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Aesthetics and Politics

2010; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 24; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/13600826.2010.485560

1469-798X

Lola Frost,

Art, Politics, and Modernism

Abstract This article approaches the relationship between aesthetics and politics from a particular perspective, one to some extent articulated by Jacques Rancière. For Rancière aesthetic practices are informed by what he calls the aesthetic regime. In extending Rancière's insights, I proceed from the assumption that aesthetic experience has a double character where artworks render thought foreign to itself and invite reflection on a range of political and discursive predicaments and thereby also engage issues pertinent to International Relations (IR). In this paper I sketch the contours of the aesthetic regime and its deployment in a selection of postcolonial and postmodern works of art and offer some thoughts on how this regime is implicated in global politics and how it relates to, and differs from, what has been termed the aesthetic turn in IR. My argument is that the performative and disruptive politics of aesthetic practices are at odds with all reflective and interpretive practices, even if both disruption and reflection are components of aesthetic experience. In making this claim I hope to make a contribution to understanding how the products and practices of the aesthetic regime not only service the provision of insights about the predicaments of global or international politics but also are the enactment of a politics that prevaricates between sense and understanding. Notes 1. Roland Bleiker, “The Aesthetic Turn in International Political Theory”, Millennium Journal of International Studies, Vol. 30, No. 3 (2001), pp. 509–533. 2. Ibid., p. 511. 3. See Gerald Holden's paper titled “Cinematic IR, the Sublime and the Indistinctness of Art”, Millennium Journal of International Studies, Vol. 34, No. 3 (2006), pp. 793–818. 4. For the former, see Michael Shapiro, “The Sublime Today: Re-partitioning the Global Sensible”, Millennium Journal of International Studies, Vol. 34, No. 3 (2006), pp. 657–681. For the latter, see Vivienne Jabri, “Shock and Awe: Power and the Resistance of Art”, Millennium Journal of International Studies, Vol. 34, No. 3 (2006), pp. 819–839. 5. Cerwyn Moore, “Reading the Hermeneutics of Violence: The Literary Turn and Chechnya”, Global Society, Vol. 20, No. 2 (2006), pp. 179–198. 6. Stephen Chan, The End of Certainty: Towards a New Internationalism (London: Zed Books, 2009). 7. Roland Bleiker, “The Aesthetic Turn in International Political Theory”, Millennium Journal of International Studies, Vol. 30, No. 3 (2001), pp. 509–533. 8. Roland Bleiker, Aesthetics and World Politics (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009). 9. Ibid. 10. Ibid., p. 186. 11. Ibid., p. 47. 12. Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method (London: Sheed & Ward, 1975). 13. Ibid., p. 18. 14. Jacques Rancière, The Politics of Aesthetics (London: Continuum, 2004), p. 13. 15. Ibid., p. 23. 16. Ibid., p. 24. 17. Ibid., p. 23. 18. Ibid. 19. Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Judgement (trans. James Creed Meredith) (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1952), p. 212. 20. Karin Fry, “Aesthetics and Politics in the Philosophy of Jean-François Lyotard”, Unpublished research paper presented at the Millennium conference “Between Fear and Wonder: International Politics, Representation, and ‘the Sublime’” at the London School of Economics, 2005, p. 3. 21. Nicholas Bourriaud, Altermodern: Tate Triennial Catalogue (London: Tate Publishing, 2009) (unpaginated text). 22. See the Siemon Allen website (2008), , Weaves. The Birds. Also found at , Siemon Allen (both accessed 25 November 2009). 23. Tate Modern website (2009), . Nicholas Hlobo (see page 2 artthob.com and flickr.com images) (both accessed 25 November 2009). 24. Kerryn Greenberg, Tate Modern exhibition pamphlet for the Nicholas Hhlobo Exhibition (London: Tate Publishing, 2009). 25. See the Michael Stevenson Gallery website: , Recent Works, 4 September to 11 October 2008 (accessed 25 November 2009). 26. See the Jeremy Wafer website, , page 2 (accessed 25 November 2009). See also Lola Frost, Jeremy Wafer: Artist's Book (Johannesburg: David Krut Publishing, 2001). 27. See the Michael Stevenson Gallery website: , Nollywood, 15 January to 21 February 2009 (accessed 25 November 2009). 28. See the Michael Stevenson Gallery website: (accessed 25 November 2009). 29. See , MarcusCoates/ the Plover'sWing/ or , Marcus Coates, The Plover's Wing (accessed 25 November 2009). 30. See Stephen Friedman Gallery website: (accessed 25 November 2009). 31. In comparing the paintings of Cy Twombly and the writings of Kenneth Waltz, Christine Sylvester makes a similar point in her paper titled “Art, Abstraction, and International Relations”, Millennium Journal of International Studies, Vol. 30, No. 3 (2001), pp. 535–554. 32. Mervyn Frost makes this case in his book Global Ethics: Anarchy, Freedom and International Relations (London: Routledge, 2009).