Extraits
[...] In Nazi Germany, the relationship to art and aesthetics was expressed not only through the aestheticization of politics (through the propaganda of Riefenstahl, Goebbels or Speer), but also through the politicization of art. For example, Goebbels, the Reich Minister of Education and Propaganda, exercised total control over literature, theatre, cinema, the press, and radio in order to manipulate the people. Art, as a mass product, is therefore a means to achieve a political goal. This idea of politics as a means to an aesthetic end is also very present in Hitler's book "Mein Kampf". [...]
[...] Some other philosophers and critical thinkers, like the French philosopher Jacques Rancière, make the distinction between the "aesthetics of politics" and the "politics of aesthetics." Although the two formulas are reversible, they are philosophically and ideologically opposed. According to Rancière, politics has always been aesthetic, creating subjectivities to make it perfect and flawless. and aesthetics is political not by accident, but by essence. In "Between Past and Future," the philosopher Hannah Arendt draws an analogy between aesthetics and politics, an analogy that serves to emphasize that, in both spheres of activity, it is the human capacity for judgment that is at work. [...]
[...] Therefore, every exaggerated investment by a state in aesthetic displays for its own sake must be interpreted as a clear sign that it is concealing vital issues from public opinion. In short, political aesthetics unfolds through an immense variety of aesthetic strategies and at different scales, from the most sophisticated to the simplest. The function of the arts in politics is not primarily propaganda, pure manipulation, or mere rhetoric. If a new definition of political art is necessary, it is also necessary to define its contours and limits. Hence the ambiguity surrounding the boundary between the aestheticization of politics and the politicization of art. [...]
[...] In Nazi Germany, the relationship to art and aesthetics was expressed not only through the aestheticization of politics (through the propaganda of Riefenstahl, Goebbels, or Speer), but also through the politicization of art. For example, Goebbels, the Reich Minister of Education and Propaganda, exercised total control over literature, theatre, cinema, the press, and radio in order to manipulate the masses. Art, as a mass product, is therefore a means to achieve a political goal. This idea of politics as a means to an aesthetic end is also very present in Hitler's book "Mein Kampf." This book also contains numerous statements on aesthetics (such as the drawing of the swastika) and emphasizes aesthetic policies based on race. [...]
[...] Essay: Is there a difference between the aestheticization of politics and the politicisation of art? This theme confronts two concepts: the aestheticization of politics, that is, the instrumentalization of art in the service of political (and often totalitarian) power that valorizes the values of ritual, genius, and eternity associated with the work of art, and the politicization of art, that is, the deployment of art in its political dimension, in the service of social transformation through the use of new reproduction techniques. [...]
