Subjectivity, Play and Difference
Elements for an approach to seriousness in art
Abstract
This paper addresses the concept of seriousness in its ethical and aesthetic dimensions, as well as the fundamental duality between seriousness and non-seriousness in art.
Drawing on Foucault's post-metaphysical approach to the problem of subjectivity and its consequences for modern phenomenology, we propose a re-reading of practices and discourses with a ludic character—such as the emblematic case of play and, to a large extent, artistic expression as well.
The seriousness of discourses is always related to some form of realism, even in art, whether from an ethical or aesthetic perspective. However, the problem of art is not exhausted by the questioning of its seriousness. Art, as a performative discourse, tends to emancipate itself from realism—or, at least, from the most naive conceptions of realism—opening itself up to subjectivity.
In this sense, we can identify a tensional relationship between seriousness and subjectivity (or subjectivation) within the context of art. Aesthetic experience, understood as the purpose of art, not only admits but depends on this tensional relationship.
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