Borders

Abstract

The chapter addresses the recent proliferation of border-related visual art and the problem of resisting political power in particular. Border art is a medium that is both aesthetic and political, addressing through images the processes of de/bordering and borderscapes, as well as its potential for making visible and even subverting experiences and expectations related to the border. The chapter reviews critically several instances of border art from Europe to the United States and Canada (e.g., by Adrien Missika and Dennis Oppenheim), showing that in contemporary border art borders are a topos, that is, the anchor point of a multidimensional message. In so doing, it also highlights the links between the different aesthetic productions at the borders at the global level. The chapter claims that there is a new need to reflect on the relationship between aesthetics and politics, should an understanding of border art as a form of ‘alternative spatiality’ offering potential for subversion and critique be aimed at. What are shown as powerful ways of promoting non-consensual understandings of borders in the visual arts are works that critique the medium, not only border politics, or are non-representational.