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| “Nothing Would Be as Before”: On Jacques Rancière’s Aesthetics Event |
| Zang Xiaojia |
| School of Foreign Studies, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049, China |
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Abstract In an era where traditional aesthetic frameworks is undergoing the dual pressures of globalization and technological innovations, Jacques Rancière’s theory of aesthetics event presents a new paradigm for the contemporary studies of aesthetic and political philosophy inquiries. At a time when pessimism pervades the humanities, Rancière’s reflections on the interplay between art and daily life and politics carve a new path for continuously long-standing debates. His aesthetics event not only re-examines artistic modernity but also represents a perpetual revolution in the politics of perception. Aesthetics event implants the concept of equal within the fissures of the sensible community by turning invisible into visible, thus transforming each “now” into a starting point for renewal of politics.This article centers on Rancière’s eventful turn to explore how he reconstructs the fusion between aesthetics and politics through examining the concept of the distribution of the sensible, thereby revealing art’s potential as a “dissensus”. It deepens systematic understanding of Rancière’s thought while providing theoretical support to how art can get involved in society and reshape perceptual communities in our era of digital humanities.The research methods employed in the article include:1. Genealogical Analysis of Philosophical Concepts: By situating Rancière’s core concepts such as “distribution of the sensible”, “dissensus” and “regimes of the arts” within the broad theoretical study of Kant, Schiller and Foucault, this study elucidates his critique and reconfiguration of traditions.2. Interdisciplinary Case Studies: Through close reading of philosophical texts such as Hegel’s writing, sculptures such as the Torso of Hercules’ works, and performance art such as Lo?e Fuller’s dance, this study demonstrates how aesthetics event can break up institutional norms and bring about “sensual insurrections”.3. Counter-factual Inquiries: By phenomenologically reconstructing “suppressed exceptions” and “the moment when they decided that ‘nothing would be as before’”, this study resituates the gaze in art to emphasize the eventfulness of the sensible.The innovative aspects of this study lie in:1. Theoretical Migration from Politics to Aesthetics: By critiquing the invisibility embedded in historical narratives, this study shows how Rancière defines the role of event in disrupting traditional perceptual forms and why its political significance lies in amplifying the voice of history from below.2.Tripartite Regimes of the Sense: By analyzing Rancière’s framework of ethical (Platonic), representational (Aristotelian) and aesthetic (Kantian ＆ Schillerian) regimes, this study reveals the core of the aesthetic regime: autonomy of aesthetic experience. It reshapes relations between the visible and invisible as well as the sayable and silent through sensible aesthetics.3. Interplays between History and Aesthetic Events: Based on Rancière’s critique of “the name of history”, this study exposes how historical events have been dominated by proper nouns. It highlights the dissensus of aesthetic events such as Manet’s Olympia or Duchamp’s Fountain to break down divisions between art and life.4. Paradox and Redemption in the Aesthetic Regime: The aesthetic regime’s contradiction lies in art’s dual pursuit of autonomy and self-effacement, such as the Torso of Hercules’ deconstruction of classical ideals through its beauty of incompleteness. Aesthetics event redeems such paradox by transforming marginal practices, e.g., the forgotten 19th Century Parisian performances, into catalysts for “sensual insurrections”.Rancière’s refusal to summarize his thought of aesthetics event stems from his commitment to thinking alongside its rupture rather than concluding his argument. My study synthesizes three defining traits of Rancière’s event: dissensuality, negativity and crisis. It further proposes the following three revolutionary dimensions of the aesthetics event:1. Reorienting the Gaze in Art: It shifts the focus from canonical works to those that disturb the ordinary course of things.2. Unearthing “Explosive Moments”: It identifies instances in which art transcends its materiality to become a political act.3.Articulating the Event: It transforms these eventful moments into open ruptures which reinvigorate stagnant aesthetic debates.Ultimately, Rancière’s aesthetics event is not a rigid endpoint but a dynamic starting point. It is a call to embrace future “heterogeneous encounters”. In an era haunted by declarations of “nothing would be as before”, Rancière’s argument proves that the end of aesthetics progress also represents its rebirth.
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Received: 04 June 2024
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2025, Vol. 55 
