On Irony

Views from DAN COLEN’s show Out of the Blue, Into the Black at Gagosian Gallery, Paris, 2012

philosophy

text by MEHDI BELHAJ KACEM
photography by OLIVIER ZAHM
translation by SARA SUGIHARA

 

The “sociologicial” statement I made can be summed up in two words: obligatory irony. Once upon a time, from the time of Socrates to Kierkegaard, irony was an elistist and aristocratic art. But now, for more than three decades, irony has become, ahem, a raison d’état, a purely political reason for action. What does this mean? The generational evidence by which we have been paralyzed: derision, the depreciative perspective, the mocking of others as well as of oneself, the media-centered omnipresence of the comic and of sarcasm, imitation and satire. Irony has democratized itself. Which is in itself a rather sad irony, especially when it’s funny (stand-up comedians on TV, whom I do appreciate):…