Aesthetics of Resistance/Defense
Historical Materialism 2019 (NY): Socialism in Our Time
April 13, 2019
Leftists have long lamented the depoliticization of art in our so-called “post-critical” era. However, Trump’s election has renewed attention to the complicity of the arts with the legitimating discourses and infrastructures of neoliberal class rule, sparking protests at museums and galleries. How have artists responded to this repoliticized context within their work? This panel assembles three artists whose material practices seek to resist the infrastructures of neoliberal hegemony in crisis while defending spaces of aesthetic autonomy against instrumental reason.