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![]( "Buchcover ISBN 9780745681405")
„As our world seems to continually move from one catastrophe tothe next without a credible governing leadership, authors likeRancière... force us to conceive of politicsdifferently.“
LA Review of Books
„The equality of all before the light and the inequality ofthe little people as the great pass by are both written on the samephotographic plate.“ With this sentence, JacquesRancière effectively aligns his conception of aesthetic theoryas the always antagonistic distribution of the sensible under thesign of the demand for equality with the invention of photography. It is a beautiful and breathtaking conceit in what is, perhaps, themost beautiful of Rancière's texts. His accounts here ofthe figures of history in photography, film, and painting generally- with dazzling accounts of particular works - expand and deepen his aesthetic theory in intriguing ways. Indeed, I cannot imagine a more inviting entrée toRancière's thinking about art, history and politics thanthis little book."
J. M. Bernstein, New School for Social Research
In this important new book the leading philosopher JacquesRancière continues his reflections on the representative powerof works of art. How does art render events that have spanned anera? What roles does it assign to those who enacted them or thosewho were the victims of such events?
Rancière considers these questions in relation to the works ofClaude Lanzmann, Goya, Manet, Kandinsky and Barnett Newman, amongothers, and demonstrates that these issues are not only confined tothe spectator but have greater ramifications for the history of artitself.
For Rancière, every image, in what it shows and what ithides, says something about what it is permissible to show and whatmust be hidden in any given place and time. Indeed the image, inits act of showing and hiding, can reopen debates that the officialhistorical record had supposedly determined once and for all. Heargues that representing the past can imprison history, but itcan also liberate its true meaning.
Rancière considers these questions in relation to the works ofClaude Lanzmann, Goya, Manet, Kandinsky and Barnett Newman, amongothers, and demonstrates that these issues are not only confined tothe spectator but have greater ramifications for the history of artitself.
For Rancière, every image, in what it shows and what ithides, says something about what it is permissible to show and whatmust be hidden in any given place and time. Indeed the image, inits act of showing and hiding, can reopen debates that the officialhistorical record had supposedly determined once and for all. Heargues that representing the past can imprison history, but itcan also liberate its true meaning.
