Description
Book SynopsisSantiago Zabala declares that in an age where the greatest emergency is the absence of emergency, contemporary art's ability to create new realities is fundamental to democracy. He advances a new aesthetics that draws on Martin Heidegger's distinction between works of art that rescue us from emergency and those that are rescuers
into emergency.
Trade ReviewZabala's extraordinary book strikes at the very heart of our spiritual predicament. From austerity politics to security measures, everything is legitimized with the axiom that we live in a state of emergency. The first task of the critique of ideology today is thus to dispel this myth of emergency—something that Zabala does brilliantly, combining theoretical stringency with immense readability. -- Slavoj Žižek, author of
Less Than Nothing and
Absolute RecoilWhy is the absence of emergency the greatest emergency? This question is at the heart of Zabala's new book, which develops further his "ontology of remnants," i.e., what remains of Being in the twenty-first century. Art, like communism, is not an aesthetic or political subject matter for Zabala but rather an ontological event where Being emerges as remnants. This is why instead of aesthetic contemplation he calls for existential interventions meant to change the world. The art world, as well as the philosophical community, will benefit from Zabala's best book so far. -- Gianni Vattimo, author of
Art's Claim to Truth and
Of RealitySantiago Zabala's
Why Only Art Can Save Us is a crucial publication for anyone concerned about the future and necessity of art in the twenty-first century. Its main claim is that the possibility of art lies in its aesthetics of emergency. Although we live in a time of social, political, and environmental emergencies, Zabala makes the convincing case that we tend to repress the emergencies we live in. The aesthetics of emergency discloses the concealment of emergency as the essential emergency, helping us to recover the sense of emergency. This aesthetics proposes a major shift in our understanding of art, which is less about representation than existence. -- Christine Ross, author of
The Past Is the Present; It’s the Future Too: The Temporal Turn in Contemporary Art and
The Aesthetics of Disengagement: Contemporary Art and DepressionSantiago Zabala's new book is a timely and provocative exploration of art in the age of emergency. Today, the real emergency we face is not so much the populist emergencies of media spectacles that confront us ad nauseum day in and day out; rather, it is the emergency that arises from concealing the destruction and oppression that neoliberal democracy, militarism, and global capitalism inflict. It is here where art can save us.
Why Only Art Can Save Us is a major contribution to political philosophy and the philosophy of art. -- Adrian Parr, author of
Birth of a New Earth and
The Wrath of CapitalWhy Only Art Can Save Us examines art that is in touch with the contemporary world, a world that, however you assess such things, is surely in crisis. * Los Angeles Review of Books *
Santiago Zabala has written a profound and important work that responds to some of the most demanding issues of our day. * Singapore Review of Books *
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. The Emergency of Aesthetics
2. Emergency Through Art
3. Emergency Aesthetics
Afterword
Notes
Index
