Konsten att göra motstånd

Sammanfattning

What is politics? What is art? And how are we to comprehend their interrelation? The aim of this thesis is to examine how the power of transformative and creative action of art can operate to disrupt forms of domination. The study takes off in the debate that emerged in the wake of Moderna Museet’s rejection of the artwork “Profeten Muhammed som rondellhund”. Through Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory and Rancières concepts on Politics and Aesthetics, the discursive battle and meaning making of art, what role the artwork has in the debate, including how the battle affects the artwork’s political potential, is analysed. The study concludes that the ambiguity of what art is and how it should operate, gives rise to the artwork’s political capacity. By being ambiguous the artwork creates conflicts in an otherwise homogeneous perception of how things should be, and can thus be described as political.