Abstract
The form of life which has the desire for or will to control over emergence at its core is, if not the dominant, then at least one of the more significant ones in late modern culture. To be in control over emergence requires a considerable degree of sovereignty. In this contribution I have made an attempt to outline and contrast three rather basic images or models of what might be called radical sovereignty, i.e., the vital-reflexive-transgressive one (which is referred to here as Nietzsche type 1), the existential-reflective-transcendent one (Nietzsche type 2), and the ambivalent-creative-transformative one (Nietzsche type 3). The analysis of paintings by post-war artists such as Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and Paul Rebeyrolle is used to illustrate how the aforementioned types of radical sovereignty may have emerged, fully-fledged, in art, in the wake of the Second World War.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Baal-Teshuva, J. (2003). Rothko. London: Taschen.
Bergson, H. (1932). Les Deux sources de la Morale et de la Réligion. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.
Bourg, L. (2006). L’Oeuvre de Chair. Paul Rebeyrolle, la Peinture, et la Vie. Villeurbanne: Urdla.
Cernuschi, C., & Herczynski, A. (2008). The subversion of gravity in Jackson Pollock’s abstractions. Art Bulletin, XC(4), 616–639.
Clearwater, B. (2006). The Rothko book. London: Tate Publishing.
Emmerling, L. (2007). Jackson Pollock 1912–1956. London: Taschen.
Hall, S. (1997). Visceral cultures and criminal practices. Theoretical Criminology, 1(4), 453–478.
Hall, S. (2002). Daubing the drudges of fury: The piety of the hegemonic masculinity thesis. Theoretical Criminology, 6(1), 35–61.
Hall, S., Winlow, S., & Ancrum, C. (2005). Radgies, gangstas, and mugs: Imaginary criminal identities in the twilight of the Pseudo-Pacification Process. Social Justice, 32(1), 100–112.
Hall, S., Winlow, S., & Ancrum, C. (2008). Criminal Identities and consumer culture: Crime, exclusion and the new culture of narcissism. Collumpton: Willan.
Hesse, H. (1963) [1927]. Steppenwolf. New York: Picador.
Lippens, R. (2009). Towards existential hybridization? The being and nothingness of critical criminology. In R. Lippens & D. Crewe (Eds.), Existentialist criminology. London: Routledge.
Lippens, R. (2010). ‘Law, code and late modern governance in prophetic painting: Notes on Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Gilles Deleuze’ in Broekman, J. & A. Wagner (Eds.) Prospects of legal semiotics. Dordrecht: Springer Publications.
Lippens, R. (2011a). Jackson Pollock’s flight from law and code. Theses on responsive choice and the dawn of control society. International Journal for the Semiotics of Law, 24(1), 117–138.
Lippens, R. (2011b). Mystical sovereignty and the emergence of control society. In R. Lippens & J. Hardie-Bick (Eds.), Crime, governance, and existential predicaments. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Lippens, R. (2012a). ‘Radical sovereignty and control society. Images of late modern sovereignty in Rebeyrolle’s Le Cyclope’, Crime, Media, Culture: An International Journal, 8(1), 22–37.
Lippens, R. (2012b). ‘Law, code and governance in prophetic painting. Notes on early, high, and late modern forms of life and governance’ in A. Wagner & R. Sherwin (Ed.), Law, culture, and visual studies (4 vols.) Dordrecht: Springer Publications.
Lyng, S. (1990). Edgework: A social psychological analysis of volunteer risk taking. American Journal of Sociology, 95, 851–886.
Lyng, S. (2004). Crime, edgework and corporeal transaction. Theoretical Criminology, 8(3), 359–375.
Lyng, S., Matthews, R., & Miller, W. J. (2009). Existentialism, edgework, and the contingent body: Exploring the criminological implications of ultimate fighting. In R. Lippens & D. Crewe (Eds.), Existentialist criminology. London: Routledge.
Moses, O. (2004). Jackson Pollock’s address to the nonhuman. Oxford Art Journal, 27(1), 1–22.
Nietzsche, F. (1936) [1883–5]. Thus Spake Zarathustra. London: Dent & Sons.
Nietzsche, F. (1992) [1908]. Ecce homo: how one becomes what one is. London: Penguin.
Phillips, G., & Crow, T. (Eds.). (2005). Seeing Rothko. Los Angeles: Getty Publications.
Pieterman, R. (Ed.). (2009). The many facets of precautionary logic, special issue of Erasmus Law Review, 2, 2.
Rothko, M. (2006). Writings on art. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Sartre, J.-P. (1963) [1952]. Saint Genet, actor and martyr. New York: George Braziller.
Sartre, J.-P. (1983) [1939–1940]. Les Carnets de la Drôle de Guerre (Novembre 1939—Mars 1940). Paris: Gallimard.
Sartre, J.-P. (2003) [1943]. Being and nothingness. London: Routledge.
Thomas, M. C. (2009). Rebeyrolle ou l’Obstination de la Peinture. Paris: Gallimard.
Varnedoe, K., & Karmel, P. (1998). Jackson Pollock. New York: The Museum of Modern Art.
Virilio, P. (1991) [1980]. The aesthetics of disappearance. New York: Semiotext(e).
Acknowledgments
Many thanks to DACS, London, to ARS, New York, and to the ‘Espace Paul Rebeyrolle’ (France) for allowing me to reprint works by Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and Paul Rebeyrolle. Many thanks also to James Hardie-Bick for the many conversations I’ve had with him on the topic of existentialism.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Lippens, R. Control Over Emergence: Images of Radical Sovereignty in Pollock, Rothko, and Rebeyrolle. Hum Stud 35, 351–364 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10746-012-9237-x
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10746-012-9237-x