Overview

The theorists of art and film commonly depict the modern audience as aesthetically and politically passive. In response, both artists and thinkers have sought to transform the spectator into an active agent and the spectacle into a communal performance. In this follow-up to the acclaimed The Future of the Image, Rancière takes a radically different approach to this attempted emancipation. First asking exactly what we mean by political art or the politics of art, he goes on to look at what the tradition of critical art, and the desire to insert art into life, has achieved. Has the militant critique of the consumption of images and commodities become, ironically, a sad affirmation of its omnipotence?

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9781844673438

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His art lies in the rigor of his argument - its careful, precise unfolding - and at the same time not treating his reader, whether university professor or unemployed actress, as an imbecile. Kristin Ross It's clear that Jacques Ranciere is relighting the flame that was extinguished for many - that is why he serves as such a signal reference today. Thomas Hirschhorn In the face of impossible attempts to proceed with progressive ideas within the terms of postmodernist discourse, Ranciere shows a way out of the malaise. Liam Gillick

"""Fruitful - persuasive argument is fleshed out through close readings of art, photography, literature."" Steven Poole, Guardian ""Ranciere's work is to insist that artworks by their nature, present what is possible, rather than actual, in human subjectivity."" JJ Charlesworth, Art Review ""His art lies in the rigor of his argument - its careful, precise unfolding - and at the same time not treating his reader, whether university professor or unemployed actress, as an imbecile."" Kristin Ross"

Author Information

Jacques Rancière is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Paris-VIII. His books include The Politics of Aesthetics, On the Shores of Politics, Short Voyages to the Land of the People, The Nights of Labor, Staging the People, and The Emancipated Spectator.

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