Biographical note:

Jacques Rancière is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Paris-VIII. His books include The Politics of Aesthetics, On the Shores of Politics, Short Voyages to the Land of the People, The Nights of Labor, Staging the People, and The Emancipated Spectator.

Gregory Elliott is a member of the editorial collective of Radical Philosophy and author of Althusser: The Detour of Theory and Labourism and the English Genius: The Strange Decay of Labour England?.

Country of final manufacture:

US

Main description:

In The Future of the Image, Jacques Rancière develops a fascinating new concept of the image in contemporary art, showing how art and politics have always been intrinsically intertwined. Covering a range of art movements, filmmakers such as Godard and Bresson, and thinkers such as Foucault, Deleuze, Adorno, Barthes, Lyotard and Greenberg, Rancière shows that contemporary theorists of the image are suffering from religious tendencies.

He argues that there is a stark political choice in art: it can either reinforce a radical democracy, or create a new reactionary mysticism. For Rancière there is never a pure art: the aesthetic revolution must always embrace egalitarian ideals.

Review quote:

“Like all of Jacques Rancière’s texts, The Future of the Image is vertiginously precise.”—Les Cahiers du Cinema

“Ranciere’s writings offer one of the few conceptualizations of how we are to continue to resist.”—Slavoj Žižek

“What we see here is Ranciere developing a unique voice as a political theorist.”—Bookforum

“French philosopher Jacques Ranciere is a refreshing read for anyone concerned with what art has to do with politics and society.”—Art Review

“It’s clear that Jacques Ranciere is relighting the flame that was extinguished for many—that is why he serves as such a signal reference today.”—Thomas Hirschhorn

“A series of gratifyingly knotty and close discussions of nineteenth and twentieth century literature, film and painting.”—Guardian