Political Art Criticism and the Need for Theory

Daniel Neofetou

doi:10.3390/arts10010001

Abstract

Day-to-day art criticism and art theory are qualitatively distinct. Whereas the best art criticism entails a closeness to its objects which is attuned to particularity, art theory inherently makes generalized claims, whether these claims are extrapolated from the process of art criticism or not. However, this article argues that these dynamics are effectively reversed if we consider the disparity between the criticism of so-called political art and attempts over the last century to elaborate theory which accounts for the political in art qua art. Art theory has located the political force of art precisely in the way that its particularity opposes or resists the status quo. Art criticism, on the other hand, tends to treat artwork as a text to be interpreted whose particularity may as well dissolve when translated into discourse. Drawing from the work of Theodor W. Adorno, this article argues that political art theory calls for art criticism more attuned to experience if it is to elucidate art’s critical valence.

Highlights

Whereas the best art criticism entails a closeness to its objects which is attuned to particularity, art theory inherently makes generalized claims, whether these claims are extrapolated from the process of art criticism or not
In this essay, I want to argue that these dynamics are effectively reversed if we consider the disjunction between the way in which art criticism and art theory address the question of how art might provide opposition to the status quo
When faced with paraphraseably political art—that is to say, art which levels a critique of dominant powers which is readily translated into discourse—art criticism tends to treat it on its own terms as a text to be interpreted, the logical conclusion of which approach is that the artwork’s particularity may as well dissolve

Summary

Introduction

Art Criticism and the Need for Theory. Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Trotsky, has often located the politically oppositional force of art precisely in the way that its particularity invites a kind of nonsubsumptive cognition inimical to dominant rationality As paradigmatic of such art theory, I will take the work of Theodor W. I will argue that, rather than an exceptional approach suited to the work of Forensic Architecture, the descriptive register of such criticism is symptomatic of the way in which art criticism tends to treat paraphraseably political art, addressing it on its own terms and elucidating the meanings implanted by artists. I will contend that objections that the autonomous artwork has been neutralized by commodification miss the fact that Adorno’s argument hinges on commodification releasing the artwork from instrumentality, allowing it to prefigure a relationship with otherness which is currently blocked Central to this relationship, for Adorno, is how in the experience of the artwork, cognition is inextricable from corporeality. I will conclude that, rather than the subsumptive efforts of such criticism, it is art criticism attuned to particularity, understood via the mediation of theory, which might elucidate the qualitatively distinct protest against the domination of capital of which art is capable qua art

A Surfeit of Description

Adorno’s Art Theory

The Need for Theory