Art, aesthetics, politics and crisis

Abstract

The following paper proposes to think about the central
concepts related to art, aesthetics and politics. It is also
about the configurations that this scheme acquires in our country. I reflect on the expressions that occurred
around the 2001’s crisis and those that took place -and
are taking place- in the crisis that followed the pandemic.
Two interesting aspects that could organize the
exercise of thinking about this relationship have to do
with: 1) the different views on the aestheticization of
politics, understood as a process inserted in a historical
time; or, on the other hand, if we could think of it as
an ontological question. 2) the central place occupied
by public space and the body from the new forms of
political intervention called artivism.
Briefly, I analyze the relationship between aesthetics,
politics and art, from thinking about two key conceptual
variables: public space and bodies. Otherwise, I study a
dimension that turns out to be fundamental for thinking about the conditions of possibility: historical time. Inthis way, the crises of 2001 and 2020 are shaping different ways of breaking into public space, different ways of doing politics and expressing collectively. Times of great challenges are coming for society if we can twist the premise of «every man for himself» and if we can find the strategies to believe -once again- that the solution is collective and that art is a creative experience that has the power to create key political scenarios of resistance for community life.