Critical Art Ensemble and the aesthetics of disturbance

Notas do episódio

This article aims to address the Critical Art Ensemble (CAE), a collective of activist artists from the United States that, since the 1990s, has promoted creative connections between art, intervention, and critical theory. With a micropolitical perspective and theoretical support from sociology, history, and contemporary art criticism, we present the place of the CAE within the socio-historical context we call neocollectivism, a sociological phenomenon that has emerged in recent decades, and some of its forms of expression. This is a case study based on bibliographic and documentary research. The analyzed data allows us to understand the trajectory of the collective, its way of organizing, creating, and acting in the cultural sphere. The research results demonstrate that the CAE is an exemplary case of neocollectivism, a trend characterized by interventionist forms of action in which aesthetics and politics sometimes become indistinguishable in their semiotic and cultural expressions.