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While Adorno was not very popular in the postmodern era with its emphasis on 'play', semiotics, and irony, his posthumous 1970 Aesthetic Theory has now become subject to a remarkable renaissance. Obviously, this corresponds not only to more recent revivals of basic aesthetical concepts like 'piece of art', or 'form', which lacked attention for a long time, but, overall, has to do with the general discourse on 'critique' (of capitalism etc.), all of which were intricately examined by Adorno for a lifetime. Considering the highly demanding Aesthetic Theory as the bar everybody who deals with aesthetical topics has to pass, it seems inevitable that among valuable, even worthy studies, some more expendable, even misleading contributions will also occur.

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