Downcast Eyes (1993) was the result of a shift in attention from Germany to France.

In this impressive
study !ay investi"ates #the deni"ration of vision in twentieth$century French thou"ht%. &e discusses how
the 'est$ern preoccupation with vision ( as a metaphor in lan"ua"e as a cultural trope and as the
privile"ed medium of )nowled"e ( has *een critici+ed *y French thin)ers from ,er"son to -yotard who
identified postmodernism as the #su*lime foreclosure of the visual%. ."ain this history of #antiocu$
larcentrism% was em*edded in and functioned as a theoretical *ac)"round of the #modernism$
postmodernism% de*ates of the last decade of the twentieth century.
/o the e0tent that historians have e0periences of the past that is true. Fran) .n)ersmit has written some
interestin" thin"s on the ways in which contact with artifacts of the past create a sense of temporal
distance and stran"eness leadin" to the loss of #self$centeredness%.
I would now like to discuss some of your earlier research. In the work of many
philosophers you have discussed in your work (Benjamin, Adorno, Marcuse, Sartre)
the work of art, or the aesthetic eperience, is an impor!tant instrument of social
criti"ue. #o you think that this notion of art as social criti"ue is still relevant today$
1ne has to *e very careful with le"islatin" any sort of pro"ram for art and certainly a non$artist such as
myself has no ri"ht to tell artists what they should do. 2any of them are very political many are
involved in one sort of protest or another and are tryin" to ma)e their wor) relevant for that protest3 I
thin) in some cases successfully and in other cases less so. I am very loath to ma)e any "rand
pronouncements a*out art today or the role of art in social and political criti4ue.
Ever since art developed its relative autonomy say in the ei"hteenth cen$tury may*e in the art$for$art%s$
sa)e era more e0plicitly it stru""led with a dialectic of disen"a"ement from and yet involvement in
what is non$aesthetic with what is outside its *oundaries. It tries to *ecome *asically pure and autotelic
followin" its own immanent development *ut at the same time it always comes up a"ainst the fact that
it is an institution amon" other institutions and that its wor)s have some complicated ref$erential
relationship to the world may*e directly or indirectly. .rt is one of those e0traordinary human creations
which is out of sync with and yet connected to the lar"er social totality and as such plays a role (
sometimes inadvertent indirect or mar"inal ( in dealin" with the pro*lems and conflicts of the lar"er
totality. It does this in many different ways and so there is no simple formula to descri*e that
relationship3 people have writ$ten lon" and learned *oo)s to fi"ure out how it fits to"ether with the so$
cial and political. 1*viously we are today not inclined to ta)e didactic wor)s very seriously3 wor)s that
are deli*erately intended to provide some sort of moral or political pay$off. 'e are more interested in
indirect for$mal criteria or challen"in" institutions or the interface *etween art and theory art and
concepts. I thin) we are not inclined to accept naturalist realist or dramatic wor)s as *ein" politically
very effective. 'hether or not as .dorno thou"ht the artwor) is the most fundamental cate"ory or as
others have claimed it is the *roader institution of art is an open 4uestion. 1ne mi"ht say that one of
the "reat lacunae of .dorno%s approach was his ne"li"ence may*e even i"norance of the ef$fect of the
wor) of 2arcel Duchamp and the importance of his provoca$tion which created a whole new discourse
of the aesthetic in institutional terms. It has had in the past thirty or forty years far "reater importance
than was the case durin" Duchamp%s and .dorno%s own lifetimes. /he Duchampian challen"e we mi"ht
say also pro*lemati+es the idea of the materiality of the wor) of art which emphasi+ed its perceptual
reception. 5onceptual art was one of its offshoots. It was also a challen"e to the pri$macy of the idea of
*eauty which led instead to an awareness of the insti$tutional valori+ation of *ein" the authority a*le to
desi"nate wor)s of art as such a capacity that had nothin" to do with the s)ill or talent of the "enius art$
ma)er. .nd it was a challen"e to the idea that art is reduci*le to specific "enres li)e paintin" sculpture
and music su""estin" instead that there%s a meta$cate"ory that is art itself which has a more "eneric
role to play (the very opposite of the search for the essence of the medium fos$tered *y critics li)e
5lement Green*er"). .ll of this su""ests a )ind of openness to the 4uestion of the aesthetic which
ma)es it then harder to tal) a*out the aesthetics of politics *ecause it is not clear what the aes$thetic is.
It is not clear what a wor) of art is whether for e0ample wor)s of art are ephemeral interruptions in
daily life or *elon" to institutions li)e museums and "alleries where they *ecome o*6ects of permanent
conser$vation. 'e are still stru""lin" in interestin" ways with these 4uestions and that is why I thin) it
is still very open territory without any simple formulas to decide where we should "o.