Contemporary Art - Beautiful or Sublime. Kant in Rancière, Lyotard and Deleuze, Stephen Zepkedoc

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Avello Publishing Journal Vol. 1, No. 1. 2011

Contemporary art - beautiful or sublime?

Kant in Rancire, Lyotard and Deleuze.

Stephen ep!e, "ni#ersity of $ienna.

Recent French aesthetic theory remains fixated on the realm of sensation that was laid out for art by

Kant. We might find this surprising given that art since the end of the 60s and with uchamp

earlier too! a path that re"ected sensation #or at least challenged its privilege$ in favor of

conceptual and political practices that mixed art with philosophy% mass&media% information

technology and the rest of the world. 'oday% there are no expectations that art should be a specific

medium% (uite the opposite% and if it is to be considered )contemporary) it must include a minimum

of conceptual * political techni(ues and ob"ectives. +t is therefore somewhat ironic% given their

importance to art theory today% that the aesthetics of ,ac(ues Ranci-re% ,ean&Franois /yotard and

illes eleu1e remain largely concerned with the legacy of Kant. 2oth /yotard and eleu1e place

Kant)s experience of the sublime at the base of their aesthetics and indeed their ontology% while

Ranci-re condemns them for this% and favors Kant)s category of the beautiful. 'racing these

differences provides a Kantian topology of contemporary aesthetics% and reveals some of the deeper

implications these different philosophies of difference have for contemporary art and aesthetics.

Ranci-re develops his )politics of aesthetics) in the wa!e of Foucault)s historici1ation of Kant)s

'ranscendental 3esthetic. Following Foucault% Ranci-re claims there is an aestheticsat the core of

politics that operates )as the system of a priori forms determining what presents itself to sense

experience) #4005 7$. 'his )partition of the sensible) determines the conditions of possibility for

what can be seen and said% thereby establishing the rules for belonging to a given community.

8olitics is the articulation of a )disagreement) with these rules and conditions% it is the emergence of

a )part that has no part) in statements that manage to force their way in to produce a new and e(ual

)common) space. irectly concerned with the sensible as such% the avant&garde movements of art

into life #postmodern non&art$ and life into art #modernist art for art)s sa!e$ converge )in the same

initial !ernel) #4009: 75$. 'his )!ernel) is their shared attempt to )reframe material and symbolic

space) by creating a )dissensus) #4009: 45&;$. 2oth of these movements create a )fissure in the

sensible order by confronting the established framewor! of perception% thought% and action with the

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)inadmissible)) #4005:


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'his eradication of conflict between modern and postmodern aesthetic strategies% Ranci-re argues%

wor!s both ways. An the one hand% the concentration on )pure form) in modernism is not an

insistence on material at the expense of life% but the creation of a radically democratic heteronomous

sensation that becomes )the constitutive instrument for a new dBcor of living). An the other% the

)politici1ation) of art is not achieved by art simply supporting a political movement% but by bringing

art into the everyday so as to achieve )a revolution in the very mode of production of material life)

#4009: 77$. +n this very positive sense% art&into&life is more than simply the angry erasure of art)s

heteronomy% "ust as art for art)s sa!e is more than solipsistic self&reflexivity% as both draw upon

aspects of the other in directly contributing to the construction of a new sensibility. 3s a result% both

sides of the modern*postmodern opposition operate through the same )founding paradox)% one

Ranci-re continually repeats> )art is art insofar as it is also non&art% or is something other than art)#4009: 76% see also 400: )'here is no

postmodern rupture. 'here is a contradiction that is originary and unceasingly at wor!) #4009: 76$.

Ranci-re offers Dchiller)s )aesthetic state) as the )first manifesto) of the aesthetic

regime #4005: 45$. 'his aesthetic state mar!s both the )fundamental identity) and the )dual

cancellation) of an active thought and a passive receptivity of sensible matter in the )free&play) of the

faculties #4005: 45% 4=$.+t is this )play) that ma!es beautiful art adhere )to a sensorium different to

that of domination) #4009: 70$. +n this way% Ranci-re argues% Dchiller )translates) Kant)s aesthetics

into political propositions #4009: 7$% because aesthetic play creates )the material reali1ation of an

unconditional freedom and pure thought in common forms of life and belief) #4005: 4=$. 'hese

common forms% whether generated by a heteronomous modernist art or a postmodern art of the

everyday% offer an experience )which appears as the germ of a new humanity% of a new form of

individual and collective life) #4009 74$. Ranci-re)s understanding of Dchiller)s )aesthetic state) is the

way he transforms art into )real) politics% most importantly by by&passing )representation)>

1Elsewhere Ranci-re suggests the Kantian concept of the )aesthetic idea) as a )representation of the imagination

which induces much thought% yet without the possibility of any definitive thought whatever% i.e.% concept% beingade(uate to it) #40 5$.

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'he suspension of power% the neither...nor... specific to the aesthetic state announcesa wholly new revolution: a revolution in the forms of sensory existence% instead of a

simple upheaval of the forms of state> a revolution that is no mere displacement ofpowers% but a neutrali1ation of the very forms by which power is exercised% overturning

other powers and having themselves overturned. 3esthetic free play or neutrali1ation defines a novel mode of experience that bears within it a new form of )sensible)

universality and e(uality #4009: 99$.3lthough Ranci-re)s affirmation of Dchiller)s )aesthetic state) conveniently accounts for a modernist

heterogeneous sensation and postmodern conceptual autonomy within the same paradigm or

)regime)% it is also confronted by the eruption in Kant and in recent French aesthetic theory of

another aesthetic state% the sublime. +n /yotard)s and eleu1e)s affirmation of the sublime the free

play of the faculties is overturned% and the sensus communis is gleefully and irremediably

shattered. +n their place emerges difference in itself% a super&sensible but nevertheless immanent

element that is the vital and virtual principle of sensation% a sensation&event that is expressed oractuali1ed in an art wor! ade(uate to its sublime dimensions. Ranci-re will condemn both /yotard

and eleu1e for their sublime aesthetics% as we will see% and it is through these various

confrontations that it might be possible to begin a mapping of the aesthetics and politics of the

present.

/yotard)s commitment to the radical heterogeneity of odern art is immediately obvious in his

championing of 2arnett Gewman. /yotard argues that Gewman)s paintings give an atemporal

experience of the )here and now)% an experience that is sublime because it )dismantles) consciousness

#99: 90$. espite its sublimity /yotard distinguishes Gewman)s wor! from Romanticism because

it doesn)t see! to represent a )beyond) and so mourn its passing% but tries )tobe a visual event in

itself) #99: )'he current of )abstract) painting has its source%) /yotard claims% )in the

re(uirement for indirect and all but ungraspable allusion to the invisible in the visible. 'he sublime%

and not the beautiful% is the sentiment called forth by these wor!s) #99: 46$.

2/yotard writes% )a differend ?diffrend@ would be a case of conflict% between #at least$ two parties% that cannot bee(uitably resolved for lac! of a rule of "udgment applicable to both arguments) #9


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/yotard sees this sublime avant&garde as resisting two connected and contemporary

phenomena% the functionality and imperative for profit of neoliberal capitalism% and the postmodern

eclecticism of the )transavantgarde).7Functionality and surplus operate% according to /yotard% as

contemporary a priori criteria of our experience of reality% and privilege innovation through their

dependence on a )technology of time). 'he demand for constant innovation in the production and

consumption of experience replace the )now) with the contemporary a priori of the )new)% and

obscure the sublime event in the )transparent) and )natural) experience of what we now call a

)flexible) transcendental sub"ectivity #99: 0=$. 'he transavantgarde mixture of styles )s(uanders)

the tradition of the avant&garde% /yotard argues% because it )encourages the eclecticism of

consumption). 'his homogeni1ation of experience in the general e(uivalency of capital lac!s taste%

/yotard (uips% because it expresses )the spirit of the supermar!et shopper) #99: 4=$.

/yotard echoes Walter 2en"amin)s famous thesis that painting turned to abstractionbecause photography too! over the tas! of representation. 8hotography (uic!ly became a )popular)

art% and its technology became integral to the production of visual commodities. +n this sense

photography defines a popular aesthetics of the beautiful because it )appeals to a taste: a sort of

common sense) uniting a capitalist sensibility and its rational understanding in a disinterested

pleasure #99: 44$. 'his ma!es postmodern art )realist) in the sense that it upholds the

)communication codes) of society% the mass&media and associated information technologies% and so

conforms to a consensual and commodified )beauty)#9 )the beauty of Hoyager

++) #99: 44$. odern abstract painting is therefore political in )presenting that there is something

that is not presentable according to the legitimate construction)% and in doing so it )reveals that the

field of vision simultaneously conceals and needs the invisible) #99 4;$. )'he artwor!%) /yotard

writes% )brea!s with convention% with the commonplace% with the flow) #400 ;0$% ma!ing the

political function of the sublime diffrendthe negation of the consensual aesthetics of the beautiful

#9

3'he transavantgarde was an art movement championed by 3chille 2onito Aliva in the late =0s that reacted to the

previous decade)s emphasis on conceptual and political practices with a return to painting% but one that now mixedtogether all manner of historical styles.

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'he analysis of the beautiful allows one to hope for the advent of a sub"ect as unity of

the faculties% and for a legitimation of the agreement of real ob"ects with the authenticdestination of this sub"ect% in the +dea of nature. 3 meteor dropped into the wor!

devoted to this twofold pro"ect% the 3nalytic of the Dublime% a Jmere appendix% seems

to put an end to these hopes. Let what is of interest in sublime feeling is precisely whatdetonates this disappointment #995: ;9&60$.

'he sublime% /yotard claims% )is nothing more than a sensus which is undetermined% but de jure>

it is a sentimental anticipation of the republic) #9

'he despair of never being able to present something within reality on the scale of the

+dea then overrides the "oy of being nonetheless called upon to do so. We are more

depressed by the abyss that separates heterogeneous genres of discourse ?ie.% sensibilityand reason@ than excited by the indication of a possible passage from one to the other

#9


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both absence and presence% a diffrend to which the avant&garde consistently bears witness> )'he

message is the presentation% but it presents nothing> it is% presence) #99: )+t ta!es place in

the world as its initial difference% as the beginning of its history. +t does not belong to this world

because it begets it% it falls from a prehistory% or from an a&history. 'he paradox is that of

performance% or occurrence) #99:


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/yotard believes% because it obliges us to give way all personal interest% to subside in front of its

event% to be disinterested. 'his ethical art demands that you )be answerable to the /aw and you must

be unable to answer) #4005: 0$. 'his inability to answer has )the force of an obligation)% an

obligation issued by the 'hingtolisten. +n this sense the art wor! is )the silent feeling that signals a

differend remains to be listened to) #9 the painting is that sound% an

accord) #99: )'he same ought to

apply for a revolution% and for all great historical upheavals: they are what is formless and without

figure in historical human nature) #9


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chasm that founds the world% the irreducible diffrend that demands "ustice% and that gives to the

world its "oyful pain% as Giet1sche would say% the pain of childbirth.

For /yotard the sublime is a pure sensory event acting as a sign for what exceeds any

possible thought. 'his )radical re&reading) of Kant gives the avant&garde% Ranci-re claims% )the

paradoxical duty of bearing witness to an immemorial dependency of human thought that ma!es

any promise of emancipation a deception) #400: 70$. WhyM 2ecause in /yotard)s version of the

sublime reason)s inability to conceive of matter and its events causes it to brea! down% powerless%

while in Kant imagination)s collapse clears the way for Reason)s power #4009: 94$. 'hus% in Kant%

the sublime leads us from the autonomy of the beautiful experience to a )superior autonomy)% that of

reason and the super&sensible world. )/yotard%) Ranci-re says% )turns this logic strictly on its head)

#4009: 97$. +f% Ranci-re argues% )the aesthetic condition is enslavement to the aistheton) #/yotard

(uoted by Ranci-re 4009: 97$% then the avant&garde event can only bear witness to its own

paradoxical alterity. 3s a result% )/yotard ma!es this passage out of the realm of art the very law of

art) #4009: 4=$. 'his is why aesthetics and politics are obliterated in /yotard by ethics% because the

singularity of the sensation simply )becomes a submission to the law of the Ather) #4009: 4


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Ludovisi$. 'he statue% he claims% both attracts us and ma!es us recoil% calms and agitates us. )'here

is then%) Ranci-re argues% )no rupture between an aesthetics of the beautiful and an aesthetics of the

sublime. issensus% i.e. the rupture of a certain agreement between thought and the sensible% already

lies at the core of aesthetic agreement and repose) #4009: 9


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heterogeneity as the ethical mechanism of art% but he does not efface his criti(ue of capitalism in

mourning. +n fact it is Ranci-re)s wor! that has been critici1ed for its lac! of any account of political

economy% and it is true that he does not clearly articulate how artistic dissensus might effectively

engage with the commodification of visual culture #see Dhaviro 4006$. 'here is the suspicion that

)dissensus) could be another name for capitalist )innovation)% and that its )resistance) is merely the

research and development arm of commodity production. +f this is true then we are right to consider

the more radical aesthetic attac!s on capitalism proposed by /yotard and eleu1e.

Do although Ranci-re)s reading of /yotard effectively restricts him to occupying only

one side of his own aesthetic regime% it also highlights aspects of Ranci-re)s regime that from

/yotard)s perspective remain problematic. 'he first is the way Ranci-re relativi1es any

heterogeneity by ma!ing it a political force that emerges from and aims towards the shared

sensibility of a common discursive regime. 'his last is finally Ranci-re)s basic condition fordemocracy% which remains the condition for aesthetics and politics% and what is effaced in

Ranci-re)s view by /yotard #and as we)ll see eleu1e)s$ turn to ethics. 2ut this means% it seems% that

there is no room for radical exteriority within Ranci-re)s aesthetic politics and its discursive regime.

+n fact he insists that there is nothing that is unrepresentable% including the Nolocaust #4009: 46$.

+n this way he posits the dissensual democracy of his aesthetic regime as the best response to our

contemporary demands for a philosophy of immanence. 2ut is this really the caseM +t seems to me

that from another perspective /yotard% in a way very similar to eleu1e% locates an interior outside

#the inhuman$ as the genetic difference that insures immanence remains ontologically #rather than

discursively$ "ustified. +n this sense the search for )"ustice) that Ranci-re seems to find offensive in

/yotard)s aesthetics #and in eleu1e)s% see 4005b 6$ is neither a moral cause% nor does it necessarily

replace political activism with passivity% but instead acts as a stimulant to life in Giet1sche)s sense% a

stimulant by which the given produces something new and un!nown. 'his is the )"ustice) by which

the )Figure disappears) in the )Dahara)% according to eleu1e% the )"ustice) of overcoming the human

in the sublime #4007: 4=$.

+n this sense the aim of aesthetics and politics in /yotard and eleu1e is not to produce

a new sensual community% a new political body whose discursive framewor! allows it to negotiate

relative differences% but instead aesthetics aspolitics #or ethics$ would introduce an immanent

outside% a difference that was productive inasmuch as it was absolute and iteternally returned. +n

this sense it is somewhat surprising that Ranci-re does not spend more time reading /yotard)s other

aesthetic writings% those which do not insist on the pre&eminence of painting% and so do not fall so

easily into the modernist side of his aesthetic regime. For example /yotard)s boo! on uchamp

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explores the event through an ironic and playful )politics of incommensurables) #990: 4


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sublime.5

eleu1e and /yotard share an interest in the sublime% but their understanding of it is not

entirely the same. +n fact their respective readings of the sublime reveal both the closeness and

distance between their wor!. 2oth thin!ers will attempt to integrate the Kantian difference between

the faculties of the super&sensible and the sensible into an ontology of sensation. 2ut while both

began from a monist ontology of immanence% /yotard will increasingly utili1e the sublime as part

of a dualist understanding of the 'hing and its sensible event. +n fact% in Anti!edipus eleu1e

and uattarioffer precisely this criticism of /yotard)s Discours, Figure% which effectively

anticipates their subse(uent differences. 3fter some very positive comments praising /yotard and

his concept of the )figural)% )which carries us to the gates of schi1ophrenia as a process)% eleu1e and

uattari drop a heavy )but). "ut% they write% /yotard too often returns this process )toward shores he

has so recently left behind)% bac! to the discursive structures and spaces in relation to which these

processes can only be secondary )transgressions) a coded insult referring to eleu1e)s dismissal of

2ataille. 'his is predominantly achieved% they continue% because )/yotard reintroduces lac! and

absence into desire> maintains desire under the law of castration% at the ris! of restoring the entire

signifier along with the law) #9


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hand will% li!e /yotard% see in the sublime experience the emergence of a sensation that is beyond

human comprehension% but this will not be understood according to the irreducible dualism of the

diffrend and its demand for "ustice% but as the inhuman emergence of an +dea% an immanent

principle of reason acting as the real condition of the appearance of a transcendental field or

)individuation).

eleu1e)s reading of Kant begins from the ob"ection that Kant)s a prioriprinciples of the

understanding were traced from the psychological structures of perception% and so failed to discover

experience)s real and genetic conditions #995: 7;$. Kant)s third Criti(ue anticipates these

ob"ections )at least in part)% inasmuch as it )uncovers the ultimate ground still lac!ing in the other

two Criti(ues) #4004: 6$. 'he ground it discovers is the faculties) )free agreement% indeterminate

and unconditional)% meaning that )with the #riti$ue of Judgment% we step into enesis) #4004:

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simultaneously reproduce this infinity of parts, which it cannot synthesi1e into a single experience.

Nere eleu1e follows Kant)s account of the aesthetic synthesis% which determines a unit of measure.

3n aesthetic synthesis is made up from sub"ective "udgments Kant claims% because its unit of

measure is always our body. 2ut in the face of the )absolutely great) this aesthetic synthesis brea!s

down% forcing us to turn to the +deas% which can thin! the infinity of the )absolutely great) even if the

imagination cannot apprehend it. Nere% the sublime gives rise to )a feeling of a super&sensible

faculty within us) #Kant> 9


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vanity of any fraternal dream) #400:


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)logic of sensation) from Romanticism and )establishes it in another territory) closer to pragmatism or

English empiricism. #4005a ;=$. 3rt in this sense is the experience of the super&sensible sensible%

)an experience of the heteronomy of /ife with respect to the human) #400:


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the identity of the infinite power of difference and the indifference of the +nfinite. 3nd the (uestion

remains: how can one ma!e a difference in the political community with this indifferenceM) #4005a

67$. 'he argument is very similar to that Ranci-re aims at /yotard> when the difference between

aesthetics and politics disappears in the ethical necessity% or )"ustice) of a sublime disruption of the

human% aesthetics can get no further than a continual re&enactment of the art&wor!s hysterical de&

figuration of the human% and )the interminable postponement or deferral of the promised fraternity)

#4005b ; and 4005a 64$. Ranci-re finds such pointless absolutism distasteful% he prefers the

constant discursive negotiations of contemporary art over a )beautiful) sensus communisto the

violent absolutism of the modernist sublime.

#onclusion

Ane might say at this point that Ranci-re was (uite entitled to his opinion% and leave it at that. Go

doubt one could say the same of eleu1e and /yotard% whether one wanted to choose one over the

other or not. Certainly it is in Ranci-re)s favour that he elucidates the terms of this choice very

clearly. 2ut he does so% it must be said% through a final moment of bad conscience% the very same

one as that offered by another of eleu1e and /yotard)s colleagues in the philosophy department at

8aris H+++% 3lain 2adiou. 3ccording to this #in$famous reading of eleu1e% and here Ranci-re

parrots it exactly% )"ustice) for eleu1e is )conceived on the 8latonic model) whereby the virtual +deas

remain transcendent in relation to the material field of immanence they determine #4005a 67$. 3s a

result% and it is a searing indictment> )We do not go on% from the multitudinous incantation of 2eing%

toward any political "ustice. /iterature opens no passage to a eleu1ean politics) #4005a 65$. +n

fact% Ranci-re implies% because of this residual 8latonic transcendence there is no eleu1ian

politics.

What is interesting about this conclusion is that although it emerges from Ranci-re)s

mutually exclusive opposition of ethics and politics% it seems to imply a deeper opposition% also

mutually exclusive% between ontology and politics. +t is as if what really attracts Ranci-re to Kant)s

concept of the beautiful is that it remains undetermined by absolute +deas% or% in other words% by

ontological assumptions. +nstead there are only the discursive regimes constituting empirical reality

#the a priorisof the understanding$% and the )beautiful) aesthetic statements capable of disagreeing

with them. 'his effectively removes ontological commitments from the field of both aesthetics and

politics% "ust as it dis(ualifies any )ontological) understanding of the aesthetic realm of discursive

engagement.

We are presented with a choice then% between an ontological understanding of Kant)s

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aesthetics and a political one. 2oth eleu1e and /yotard will use the concept of the sublime to re&

orient aesthetics towards the ontological eruption #sensation$ of an absolute difference between the

human and the inhuman% or% in other words% between the sensible and the super&sensible. For

/yotard this difference will forever return through the impossibility of ever breaching it% while in

eleu1e it will forever return in privileged moments capable of living it. For both these )eternal

returns of difference) will be art. For Ranci-re on the other hand such returns are not only

impossible% they are a denial of politics. 2ut here politics is no longer understood in the extreme

ontological terms of the other two thin!ers% where politics is nothing else but the ethical obligation

of art #and philosophy$ to produce inhuman transformation% but is instead seen as a discursive

process negotiating the given conditions of existence. 'he production of aesthetic )dissensus) in this

sense negotiates what is seeable and sayable% but does not challenge the transcendental and still&

human conditions of seeing and saying as such. eleu1e and /yotard will sweep such a priorisaway in the pure heterogeneity of an event.

From this we can see why contemporary artists and activists are attracted to Ranci-re)s

wor!. 'hey share a set of assumptions and aims% and although Ranci-re)s insistence on the political

value of modernist painting% and his commitment to the avant&gardes and the )beautiful) sound odd

in the context of contemporary art% his affirmation of aesthetic production undetermined by

conceptual or ethical*ontological conditions of possibility% and art)s conse(uent ability to intervene

within the public sphere appeals directly to the current enthusiasm for politically engaged artisticpractice. Dimilarly% Ranci-re)s discussion of contemporary art wor!s and artists seems to repay in

!ind his upta!e by the contemporary art world. +n this respect his wor! feels far more )current) than

that of eleu1e and /yotard with their archaic affirmations of painting% and in eleu1e and

uattari)s case their re"ection of Conceptual art #995 9


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that of our theorist of choice% for this is the only way no matter who we choose that our choice

might ma!e a difference.

%iblio&raphy

2rassier% Ray #400=$% 'ihil (nbound, )nlightenment and )*tinction. /ondon: 8algrave.

eleu1e% illes #9=


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'ranslated by . 2ennington and 2. assumi. inneapolis: innesota Tniversity 8ress.

/yotard% ,ean&Franois #9


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Dhaviro% Dteven #400=$% )Ranci-re)% in his blog %he &inocchio %heory. 3vailable at>

http:**www.shaviro.com*2log*MpU60

Dlaughter% arty #4005$% )'he 3rc and the Vip: eleu1e and /yotard on 3rt)% in La9 and

#riti$ue;.

Wa!efield% ,ason. #400$. %he %ic>lish Subject evie9. +nternational ,ournal of iek Dtudies.

Hol. 5% Go. 5.

Vep!e% Dtephen #400

Documents

Contemporary Art - Beautiful or Sublime. Kant in Rancière, Lyotard and Deleuze, Stephen Zepkedoc