EDITORIAL Jacques Rancière ///
On Art Regimes and the Scant Interest in the Notion of Modernity

Some central categories for one to think about XX century artistic production, such as modernity, the avant-garde and, more recently, post-modernity, also have a political meaning. Do these categories seem to you to be of any interest concerning a conception in precise terms of what connects the “aesthetic” to the “political”?

I don’t believe that the notions of modernity and the avant-garde have been very clarifying for one to think of the new forms of art since the last century, nor the relationships of the aesthetic with the political. They in fact confuse two very different things: one is the historical condition suited to a regime of the arts in general. The other one is the decisions for rupture or bringing forward that operate within that regime.