Description
Book SynopsisArgues for a fresh understanding of the relations between politics and aesthetics in a globalized and image-saturated world.
Trade Review“[A] provocative and wide ranging exploration of Jacques Ranciere’s (2006) controversial assertion that ‘politics is aesthetic in principle’ (p. 58) Although focusing largely on the discipline of art history,
Communities also has a broad appeal for those interested in the connections between aesthetic philosophy, social theory, and art practices. Bookended with provocative essays by Ranciere and Etienne Balibar, the collection offers new insights into contemporary art, aesthetic theory, global citizenship, postcolonialism, architecture, and film studies. Just as Ranciere’s own writings encourage interdisciplinary hybridization that challenge canonical divisions between disciplines, so too the form of
Communities embodies this fundamental political and scholarly commitment.” - Tyson E. Lewis,
Teachers College Record“. . . . the editors and contributors are to be commended for engaging with a dynamic and much-contested approach to art, and doing so at an early stage of its reception in the Anglophone world. The editors’ introductory essay is a helpful positioning of this perspective, explaining how it relates to debates regarding modernism, postmodernism, relational aesthetics and other attempts to rehabilitate notions from the aesthetic tradition. . . . And Rancière’s essay is one of the best introductions to his recent work on the import of the history of aesthetics and the logics at work in contemporary art.” - Joseph J. Tanke,
Parallax“A smart and timely consideration of the work of Jacques Ranciere in the context of contemporary art.”—
Stephen Melville, co-editor of
Vision and Textuality“The essays collected here are more than timely. They speak to the blurring of aesthetic and political conflict that we are witnessing in the world at large. Both an aesthetic and a political object,
Communities of Sense will be a reference work for the new directions in art criticism.”—
Tom Conley, author of
Cartographic Cinema“[T]he editors and contributors are to be commended for engaging with a dynamic and much-contested approach to art, and doing so at an early stage of its reception in the Anglophone world. The editors’ introductory essay is a helpful positioning of this perspective, explaining how it relates to debates regarding modernism, postmodernism, relational aesthetics and other attempts to rehabilitate notions from the aesthetic tradition. . . . And Rancière’s essay is one of the best introductions to his recent work on the import of the history of aesthetics and the logics at work in contemporary art.” -- Joseph J. Tanke * Parallax *
“[A] provocative and wide ranging exploration of Jacques Ranciere’s (2006) controversial assertion that ‘politics is aesthetic in principle’ (p. 58) Although focusing largely on the discipline of art history,
Communities also has a broad appeal for those interested in the connections between aesthetic philosophy, social theory, and art practices. Bookended with provocative essays by Ranciere and Etienne Balibar, the collection offers new insights into contemporary art, aesthetic theory, global citizenship, postcolonialism, architecture, and film studies. Just as Ranciere’s own writings encourage interdisciplinary hybridization that challenge canonical divisions between disciplines, so too the form of
Communities embodies this fundamental political and scholarly commitment.” -- Tyson E. Lewis * Teachers College Record *
Table of ContentsIllustrations
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction 1
Part One. Rethinking Aesthetics
Contemporary Art and the Politics of Aesthetics / Jacques Rancière 31
The Romantic Art Work / Alexander Potts 51
From Classical to Postclassical Beauty: Institutional Critique and Aesthetic Enigma in Louise Lawler's Photography / Toni Ross 79
Technologies of Belonging:
Sensus Communis, Disidentification / Ranjana Khanna 111
Part Two. Partitioning the Sensible
Dada's Event: Paris, 1921 / T. J. Demos 135
Citizen Cursor / David Joselit 153
Mass Customization: Corporate Architecture and the "End" of Politics / Reinhold Martin 172
Post-Communist Notes on Some Vertov Stills / Yates McKee 197
Part Three. The Limits of Community
Experimental Communities / Carlos Basualdo and Reinaldo Laddaga 215
Prècaritè, Autoritè, Autonomie / Rachel Haidu 238
Neo-Dada 1951-54: Between the Aesthetics of Persecution and the Politics of Identity / Seth McCormick 267
Thinking Red: Ethical Militance and the Group Subject / Emily Apter 294
Interview with Étienne Balibar 317
Bibliography 337
Contributors 355
Index 359
