On the Critical Dimension of Art: Lyotard and Jameson

Abstract

In the writings of Jean-François Lyotard and Fredric Jameson philosophy of culture and art can be seen as closely linked with the problems of contemporary society and politics. Both of them became well-known after their intervention in the debate about postmodernism, where they discuss a break within late twentieth-century culture and society. For both of them art is in a certain relation with society and politics, and this relation can be grasped through the concept of totality, where they diametrically oppose each other. Jameson understands the social role of art above all in its resistance to fragmentation, ubiquitous on all spheres and levels of life in the contemporary consumer society, where art can restore the lost category of totality. For Lyotard, on the other hand, art must remain and work within its own limits, without aspiration to attain the larger whole or totality.