ABSTRACT

It is often argued that in late capitalism, aesthetics has triumphed in all realms, and that the effect of this triumph has been the creation of an hedonistic culture where there is no place anymore for art to provide a truly subversive experience. The objective of artistic practices should be to foster the development of those new social relations that are made possible by the transformation of the work process. The importance of the hegemonic approach to artistic practices and their relation to politics is that it highlights the fact that the hegemonic confrontation is not limited to traditional political institutions. A counter-hegemonic politics must engage with this terrain so as to foster other forms of identification. While one of the objectives of the hegemonic struggle has always been the agonistic production of new subjectivities, it is clear that, in the present stage of capitalism, such a terrain is more important than ever.