an avant-garde artist, but, unlike Dada in 1919, this is now just a style rather than a historical moment.Beyond the Brillo Box, pp. 10–11
Only then did the possibility arise of a true general philosophy of art. But what of art itself? What of "Art after Philosophy'—to use the title of Kosuth's essay—which, to make the point, may indeed itself be a work of art?After the End of Art, pp. 31–32
The Age of Manifestos, as I see it, came to an end when philosophy was separated from style because the true form of the question "What is art?" emerged. That took place roughly around 1964.After the End of Art, p. 64
Warhol then calls out "stencil," and the stencil is brought and positioned. Then Warhol calls out "squeegee," etc. Repeated orders and compliances soon enough create enough grocery boxes for a show.Andy Warhol, pp. 56–57
The Mellon Lectures (1995) and After the End of Art (1997) are the canonical statement; Beyond the Brillo Box (1992) was the precursor. Hans Belting's parallel art-historical thesis appeared in 1987. The thesis has been widely engaged: by the postmodernist tradition, which read it as compatible with their own positions (Krauss, Buchloh, Owens); by Daniel Herwitz, who pressed the question of whether Danto's account itself inadvertently became a postmodern position; by David Carrier on the Hegelian apparatus; by the broader art- critical world that took up "end of art" as a slogan (often misunderstanding it as a literal claim that art had ceased). The thesis remains contested and is the most-cited element of Danto's late aesthetic theory.