Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Artistic critiques of modern dictatorships

I wrote an article called Artistic critiques of modern dictatorships for the latest number of The European Legacy that discusses how under a political dictatorship it is primarily from the margins that an artistic critique can be articulated, as suggested by the examples presented  from Romania and Chile during the 1970s and 1980s. By focusing on their threefold marginality—of the artist, the art form, and the subject of art—and by applying to them Jacques Rancière's concept of dissensus, the analysis of artistic variants of marginality sheds light on the relationship of art and politics in totalitarian regimes.
Ion Grigorescu, La Inchisoare (In prison, 1978)