Mapping Culture and Compromised Art in the Era of Globalization

This work presents an analysis of the cultural and artistic field, positively compromised with social and political questions. The authors start with the categorization of the idea of culture and move to vindication art movements. These movements, which followed the first vanguards and worked from the compromise with “otherness”, are at the origin of the contemporary denomination of political art. In this context, the authors approach the origins of activist art, referring to issues of gender, multiculturalism, globalization, and poverty. The different forms of presenting content are also an object of analysis: from art tradition to the contamination of daily life, from local to global, from street contact to digital.

On the troublesome relationship of feminism and terrorism: representing the female terrorist in contemporary art

This paper analyses tendencies in debates about cultural representations of terrorism to assume that artists make critical interventions, while the mass media circulates stereotypes. Some recent feminist analyses of female terrorist acts have re-instituted essentialist arguments in which violence and terrorism is described as inherently masculine, while women are by nature pacifist, so that femininity is the antithesis of militarism. More progressive analyses mostly tend to expose the circulation of stereotypes and their gender bias, in order to protest the misrepresentation of women in violence. These analyses do not construct alternative accounts. Through an analysis of two works by artists Hito Steyerl and Sharon Hayes, the paper argues that some of the moves to re-image the question of women, violence and agency have already been made in contemporary art practices. Through analysing legacies of terrorism and feminism, it becomes possible to rethink the question of agency, militancy and the nature of political art. The paper appears in an edited interdiscplinary collection arising from a conference at Universität der Bundeswehr in Munich. It relates to wider projects involving collaborations with Birkbeck and Edinburgh on representations of terrorism and on violence and contemporary art.

On the integration of Argentinian activist art at exhibition venues

This article examines the institutional integration of activist art in the aftermath of the 2001 economic crisis in Argentina. Following this aim, we begin with a description of the most significant new groups of activist art in the City of Buenos Aires. Then, we elaborate the position these new groups take up in the field with respect to their dispute with the “light art” from the 90s, and in relation to the mutual accusations over the “trend” of political art. Finally, we analyse the reception of these groups of activist art in art exhibitions in the City of Buenos Aires and abroad, and we reflect upon the institutionalization of these specific and situated aesthetic and political practices.

Reproduire pour déconstruire : le paradoxe de l'engagement dans la série Body techniques de Carey Young

La série Body Techniques (2007) a été réalisée par l’artiste britannique Carey Young dans le cadre d’une résidence offerte par la biennale de Sharjah, aux Émirats Arabes Unis. Les huit photographies de format tableau constituant la série montrent l’artiste qui, portant l’uniforme d’une femme d’affaires, réinterprète huit œuvres célèbres associées à la mouvance de l’art conceptuel. Des paysages singuliers, situés aux abords des villes de Sharjah et Dubaï, servent de toile de fond à ces actions et leur confèrent une aura futuriste. La présente analyse tâche de démontrer que la série est habitée par un paradoxe remettant en question le statut d’art engagé que l’artiste revendique pour son œuvre. Ce paradoxe se manifeste à travers trois axes, autour desquels s’articule notre réflexion : les médiations se glissant entre Body Techniques et les œuvres que la série réinterprète, la déconstruction du « médium » du paysage, et le rôle actif occupé par le dispositif photographique. Cet examen attentif de chacune des occurrences du paradoxe permet de révéler Body Techniques comme une incarnation exemplaire de la double contrainte traversant toute œuvre d’art contemporain engagé : celle permettant aux artistes de critiquer le système auquel ils participent, mais les forçant en retour à participer au système qu’ils critiquent.

The cult of the Duce: Mussolini and the Italians

This is an edited volume of essays (to which I, as one of the three joint editors, have contributed three essays) that explores the cult of Mussolini from a variety of perspectives: historical, political, art historical, literary and cinematic. Much of the focus is on the period from 1919 to 1945, but there are also sections dealing with the cult of Mussolini after the Second World War.

Artivismo: Arte + Política + Ativismo: sistemas híbridos em ação

Pós-graduação em Artes - IA

El desierto y su semilla : política e ironía

El presente artículo estudia la relación entre el arte y lo político en la novela El desierto y su semilla, de Jorge Baron Biza (2013), caracterizada por una intencionalidad irónica, porque hace uso de técnicas propias de esta figura del discurso que le permiten decir lo político difiriendo del enunciado literal. Se dejan de lado las lecturas biográficas y acudimos a los aportes de Jacques Rancière acerca de la estética elusiva, que hace al arte político y sus advertencias sobre las diversas formas en que el arte es repolitizado. Por otra parte, se tendrá en cuenta el estudio propuesto por Ana María Amar Sánchez sobre el discurso de los perdedores, para así poder complementar el estudio sobre la novela y la reflexión en torno a lo político. Por último, la intencionalidad irónica del autor se expresa en el uso de la alusión que le permite hablar de lo político, alterando así, en términos de Rancière, el dispositivo estético que vuelve a la obra subversiva.

A philosophy of performance, politics and composition

This thesis discusses socio-political issues worldwide through philosophical approaches to performance, politics and composition. My research also discuss sound decisions which I regard to be simultaneously an outlet for personal expression, as well as a practical tool to inspire a socio-political change in society. Although the latter is paramount to the methodology of the project, the sound cannot be regarded in isolation as a “political composition”. It can only become truly functional in a political sense through interaction with other art forms, within the context of a specific place and time. My portfolio for this project is of two socio-political projects which are my chief concern. The first project concerns the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I named this project PATH. PATH aims to foster and expand peaceful thought between Jewish and Palestinian civilians in Israel-Palestine. Through performance art, PATH spreads a message of acceptance, unity and brotherhood between our peoples. Above all, PATH demands and end to intolerance, hatred and violence among all the inhabitants of the State of Israel. The second project concerns women’s rights globally. I have realised that although we have come a long way in our struggle for rights for women, great challenges remain. There is a need to unite women and men against a form of oppression that discriminates against 50% of the world’s population. I called this project, For Utopia.

Mangiare insieme, un'arte politica. I banchetti dell'imperatore Taizong dei Tang

La ricerca di dottorato riguarda i banchetti tenuti dall'imperatore Taizong di Tang durante i suoi 23 anni di regno (dal 626 al 649 d.C.) e a partire da essi ho esaminato la costruzione delle istituzioni politiche e dell'ordine sociale dello Stato cinese dell'epoca, per scoprire come queste attività contribuissero, in una certa misura, alla legittimazione e all'affermazione del potere dell'imperatore stesso. Da questa premessa, sorgono una serie di domande che riguardano vari aspetti: ad esempio, cosa spinse Taizong a puntare su questi banchetti per la costruzione del suo ordine politico? Quando furono organizzati? In quali luoghi? Chi vi partecipava? E come venivano organizzati? Studiando questo tipo di attività ricreative a cui partecipavano Taizong e la sua corte, esplorerò l'evoluzione e i cambiamenti della cultura politica nella dinastia Tang (618-907 d.C.). Analizzerò come il sovrano utilizzasse i banchetti per promuovere lo sviluppo della politica statale e i rituali di corte al fine di mantenere la stabilità sociale all'interno della governance della macchina statale. Esaminerò e metterò a fuoco la relazione dinamica e simbiotica tra cibo e politica nell'antica Cina, anche facendo riferimento a semplici frammenti di cronaca relativi ai resoconti dei banchetti stessi, oltre che a concetti storiografici più generali.

"A joy for ever"; (and its price in the market): being the substance (with additions) of two lectures on the political economy of art, delivered at Manchester, July 10th and 13th, 1857.

Includes index.

The natural jurisprudence of Jean Barbeyrac: translation as an art of political adjustment

The article makes the case for redescribing Jean Barbeyrac [1674-1744], the great French translator and influential glossator of seventeenth-century Latin natural-law texts, as something quite other than a neutral mediator of Samuel Pufendorf. To consider the specific religious and political charge of his strategies as translator is to recognize the independence of Barbeyrac's Huguenot stance on natura; jurisprudence. This stance is provoked by the profound challenge that Pufendorf's radical post-Wespthalian secularizing of civil authority posed for a Huguenot: how to grant that the state had legitimate authority to regulate all external conduct, but at the same time preserve an inviolable moral space for the exercise of individual conscience. The argument--pointing to Barbeyrac's construction of a 'Lockeanized' Pufendorf--rests both on his famous presentation of Leibniz's critique of Pufendorf's De officio hominis et civis and on more neglected elements of Barbeyrac's corpus.