Intelligence-Love-Revolution Symposium
Amanda Beech: Althusser and the Image of Art: The Role of Consciousness for a Propositional Art
Saturday, December 14th, at 10 am Pacific Time
Meeting Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86203108895
We will explore two theories of art proposed by Louis Althusser, one that situates a spontaneous critique of bourgeois idealism, and the other that manifests a Marxian consciousness. Both these versions of art however, despite Althusser’s assertion of their different forms of agency leave art on the side of naïve idealism for the former and as an aesthetics of crisis of the latter. An image that is art, therefore can never extend beyond the reach of capitalist subject formations.
Addressing the possibility for a political and theoretical practice for art, we will begin to ask if these determinations for art are accurate: Is art always already fated to subjective idealism, from above or below? Does this reading misperceive the structure and content of art? Or, is this work just philosophically insufficient? These questions will be woven through some analysis on contradiction, the genesis of consciousness and the question of meaning beyond the capitalist formation of ideology from neo-pragmatism, but also by working through a recent video work, Map of the Bomb, 2022, in which the work wagers new propositions to the these very problems.
Vimeo link to watch the video:
Map of the Bomb, 2022
Single channel version https://vimeo.com/700084971?share=copy
Five channel version https://vimeo.com/691912545/e6c331c70d?share=copy
Text to read:
Amanda Beech is an artist and writer. In video, painting, print and sculpture her work proposes art as a form of intelligence and power beyond the ideals of capitalism and the limits that art has set for itself by means of its critiques of it. Exhibiting internationally her shows include, Future Possessive, Front Gallery, Los Angeles, Delphic Future, Twelve Ten Gallery, Chicago, RIB Gallery, Rotterdam, 2024, and the Havana Biennale 2021. Recent keynotes include, Marxism and the Pittsburg School, UCL London, UK, and Desire and Capitalism, Erasmus University, Rotterdam, NL. Forthcoming work includes a book of philosophy, The Intolerable Image, from MIT. amandabeech.com