Jacques Ranciere’s new philosophical study, The Emancipated Spectator, tackles the role of the aesthetic in contemporary society with the intensity and rigor that one expects from one of France’s most penetrating cultural critics.

The book is in many ways a complementary text to Ranciere’s The Ignorant Schoolmaster, in which the author explores what he calls “intellectual emancipation.” In that text, Ranciere argues that ignorance and knowledge are simply structural positions that the student and the schoolteacher occupy respectively, rather than states of being that define each actor. True intellectual emancipation emerges when both the student and the teacher recognize their arbitrary relationship, allowing the student to pursue her own path to knowledge without adhering to the prescribed ends of formal education.

Ranciere applies the same concept to the artist and the spectator of art in The Emancipated Spectator when he defines emancipation as “the blurring of the boundary between those who act and those who look; between individuals and members of a collective body.” Instead of the simple application of “emancipation” to certain works of art, Ranciere articulates his theory by critiquing the conventional postmodern treatment of the spectator. He points out that many postmodern theorists criticize the passivity of the spectator. These theorists believe that the artist must either make the spectator aware of her passivity or else involve the spectator in a way that would make her “abdicate the very position of the viewer.”

For Ranciere, the two distinctions of activity/passivity and artist/spectator are false. Instead, it is ultimately more fruitful to emancipate each actor from his or her structural position in order to reveal that each is an equally creative member in a collective group. The act of perceiving art proves to be as imaginative as the act of creating it. On this view, the artist and the spectator are equally responsible for the consumption and commodification of art and image. While the artist may, through grotesque images, critique the consumer’s commodificiation of art, the artist is actually reaffirming this commodificiation and reasserting the power of late capitalist culture.

Never afraid to tackle political issues, Ranciere dives headfirst into the Arab-Israeli conflict, the war on terror and September 11^th, although he has trouble making these events relevant to aesthetics. Anyone familiar with Ranciere’s work will immediately recognize and appreciate his trademark style in The Emancipated Spectator, while anyone new to Ranciere will enjoy his rigorous and unapologetic treatment of today’s world of images.

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