Portraying unease : the art and politics of uncomfortable attachments

[English description below] I Portraying Unease argumenterar Ellen Suneson för att det finns en tendens bland forskare att tillskriva konstverk egenskaper av subversion och politisk produktivitet. Konstverk som skildrar strukturell diskriminering, så som heterosexism, rasism eller ableism, beskrivs ofta som att de besitter förmågan att utmana orättvisa system eller initiera politisk förändring. Den som vänder sig till konsten på jakt efter dess potentiella politiska effekt riskerar, hävdar författaren, att använda ett ramverk där representationer av vissa typer av svagheter, misslyckanden eller institutionella anknytningar blir förknippade med obehag eller pinsamhet. Avhandlingen undersöker fem konstnärskap: Laura Aguilar, T. J. Dedeaux-Norris, Sands Murray-Wassink, Jenny Grönvall och Xandra Ibarra.

Ellen Suneson arbetar som forskare i konsthistoria och visuella studier med särskilt fokus på feministiska och queerfeministiska perspektiv. Hon är anställd vid Lunds universitet och frilansar som curator. Portraying Unease är hennes doktorsavhandling.

 

Portraying Unease critically discusses a tendency amongst politicized scholars to endow artworks with traits of subversion and political productivity. Artworks that address structural discrimination, such as heterosexism, racism, or ableism, are often described as possessing qualities that can challenge unjust systems or initiate political change. This thesis considers hope and belief in the political utility of visual art in terms of an emotional attachment: an anticipatory emotional bond to a set of promises concerning art s abilities. It follows the work of five artists: Laura Aguilar (US), T.J. Dedeaux-Norris (US), Sands Murray-Wassink (NL), Jenny Grönvall (SE), and Xandra Ibarra (US), for whom the act of attributing hopes of social or political change to art is portrayed as a source of depression, insecurity, self-doubt, embarrassment, and a sense of being stuck. When one turns to art in search of its potential political efficacy one risks, the author argues, using a framework wherein representations of specific kinds of weaknesses, failures, or institutional attachments become associated with scholarly discomfort or embarrassment.

Ellen Suneson is an art historian and visual studies scholar working on contemporary art and scholarly methodologies, with a particular focus on feminist and queer feminist perspectives. She is a researcher at Lund University and a freelancing curator. Portraying Unease is her doctoral dissertation.