Presenting the Unpresentable: Jean-François Lyotard's Kantian Art-Sublime

Rachel Zuckert

doi:10.1017/S1369415421000352

Presenting the Unpresentable: Jean-François Lyotard's Kantian Art-Sublime

Rachel Zuckert^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

Philosophy

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

This article reconstructs Jean-François Lyotard's theory of the sublime in contemporary art, focusing on his claim that such art 'presents' the unpresentable, and tracing its origins in Kant's account of the sublime. I propose that Lyotard identifies a difficulty concerning Kant's account: to understand why the disparate elements in the experience of the sublime (idea of reason, sensible representation) should be synthesized to form that experience. Lyotard recasts this difficulty as a pragmatic problem for artistic practice - how to 'testify' to the absolute in a non-absolute, sensibly perceivable object (the artwork) - that can be understood to drive avant-garde artistic experimentation.

Original language	English (US)
Pages (from-to)	549-565
Number of pages	17
Journal	Kantian Review
Volume	26
Issue number	4
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1017/S1369415421000352
State	Published - Dec 1 2021

Keywords

Kant
Lyotard
abstract expressionism
abstract painting
idea of reason
imagination
modern painting
modernism
representation
sublime

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Philosophy

Access to Document

10.1017/S1369415421000352

Cite this

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abstract = "This article reconstructs Jean-Fran{\c c}ois Lyotard's theory of the sublime in contemporary art, focusing on his claim that such art 'presents' the unpresentable, and tracing its origins in Kant's account of the sublime. I propose that Lyotard identifies a difficulty concerning Kant's account: to understand why the disparate elements in the experience of the sublime (idea of reason, sensible representation) should be synthesized to form that experience. Lyotard recasts this difficulty as a pragmatic problem for artistic practice - how to 'testify' to the absolute in a non-absolute, sensibly perceivable object (the artwork) - that can be understood to drive avant-garde artistic experimentation.",

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Presenting the Unpresentable: Jean-François Lyotard's Kantian Art-Sublime

Abstract

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

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