Kritike 13 (1):144-160 (
2019)
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Abstract
: In this paper I attempt to rethink the relationship between art
and life by formulating it based on the rereading of the Benjaminian
mimetic faculty by the anthropologist Michael Taussig. Taking this
position within history as non-teleological change and based on
human activity, to uphold a distinction between original and
representation metaphysically becomes impossible. This is important
in so far as any notion of primacy becomes obsolete, while at the same
time one can work with the historical existence, both material and
ideational, of initially abstract concepts such as art. Art then is
something that in itself does not have a materially specific reality, but
forms reality through artworks, institutions, pecuniary allocations or
human motivation. Taking art as a world-forming force that is
nonetheless historically produced in turn opens up new, pluralist ways
of using this historical given for possible futures.