Affective Boundaries and Unsavoury Political Art: «The First Fall of the European Wall» by the Center for Political Beauty
Wiktoria Tabak
wiktoria.tabak@gmail.comJagiellonian University in Krakow (Poland)
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2435-8985
Abstract
This article analyzes the scandal caused in the German public sphere by the Center for Political Beauty’s intervention The First Fall of the European Wall (2014). Prepared just before the twenty-fifth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the campaign aimed to expose the hypocrisy of German politicians, who celebrated the dismantling of old borders and at the same time co-financed the emergence of new ones. The author presents the course of this artivist action and analyzes its negative reception, focusing on comments from a group of recipients which she categorizes as “disgusted audience.” The analysis draws on the concepts of competitive and multidirectional memory (Michael Rothberg), affect theory (Sara Ahmed), and theory of disgust (Winfried Menninghaus) to show how an audience constituted itself to depreciate the project based on the category of taste and to activate various defense mechanisms blocking the discussion about political issues brought to public attention by the artists
Keywords:
Center for Political Beauty, public sphere, political art, affect theory, disgust, Berlin Wall, refugeesReferences
Ahmed, Sara. „Afterword: Emotions and Their Objects”. W: The Cultural Politics of Emotions, 204–233. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2014.
Google Scholar
Ahmed, Sara. „Ekonomie afektywne”. Tłumaczenie Monika Glosowitz. Opcje, nr 2 (2013): 117–139.
Google Scholar
Ahmed, Sara, „Performatywność obrzydzenia”. Tłumaczenie Anna Barcz. Teksty Drugie, nr 1 (2014): 169–191. https://rcin.org.pl/dlibra/publication/78441/edition/59517.
Google Scholar
Menninghaus, Winfried. Wstręt: Teoria i historia. Tłumaczenie Grzegorz Sowinski. Kraków: Universitas, 2009.
Google Scholar
Rothberg, Michael. Pamięć wielokierunkowa: Pamiętanie Zagłady w epoce dekolonizacji. Tłumaczenie Katarzyna Bojarska. Warszawa: Instytut Badań Literackich PAN, 2015.
Google Scholar
Authors
Wiktoria Tabakwiktoria.tabak@gmail.com
Jagiellonian University in Krakow Poland
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2435-8985
Wiktoria Tabak - PhD student at the Doctoral School in the Humanities at the Jagiellonian University, theatre critic. Academically, she researches perspectives on the decolonisation of Eastern Europe through the prism of artistic projects dealing with refugee issues. Participant of the "Top Minds" mentoring programme organised by the Polish-American Fulbright Commission and the Top 500 Innovators Association (2021 edition).
Statistics
Abstract views: 235PDF downloads: 217
License
Copyright (c) 2022 Wiktoria Tabak
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The author grants a royalty-free nonexclusive license (CC BY 4.0) to use the article in Pamiętnik Teatralny, retains full copyright, and agrees to identify the work as first having been published in Pamiętnik Teatralny should it be published or used again (download licence agreement). By submitting an article the author agrees to make it available under CC BY 4.0 license.
From issue 1/2018 to 3/2022 all articles were published under a Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. During this period the authors granted a royalty-free nonexclusive license (CC BY-ND 4.0) to use their article in Pamiętnik Teatralny, retained full copyright, and agreed to identify the work as first having been published in our journal should it be published or used again.
