Saturday, June 4th, 9.30 – 11.15, at Università di Verona, Room 1.1
Abstract:
Traditionally, political art has been considered to follow a pattern, in which it aims in superseding the hegemonic imagery with its own, “more truthful”, images. It presupposes an audience that is ignorant of the ”truth”. However, as Jacques Rancière has pointed out in The Emancipated Spectator (2009), this model only repeats the existing pattern: by replacing the hegemonic imagery with another imagery, it aims in emancipating the audience, but fails to change the system. In short, the traditional political art relies on a certain model of “violence”, where only one “truth” is allowed. In my paper, I will look into the possibilities to approach the problem of political art from another angle. I will will take on Maurice Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology of art and in particular his concept of ”seeing with” in order to elaborate a new understanding of the spectator–artwork -relation. From the Merleau-Pontian perspective, the artwork is not set to “reveal” a pre-set truth for the ignorant “pupil”, but the work engages the spectator in a reciprocal relation. In my paper, I will demonstrate the Merleau-Pontian approach also with examples from the field of contemporary art.
