essay
by ALAIN BADIOU
artworks by ISA GENZKEN Installation views of 75 / 75 at Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin, 2023, curated by Klaus Biesenbach
A major figure in French philosophy, Alain Badiou revolutionized the field by defending universal truth, confronting existing ideologies, and offering fresh perspectives on love, politics, and art. He proposes a new definition of contemporary art as a transformative force.
I would gladly define contemporary art as the experimentation of displacement, the realization of a displacement within the realm of the sensory itself. In this case, the movement of artistic creation is twofold. First, we have something like a local event, an event that locally interrupts the repetition of the world’s law, and then we have the possible consequences of this event. Creating a place and giving a form to this part of the world in which the law of the world is currently…