I offer an analysis of the role played by consideration of an item's functions when it is judged aesthetically. The account applies also to artworks, of which some serve extrinsic functions (such as the glorification of God and the communication of religious lore) and others have the function of being contemplated for their own sake alone. Along the way, I deny that aesthetic judgements fit the model of judgements either of free beauty or of dependent beauty, given how these two (...) came to be described in the early twentieth century. (shrink)

In this introduction to The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism special issue on the aesthetics of creative activism, we canvas influential scholarship of political aesthetics to sculpt a broad typology of six interconnected mechanisms by which art might intervene in the world. We label these: Documentation, Disruption, Recognition, Participation, Imagination, and Beauty. Each has a compelling tradition of theory and application, augmented, extended, and sometimes challenged by the thirteen fresh and provocative contributions in the special issue. Yet, we ask, (...) if both politically minded artists and culturally minded activists are convinced of the power of art to provoke social change, and if we live a world that by almost all measures is now saturated with politically inclined, aesthetically informed practices, interfaces, objects, and texts, why does art not seem to be making a difference? Clearly, we need to think harder about the relationships between art and action, a task the articles assembled here call upon us to take seriously. (shrink)

The rejection of beauty from a political standpoint is a significant part of the legacy of avant-gardism in contemporary art. In particular, Arthur Danto signaled that artistic activism should avoid beauty simply because beauty induces the wrong perspective on whatever it is desired to have an impact upon. While artistic beauty’s tendency would be to heal, he claimed, political protest needs anger as its trigger. This article challenges such an argument that opposes beauty’s emotional effects on political action by examining (...) the complex nature of both beauty and anger. I contest a mere contemplative view of beauty and, using Carolyn Korsmeyer’s account of “terrible beauties,” bound up with discomforting emotions, I defend that beauty can be compatible with anger albeit, in order to be politically truly effective, anger must move from the wish to punish toward more productive forward-looking thoughts. Though often being necessary as a source of motivation to fight for justice, I believe, with Martha Nussbaum and Myisha Cherry, that anger is truly politically effective and keeps its noble side when detached from revenge and directed by hope, a value related to beauty. (shrink)