The spectre of radical aesthetics in the work of Jacques Rancière

Abstract

This study aims to determine what is left of the philosophical belief in art’s potential to bring about social emancipation and change early in the 21st century. It does so by critically assessing one of the most elaborate, emphatic and influential contemporary re-assertions of this potential by French philosopher Jacques Rancière. It focuses on three components of Rancière’s writings on aesthetics and politics that are key to such an evaluation. First, his affirmation of an emancipatory core at the heart of Idealist-Romanticist aesthetics, the aesthetic works of Immanuel Kant and Friedrich von Schiller in particular. Second, his reconceptualization of autonomous and heteronomous forms of political art in the modern era. Third, his critical analyses of dominant tendencies within political art from the 1960s until today and his own proposals for a truly emancipatory contemporary art practice. With regard to the first component, the project problematizes Rancière’s return to aesthetics mainly by comparing it with theories recently articulated by other radical Leftist thinkers. It concerns theories that emphasize the contradictory political status of aesthetics as both reactionary and liberating (Terry Eagleton, Fredric Jameson) or point to a constitutive, original violence at its heart (Dave Beech & John Roberts). Based on this, I argue that Rancière’s redemptive approach toward aesthetics is too one-dimensional, resulting in an overly positive assessment of the emancipatory value of traditional conceptions of aesthetics. In relation to the second key aspect of Rancière’s political aesthetics, I demonstrate how he offers a typically third way solution to the problematic of art’s autonomy and heteronomy. He does so by integrating some of the most complex twentieth century theorizations of both autonomous (Theodor Adorno) and heteronomous positions (Peter Bürger) into a dialectical working model. I argue that, regrettably, Rancière hereby also takes on board deeply tragic views on art’s political potential, resulting in an overcautious stance towards radically heteronomous art practices. Apart from critiquing him on this score, I point to alternative conceptualizations of art’s autonomy and heteronomy more suited to thinking the key characteristics and political potential of contemporary radicalized art. As to Rancière’s critique of recent political art practices and his proposed alternative, I find it to be driven by a misguided attempt at conceiving the radical political potential of art in purely aesthetic terms to the neglect of other functions traditionally taken up by political artists such as representation and activism. I contend that not only can such a purist view on art’s politics not be upheld in fact - which even holds for Rancière’s own, alternative aesthetic politics of art - neither is it desirable if one wants to devise a robust and versatile theoretical framework for thinking contemporary politicized art. I do so by pointing to the radical political value of representational artistic strategies, as well as artistic practices that engage in activities beyond those traditionally associated with art.