Abstrakt
Should politically concerned and engaged artistic productions disregard questions of aesthetic reception and value? Whether art should be "aesthetic" or "political" is not a new issue. In spite of the several contemporary approaches to it, the answer is not set in stone and the debate is still ongoing.
This book aims to broaden the debate. It stems from numerous conversations with politically engaged artists and artist collectives about the 'aestheticisation of politics' and the 'politicisation of art,' as well as the phenomenon of 'unhealthy aestheticism' in political art.
This study has three interrelated aims: first, it aims to offer an interdisciplinary account of the relationship between art and politics and between the aesthetic and the political. Second, it attempts to explore what exactly makes the production of art a strong-yet neglected-form of political critique when democratic political agency, history from below and identity politics are threatened.
Finally, it illuminates the relationship between critical political theory and the philosophy of art by highlighting various artworks' moral, political and epistemic ability to reveal, criticise, problematise and intervene in our political reality.