What art can (make you) do. Rethinking the performativity of art through Van Alphen, Ziarek and Rancière.

Abstract

The meaning of the concept performativity has expanded from a concept that concerns a linguistic speech act to any event that happens because someone does something in the cultural domain. However, thinking of the work of art as a performative event goes one step further. In relation to paintings or photographs, we usually do not speak of a 'someone' who 'executes', or 'does' the work of art. These works of art generally do not move, nor change. This thesis questions how we can think of the work of art as performative through theories by Ernst van Alphen and Krzysztof Ziarek. What does the work of art do and what happens as a result of that doing? These questions are further explored through an analysis of the relationship between art and the 'other forms of doing and making' with Jacques Rancière's aesthetic theory.