Engaged others

1. Does "engaged others" here imply "other audiences"?

2. Does "a whole man’s life" mean "a person's whole life"? If so, is this person "the audience" or "the artist" or could it be both of them?

Context:

Immediate, aesthetic experience could be deepened, Adorno thought, through the critical reflection spurred through dialogue with engaged others. An artist and a work may speak for themselves, but what they say and what an observer experiences can be deepened through a many-sided dialogue. As Willem de Kooning put it, “There’s no way of looking at a work of art by itself. It’s not self-evident—it needs a history, it needs a lot of talking about, it is part of a whole man’s life”