Art is going elsewhere: and politics has to catch it : an interview with Jacques Rancière (original) (raw)

Beyond the Politics of Reception: Jacques Rancière and the Politics of Art

Continental Philosophy Review, 2017

Jacques Rancière's work has become a major reference point for discussions of art and politics. However, while Rancière's negative theses (about what "political art" is not) are becoming widespread and well understood, his positive thesis is still poorly understood, owing partly to Rancière's own formulation of the issue. I first clarify Rancière's account of the links between politics and art. I then explore a gap in this account; Rancière has stuck too closely to a politics of art's reception. I argue for a politics of art production, which would expand the possible engagement between politics and art.

Aesthetics and Politics Revisited: An Interview with Jacques Rancière

Critical Inquiry Vol 38, No 2, 2012

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Rancière’s Productive Contradictions: From the Politics of Aesthetics to the Social Politicity of Art

This article explores the force and limitations of Jacques Rancière's novel attempt to rethink the relationship between aesthetics and politics. In particular, it unravels the paradoxical threads of the fundamental contradiction between two of his steadfast claims: (1) art and politics are consubstantial, and (2) art and politics never truly merge. In taking Rancière to task on this point, the primary objective of this article is to work through the nuances of his project and foreground the problems inherent therein in order to break with the "talisman complex" and the "ontological illusion" of the politics of aesthetics in the name of a new understanding of the social politicity of artistic practices.

The Politics of Aesthetics (Jacques Rancière)

The Politics of Aesthetics rethinks the relationship between art and politics, reclaiming "aesthetics" from the narrow confines it is often reduced to. Jacques Rancière reveals its intrinsic link to politics by analysing what they both have in common: the delimitation of the visible and the invisible, the audible and the inaudible, the thinkable and the unthinkable, the possible and the impossible. Presented as a set of inter-linked interviews, The Politics of Aesthetics provides the most comprehensive introduction to Rancière's work to date, ranging across the history of art and politics from the Greek polis to the aesthetic revolution of the modern age. Already translated into five languages, this English edition of The Politics of Aesthetics includes a new afterword by Slavoj Zizek, an interview for the English edition, a glossary of technical terms and an extensive bibliography.

Aesthetics, Politics, and Art’s Autonomy: A Critical Reading of Jacques Rancière

This paper considers Jacques Rancière's influential theory of the relation between aesthetics, politics, and art. First, it synthesizes Rancière's theory. Second, it offers a critical perspective of Rancière's conception of the autonomy of art in relation to his theory of politics and aesthetics. In doing so, the purpose is to work towards the development of a theoretical base in which we may follow Rancière's theory of the relation between aesthetic experience and politics whilst avoiding compliance with his relatively fixed and structural notion of the autonomy of art as an attribute of what he calls the aesthetic regime of art. Drawing a distinction between the autonomous experience of the work of art and the ideology of the autonomy of art, this paper argues that the prior comes about both within and in opposition to the latter: the autonomy of art hinges on a relative and relational production of a singularity, not on a structural and defining separation of art from the world of habitual aesthetic experience.

What does LD50 Reveal about Politics and the Art World? A Case Study of Rancière's Theory

This essay develops Jacques Rancière's political theory through a contemporary art world debate, the controversy surrounding gallery LD50's neo-reactionary series of talks and exhibitions. By analysing these events as a case study of Rancière's theory, it provides a theoretical conceptualization of the LD50 debate and reveal paradoxes in Rancière's positioning. I find the arguments developed by the speakers at LD50 abhorrent, yet this is a purely intellectual exercise. Additionally, although the LD50 case is composed of a myriad of sub-debates and different events, for the sake of brevity, this essay focuses mainly on the #shutdownld50 campaign and the manifesto issued by the gallery. Given the fact that the manifesto is no longer available on the gallery's site, it has been included as an appendix. This essay is structured in several parts: after a summary of the LD50 debate, it introduces Rancière's political theory on consensus and politics. Then, it compares Rancière's own case studies with LD50 to highlight the limitations of his theory when applied to contemporary struggles. Finally, it dwells on the paradox of what can and cannot constitute politics based on the form and content of the demands.

Jacques Rancière: Philosophy, Politics, Aesthetics

Continuum Publishing , 2011

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage viii CONTENTS 3.2 Three Regimes of Art 3.3 Equality in Art 3.4 In Place of Modernity 3.5 Against Postmodernity 3.6 Art as Dissensus Conclusion Chapter 4: Regimes of Cinema Introduction 4.1 A Historical Poetics of Cinema 4.2 Cinema, the Dream of the Aesthetic Age 4.3 The Logic of the Thwarted Fable 4.4 Allegories of Modernity: Deleuze and the Use of Hitchcock 4.5 Cinema and Its Century: Godard and the Abuse of Hitchcock Conclusion Chapter 5: Beyond Rancière ix ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Books rarely have simple origins. They emerge from multiple contexts, respond to various conversations, and bespeak numerous relationships only too fleetingly hinted at in their pages. This book is no exception. It was undertaken with the support of the Chalsty Initiative in Aesthetics and Philosophy, the Provost's Office, and the Division of Humanities and Sciences at California College of the Arts. While working on this study, I profited greatly from conversations with colleagues, students, and friends, many of whom were generous enough to read and discuss portions of what I wrote. In particular, I would like to thank

Departures from postmodern doctrine in Jacques Rancière's account of the politics of artistic modernity

Transformations Journal of Media & Culture, 2011

This essay seeks to specify how Jacques Rancière's thinking of aesthetics converges with, but also departs from anti-aesthetic postmodernism as formulated by writers such as Hall Foster and Douglas Crimp associated with October journal in the 1980s. Unlike these writers Rancière proposes that aesthetic autonomy and the avant-garde enlistment of art to transform collective life need to be thought as contending yet interrelated tendencies of artistic modernity. The contemporary relevance of this argument is fleshed out through a detailed analysis of Steve McQueen's art video titled 'Gravesend' of 2007.

Displaced Struggles: On Ranciere and the Art World

Artforum, 2007

WhY might philo,ophet looqo" R,n'"'' hmb<t om, in""'ingly intet""d in ,onttmpomy m, evtn as the art world, in neat symmetry, has become increasingly interested in him? He has apparently followed art for many years, he spoke at the Frieze Art Fair in 2005, and now he has chosen to publish an essa y in and submit to an interview for this magazine-all signs of his confidence that the art world can pro vide a spa ce for his multilayered discourse. Ranciere is not an easy read , yet he is widely read (for a philosopher), largely because he situates himself between disciplines and debates and seeks to banish the di vision between specialist and amateur, obviously a stance with broad appeal. At the same time, his philosophical work can be quite abstract, with paradox intentionally lodged at , its core, Although this embrace of internal contradiction complicates an y discussion of his thoughts on art, might it not also be the reason today 's art world is so interested in his voice? The hothouse of contemporary art harbors its own contradictions, after all. The artist today finds it harder than ever to m eaningfully pose important questions at the very moment that the culture has accorded unprecedented attention to the artist as persona, And in the djfficult task of thinking through this predicament-and seeking a wa y around it-many have turned to Ranciere's writings for insight. One of the more intriguing ideas Ranciere has contributed to art discourse is an insistence that art and politics are simply two forms of what he calls "the distribution of the sensible," The sensible is a sphere in which both art and MARCH 2007 283 LOTTICKENIREPRESENTATlON continued from page 303 Jules Verne yarn rather than a Mallarmean game of "perpetual allusion." Huyghe brings out the opaqueness of signs, oppos ing the suggestions of transparency implied both by mass media images and by many pictures of relatioij,a\ artworks, transforming the nineteenth-century imperialist cliche of the expedition to uncharted lands into a self-reflexive journey to the limits of representation. EXPLORATIONS LIKE HUYGHE'S, however, should not be seen in isolation, as art's time-honored and autonomous bailiwick. Some images of black bloc members in Get Rid of Yourself recall another kind of mask-the niqabs and burkas increas ingly worn by Muslim women in