This contribution analyses the importance of the State Academy of the Study of Arts (GAKhN) in the appropriation of Hegel's aesthetics in Russia. In immediate connection to this discussion at the GAKhN is Gustav Špet's conception of the ontology of art. This concept represents an attempt of a non-metaphysical interpretation of Hegel's aesthetics. There, art is interpreted as an autonomous mode of the cultural existence as "aesthetic reality." In this interpretation of art Špet refers to two of Hegel's theses in which (1) art is determined as "appearance" which stands as a "quasi-reality" and (2) the aesthetic object gets its ontological status because of "recognition" by humans. These theses help Špet to develop an alternative to Marxist aesthetics.