Aesthetics, Disinterestedness, and Effectiveness in Political Art

By: Maria-Alina Asavei

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eText | 15 September 2018 | Edition Number 1

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Should politically concerned and engaged artistic production disregard questions or/and requirements of aesthetic reception and value? Whether art should be “aesthetic” or “political” is not a new question. Therefore, in spite of those several contemporary approaches of this issue, the answer is not set in stone and the debate is still going on. This volume aims to broaden these debates and it stems from numerous conversations with politically engaged artists and artist collectives on issues related to the “aesthetitzation of politics” versus the “politicization of art,” as well as the phenomenon of the so-called “unhealthy aestheticism” in political art. Thus, this study has three interrelated aims: Firstly, it aims to offer an interdisciplinary account of the relationship between art and politics and between aesthetics and the political. Secondly, it attempts to explore what exactly makes artistic production a strong – yet neglected – field of political critique when democratic political agency, history from below and identity politics are threatened. Finally, to illuminate the relationship between critical political theory, on the one hand, and the philosophy of art, on the other by highlighting artworks’ moral, political and epistemic abilities to reveal, criticize, problematize and intervene politically in our political reality.

Industry Reviews

This book tackles one of the thorniest debates in the philosophy and sociology of art, as well as in political theory: the relationship between the political and the aesthetic in "political art." Rejecting both conflationist and autonomist positions, Asavei elegantly shows how political art does not have to lose its aesthetic valence. Through a sophisticated engagement with key concepts and positions in the literature and an illuminating curation of examples, she outlines an account of political art that is critically polyvalent without collapsing into propaganda. A welcome breath of fresh air, this book should be of interest to all those who are tempted to enter this research field armed with reified dichotomies.