Quando l’arte si fa merce. L’idea adorniana di industria culturale come pseudos

Theodor W. Adorno reflects on the notion of “culture industry” in many writings throughout his philosophical work. Trying to explain how culture industry is a reified and commodified kind of art in the contemporary consumerist world, he often refers to the idea of culture industry as a form of pseudo-culture and of socially administrated fiction. The aim of the paper is to recollect some key points of the Adornian analysis of this phenomenon in order to show what it means, in Adorno’s perspective, that within the capitalist society art becomes a form of deception and an untrue representation of happiness as it turns into commodity.