Martens vs. KIRAC: les extrêmes se touchent? This paper discusses the relationship between art and politics by taking Walter Benjamin’s famous formulation on the ‘politicization of art’ and the ‘aestheticization of politics’ as a starting point. The work of Dutch artist Renzo Martens and the work of art collective KIRAC are considered to be exemplifying the two sides of Benjamin’s formulation, and at the same time as representative of wider tendencies of the contemporary art world. I argue that, in their (...) extreme and contradictory positions, these sides also share a common, art-hostile moment, one that I counter with a conception of art as ‘acting as if’ (doen alsof) – with the dual dimension of acting (a form of praxis or performance) and ‘as if’ (imagined). Based on this idea of ‘acting as if’ I argue that art’s relationship to politics is one of productive contradiction. (shrink)

Thijs Lijster considers the thought of Walter Benjamin and Theodor Adorno on such key topics as the relationship between art and historical experience, between avant-garde art and mass culture, and between the intellectual and the public.

Is het niet vreemd om te zeggen dat een verhaal uit de achtste eeuw voor Christus ons iets kan vertellen over onze hedendaagse westerse cultuur? Hoe kan de beschrijving van een wereld die geregeerd wordt door goden, heksen, nimfen en allerlei mythische gedrochten bijdragen aan ons zelfbegrip? Dat is minder vreemd dan het lijkt. Juist omdat Homeros helemaal aan het begin van onze beschaving stond, kunnen wij in retrospectief herkennen wat de nieuwe wereld scheidde van de oude. De homerische epen (...) vormen een eerste definitie van de westerse cultuur, zij geven de contouren aan van een manier van denken en handelen die de wereld tot op de dag van vandaag beheerst. (shrink)

The metaphor of base and superstructure has been one of the most controversial elements in Marxist aesthetics. In this text I discuss some of the many questions it raises. Today, many theorists believe that its problems are so extensive that it has lost all plausibility. I believe, however, that in rejecting the Marxist framework, aesthetics and cultural theory risks throwing out the baby with the bath water and jeopardizes its critical potential. Drawing on the work of Fredric Jameson and Slavoj (...) Žižek, I will propose a heuristic reinterpretation of the metaphor of base and superstructure. (shrink)