All resistance is a rupture with what is. And every rupture begins, for those engaged in it, through a rupture with oneself.
Art is not ideology. It is completely impossible to explain art on the basis of the homological relation that it is supposed to maintain with the real of history. The aesthetic process decentres the specular relation with which ideology perpetuates its closed infinity. The aesthetic effect is certainly imaginary; but this imaginary is not the reflection of the real, since it is the real of this reflection.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Art transcends ideology and cannot be fully explained through historical relationships, as it creates its own reality that reflects deeper truths.
Alain Badiou’s quote explores the complex relationship between art and ideology, suggesting that art cannot simply be understood as a reflection of historical events or ideologies. Rather, he argues that art creates a unique aesthetic experience that goes beyond conventional interpretations, allowing it to exist in a space of its own that reflects profound truths rather than merely duplicating reality.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the role of art in society, you might say, 'As Alain Badiou points out, art transcends ideology and invites us to perceive deeper truths.'
More from Alain Badiou
All quotes →If you limit yourself to sexual pleasure it's narcissistic. You don't connect with the other, you take what pleasure you want from them.
The ethic of truth is the complete opposite of an 'ethics of communication'. It is an ethic of the Real The ethic of truth is absolutely opposed to opinion, and to ethics in general.
What kind of world does one see when one experiences it from the point of view of two and not one? What is the world like when it is experienced, developed and lived from the point of view of difference and not identity? That is what I believe love to be.
Love is not a contract between two narcissists.
We could say that love is a tenacious adventure. The adventurous side is necessary, but equally so is the need for tenacity. To give up at the first hurdle, the first quarrel, is only to distort love. Real love is one that triumphs lastingly, sometimes painfully, over the hurdles erected by time, space and the world.
Similar quotes
It is only by loving nature, and going to her for everything, that good work can be done; but then we must look to her for the materials for pictures, not for pictures themselves. It is nature filtered through the mind and fingers of the artist that produces art, and the quality of the pictures depends on the fineness of that filter.
I really am a theater person. That means you put something out there, and you let it go. Tomorrow night is a new performance.
Chanting just hits you and you want to be a part of it. That’s the point of this whole thing. That’s what cuts through all the ‘stuff’. You get lit up. You don’t have to know what it means.
I like any and all of my associations with music: writing, playing, and listening. We write and play from our perspective, and the audience listens from its perspective. If and when we agree, I am lucky.
I don't own any of my own paintings because a Picasso original costs several thousand dollars and that's a luxury I cannot afford.
Man must speak, then sing, then dance. The speaking is the brain, the thinking man. The singing is the emotion. The dancing is the Dionysian ecstasy which carries away all.