The Politics of ‘Contemporary Islamic Art’

Abstract

In The Politics of Aesthetics (2004), Jacques Rancière argues that commitment in relation to art production is an aesthetically and politically vacuous notion. He suggests that artists can be politically committed in their works and thereby contribute to a certain type of political struggle. However, this does not mean that their works are committed, because commitment is not a category of art. He observes that ‘[t]he fact that someone writes to serve a cause or that someone discusses workers or the common people instead of aristocrats, what exactly is this going to change regarding the precise conditions for the elaboration and reception of a work of art?’ (2004: 61). This question addresses the conventional understanding of committed art most persuasively developed and defended by Jean-Paul Sartre, especially in his essay ‘What is Literature?’ (1948). The Sartrean model of litterature engagé is based on a social-realist model of writing. According to him, literature, and only its prose forms, can be regarded as a committed form of cultural production since it deals with language and meaning and can hence provide a purposeful reflection of the world. Writing from that particular position, the intellectual is able to express his allegiance to the cause of changing the social world reflected in his prose. In Sartre’s model, the artist has the responsibility to bring about political and social change by articulating his commitment via expressive means that are readily understood and unambiguous.