"The Artworld" connection to "What is the Contemporary?"

While reading "What is the Contemporary?" by Giorgio Agamben, I could not help but make connections to Arthur Danto's philosophy of art elucidated in his essay, "The Artworld," which I think is one of the only philosophies that can qualify modern/contemporary fine art just as well as masterpieces of Post-Impressionism (arbitrary, kind of) and prior. This is especially evident in comparison to more traditional philosophies of art (Plato, Schopenhauer, Heidegger, Nietzche, Kant, etc.) Basically, Danto's theory is that for something to enter the Artworld—to be an artwork—it must reference itself in reference to other artworks. (It is important to understand that this reference is not necessarily intentional, but that is a finer point...) It is a philosophy that opposes definitions that rely on any physical property. The Artworld is this imaginary space that is not populated by people—rather, it is populated by things that get into it by being talked about being in it. There is a problem of infinite regress—what was the original artwork?—but Danto's theory is unique because it can be more inclusive by taking away the artist and any physical qualification, and also more exclusive in its referential demand, indirectly supporting the existence of a separation between fine art and craft. Examples where I thought Agamben intersected with Danto:

Both this distancing and nearness, which define contemporariness, have their foundation in this proximity to the origin that nowhere pulses with more force than in the present. (Agamben 50)

What remains unlived therefore is incessantly sucked back toward the origin, without ever being able to reach it. The present is nothing other than this unlived element in everything that is lived. That which impedes access to the present is precisely the mass of what for some reason (its traumatic character, its excessive nearness) we have not managed to live. The attention to this “unlived” is the life of the contemporary. (Agamben 51)

Anyway, if you have not read Danto's essay, check out “The Artworld.” Also, in case you did not know, Arthur Danto was a professor at Columbia!