Tactical Irrelevance: Art and Politics at Play (original) (raw)

2012, Democratic Communique

Abstract

Questions about the relation of art and politics often become more urgent in moments of political turmoil and crisis. The present-day context of neoliberal globalization and militaristic neoconservativism has prompted many artists to abandon representational politics and the fostering of dialog in favor of intervening more directly in social relations. In this paper, an artist discusses her own work through the lens of Jacques Rancière's philosophical writings on aesthetics and politics. The question of artistic autonomy-long considered antithetical to radical or committed art-is reframed as a privileged position from which foundational assumptions about what the political field is can be challenged and reformulated.

Loading...

Loading Preview

Sorry, preview is currently unavailable. You can download the paper by clicking the button above.

References (35)

  1. The audio of most of the public events can be downloaded as mp3s from the project archive: http://www.readysubjects.org/projects/publicsquare/ publicsquare_html/archive.html.
  2. Responses during the mock weapons inspections varied, with many researchers brushing off questions on their way to lunch. My example is taken from a de- brief session I held following the event on April 27, 2004.
  3. Ironically, the entirely legal webstream of the museum sound aroused the only negative comment I received about the use of media in the project. One viewer, a painting professor, was incensed that his conversation in the museum was recorded and streamed, despite numerous signs warning visitors that live video and audio were being captured in two of the installations. While not wanting to read too much into his response, I was struck that a gallery artist reacted so negatively to my gesture of breaking the spectatorial silence of the museum and broadcasting its normally hermetic interior.
  4. For more information on these projects, see Emily Forman and Daniel Tucker, eds., Trashing the Neoliberal City: Autonomous Cultural Practices in Chicago from 2000 to 2005 (Copenhagen: Learning Site, 2007). Also available online at http://learningsite.info/trashing003.htm.
  5. Grant Kester, Conversation Pieces: Community and Communication in Mod- ern Art (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2004).
  6. WochenKlauser, "Intervention in Community Development," (Ottensheim, Austria: 1997), WochenKlauser, "Intervention to Qualify Former Drug Abus- ers for Occupation," (Vienna: 2003).
  7. Kester, Conversation Pieces: Community and Communication in Modern Art, pp. 84-85.
  8. Claire Bishop, "The Social Turn: Collaboration and Its Discontents," ArtFo- rum, February 2006, p. 183.
  9. WochenKlauser, "Intervention to Aid Drug-Addicted Women," (Zurich: 1994).
  10. Grant Kester, "Aesthetic Evangelists: Conversion and Empowerment in Con- temporary Community Art," Afterimage (1995).
  11. Rancière, "Aesthetics and Politics: Rethinking the Link." References
  12. Bishop, Claire. "Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics." October 110 (2004): 51- 79.
  13. ---. "The Social Turn: Collaboration and Its Discontents." ArtForum, February 2006, 178-83.
  14. Carnevale, Fulvia, and John Kelsey. "Art of the Possible: Fulvia Carnevale and John Kelsey in Conversation with Jacques Rancière." ArtForum, March 2007, 256-69.
  15. Deutsche, Rosalyn. Evictions: Art and Spatial Politics. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1998.
  16. Eagleton, Terry. The Ideology of the Aesthetic. Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell, 1990.
  17. Forman, Emily, and Daniel Tucker, eds. Trashing the Neoliberal City: Autonomous Cultural Practices in Chicago from 2000 to 2005. Copenhagen: Learning Site, 2007.
  18. Habermas, Jürgen. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. Cam- bridge: Polity Press, 1992.
  19. Kanouse, Sarah. "The Public Square." Site-specific media and event-based artwork. Champaign-Urbana, IL, 2004.
  20. Kester, Grant. "Aesthetic Evangelists: Conversion and Empowerment in Contem- porary Community Art." Afterimage (1995).
  21. ---. Conversation Pieces: Community and Communication in Modern Art. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2004.
  22. ---. "Conversation Pieces: The Role of Dialogue in Socially-Engaged Art." In Theory in Contemporary Art since 1985, edited by Zoya Kocur and Simon Leung, 76-88. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2004.
  23. Laclau, Ernesto and Chantal Mouffe. Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Toward a Radical Democratic Politics. London: Verso, 2001.
  24. Mitchell, Don. The Right to the City: Social Justice and the Fight for Public Space. New York: The Guilford Press, 2003.
  25. Panagia, Davide. "Dissenting Words: A Conversation with Jacques Rancière." Dia- critics, no. 2 (2000): 113-26.
  26. Rancière, Jacques. "Aesthetics and Politics: Rethinking the Link." http:// www.16beavergroup.org/monday/archives/001881.php. Last accessed May 8, 2006.
  27. ---. Disagreement. Translated by Julie Rose. Minneapolis: University of Min- nesota Press, 1998.
  28. ---. The Ignorant Schoolmaster: Five Lessons in Intellectual Emancipation. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 1991.
  29. ---. The Politics of Aesthetics: The Distribution of the Sensible. Translated by Gabriel Rockhill. London: Continuum, 2004.
  30. Roche, Jennifer. "Socially Engaged Art, Critics and Discontents: An Interview with Claire Bishop." Community Arts Network, http://www.communityarts.net/ readingroom/archivefiles/2006/07/socially_engage.php. Last accessed April 29, 2007.
  31. Rose, Gillian. Visual Methodologies: An Introduction to the Interpretation of Vis- ual Materials. London: Sage: 2001.
  32. Ross, Kristin. "Introduction to Jacques Rancière." ArtForum, March 2007, 254-55.
  33. Sorkin, Michael, Ed. Variations on a Theme Park: The New American City and the End of Public Space. New York: Hill and Wang, 1992.
  34. Staeheli, Lynn A. and Don Mitchell. "The Complex Politics of Relevance in Geog- raphy," Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 95(2), 2005, p. 357-372.
  35. WochenKlauser. "Intervention in Community Development, Intervention to Aid Drug-Addicted Women." Dialogic artwork. Zurich, 1994.