Page 87 - Darko Štrajn, From Walter Benjamin to the End of Cinema: Identities, Illusion and Signification. Ljubljana: Educational Research Institute, 2017. Digital Library, Dissertationes, 29.
P. 87
Counter-identification and Politics of Art
Art is taking positions in the symbolic universe by affirming singularity,
which by virtue of being always some artefact (i.e. artistic fact) transcends
any particularity of the singular as such. This holds true for artistic prod-
ucts of all kinds in no matter which period of history or culture or other
relevant contexts; but really remarkably, such claim has been made possi-
ble and rather clear only in recent periods due to the profiles of art and its
“statements”.
The Ineffable
However, for some older art, such aspects have grown to be readable through
theory, which of course cannot but keep being problematic due to a spe-
cial reflexivity, which is linked to the dialectics of subjectivity. This ena-
bles some positions within the field of theories, which “assign science a pri-
ori limits” (Bourdieu, 1996: p. xvi). Pierre Bourdieu mentions philosophers
from Henri Bergson to Martin Heidegger and in a distinct manner Hans-
Georg Gadamer as representatives of – let me just say it – fetishism of art,
which denies sociology’s capacity for any relevant analysis of art. Largely
this denial can be generalised for any other form of “rational” knowledge.
Is it true that scientific analysis is doomed to destroy that which
makes for the specificity of the literary work and of reading, begin-
ning with aesthetic pleasure? And that sociologist is wedded to rel-
85
Art is taking positions in the symbolic universe by affirming singularity,
which by virtue of being always some artefact (i.e. artistic fact) transcends
any particularity of the singular as such. This holds true for artistic prod-
ucts of all kinds in no matter which period of history or culture or other
relevant contexts; but really remarkably, such claim has been made possi-
ble and rather clear only in recent periods due to the profiles of art and its
“statements”.
The Ineffable
However, for some older art, such aspects have grown to be readable through
theory, which of course cannot but keep being problematic due to a spe-
cial reflexivity, which is linked to the dialectics of subjectivity. This ena-
bles some positions within the field of theories, which “assign science a pri-
ori limits” (Bourdieu, 1996: p. xvi). Pierre Bourdieu mentions philosophers
from Henri Bergson to Martin Heidegger and in a distinct manner Hans-
Georg Gadamer as representatives of – let me just say it – fetishism of art,
which denies sociology’s capacity for any relevant analysis of art. Largely
this denial can be generalised for any other form of “rational” knowledge.
Is it true that scientific analysis is doomed to destroy that which
makes for the specificity of the literary work and of reading, begin-
ning with aesthetic pleasure? And that sociologist is wedded to rel-
85
