Artistic Critique on Capitalism as a Practical and Theoretical Problem

Dan Eugen Ratiu (2018)

In: Victoria D. Alexander, Samuli Hägg, Simo Häyrynen, Erkki Sevänen (eds.): Art and the Challenge of Markets Volume 2. Palgrave Macmillan, pp 173-211.

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-64644-2_7

ABSTRACT

“This chapter examines the interactions between artistic critique on capitalism and the social change, focusing on the normative role of artists in the context of “network capitalism” and the imperative to creativity in the “Creative Age” (Florida). Drawing on recent debates about capitalism, critique, and crisis prompted by Boltanski and Chiapello’s seminal work The New Spirit of Capitalism (2005) and other subsequent interventions, as well as on the notion of “critique” supported by Foucault, the author reconsiders artists’ role in the normative change through artistic critique on capitalism. Thus are shown both its paradoxical consequences in terms of the emergence of new norms of excellence and creative lifestyles, adaptable, hyper-mobile and flexible, and artists’ divergent contribution to redevelop a particular sense of self-realization and self-fulfilment.”