Judith Butler examines critique through the lens of
Foucault’s definition—that critique is an action that “brings into relief the
very framework of evaluation itself” (Butler 4). Amongst other things, it allows
one to question the authority of government, and by doing so, ponder the limits
of knowledge and self as defined by dominant power structures.
While reading Butler, it was useful to keep in mind this
idea of critique as having a very specific role and meaning. However,
interestingly, critique’s relationship to power structures within this essay
still elided with the dominant sense of the word that our seminar class had
reached last week—that is, while a discourse might exist between equals, an
inherent power structure of greater and lesser powers exists within a critique.
Throughout Butler’s essay (critique?) of Foucault, there lies the implicit
knowledge that her ability to
critique relies upon a position of power. She has power within the academic
world, within her social circle of other writers and theorists. She has the
power to critique Foucault, and others will definitely read her carefully. So
while discussing the ways in which critique acts as a means of
self-realization, deciding whether or not to follow rules of governance, and
whether or not to oust that government, she inherently aligns herself within an
ideology of power that gives her the ability to parse what Foucault is saying,
to pass judgment on his virtue (“a critical relation to those norms
[established by power-knowledge paradigms]” (Butler 6)).
While reading, I was curious about whether something was
being created here, within the text. Is
Butler’s critique a site of production? Is there some kind of product being
made in her close analysis of Foucault, or is she just clarifying him? And if
there is some sort of product, how is that product different from the product
of a discourse, save for the power structures discussed above?
Perhaps more pertinent is another question: can object based
or image based art hold this same power of critique, defined as the questioning
of power-knowledge structures? What would that art look like? Perhaps specific
moments, like the Dada reaction to World War I come to mind; but what about now? I am reminded of Zoe Leonard’s 2014
lecture for the Seminars with Artists series at the Whitney Museum (described in
the BOMB Magazine article link from the syllabus). During her lecture, she
invited her audience into her camera obscura to read a collection of
appropriated images and video as text, and spent the full hour in silence,
examining those images. Leonard relates looking to dialogue and politics—two
topics closely linked to critique. As an artist that makes images and objects,
I’m encouraged by this reshifting of what might have been discursive space (art
of speech) into an image space, and its ability to hold critique.
I've attached an image of Raoul Hausmann's assemblage sculpture The Mechanical Head (The Spirit of our Time) c. 1920 as an example of Dada critique of World War I and its repercussions on the human body (image courtesy of MoMA); as well as an image taken at Zoe Leonard's lecture (courtesy of the Whitney Museum).
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