Abstract
This chapter examines the artistic practices and discourses emerging within the field of ‘Institutional Critique’ understood here as the historical tendency of the artistic avant-garde from the 1960s to the present. As set out by sociologists Luc Boltanksi and Eve Chiapello, the idea and practice of critique—and here I specifically refer to artistic practices of institutional critique—exist in a paradoxical and dynamic relation with capitalism: an ‘isomorphic’ (Boltanski and Chiapello, 2007, The New Spirit of Capitalism, p. 518) relation, both sharing the primary aim of the ‘prioritisation and exploitation of change’ (Boltanski, 2011, On Critique, A Sociology of Emancipation, p. 136). Moreover, this isomorphism of critique and capitalism inevitably transforms the way in which the subject is to be understood insofar as it has an influence over the modes of subjectification available to artists, including those engaged in practices of institutional critique.
Keywords
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2017 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Cockburn, R. (2017). Antagonising the Limits of Critique. In: Fisher, T., Katsouraki, E. (eds) Performing Antagonism. Performance Philosophy. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95100-0_12
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95100-0_12
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-95099-7
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-95100-0
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)