The Conspiracy of Art [Paperback]

Jean Baudrillard (Author), Sylvčre Lotringer (Editor), Ames Hodges (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 19, 2005

The images from Abu Ghraib are as murderous for America as those of the World Trade Center in flames. The whole West is contained in the burst of sadistic laughter of the American soldiers, as it is behind the construction of the Israeli wall. This is where the truth of these images lies. Truth, but not veracity. As virtual as the war itself, their specific violence adds to the specific violence of the war.In The Conspiracy of Art, Baudrillard questions the privilege attached to art by its practitioners. Art has lost all desire for illusion: feeding back endlessly into itself, it has turned its own vanishment into an art unto itself. Far from lamenting the "end of art," Baudrillard celebrates art's new function within the process of insider-trading. Spiraling from aesthetic nullity to commercial frenzy, art has become transaesthetic, like society as a whole.Conceived and edited by life-long Baudrillard collaborator Sylvère Lotringer, The Conspiracy of Art presents Baudrillard's writings on art in a complicitous dance with politics, economics, and media. Culminating with "War Porn," a scathing analysis of the spectacular images from Abu Ghraib prison as a new genre of reality TV, the book folds back on itself to question the very nature of radical thought.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"[Baudrillard] proves himself to be as much of a thoughtful iconoclast as ever." Canadian Art

About the Author

Jean Baudrillard (1929--2007) was a philosopher, sociologist, cultural critic, and theorist of postmodernity who challenged all existing theories of contemporary society with humor and precision. An outsider in the French intellectual establishment, he was internationally renowned as a twenty-first century visionary, reporter, and provocateur.

Product Details

• Paperback: 232 pages
• Publisher: Semiotext(e) (August 19, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1584350288
• ISBN-13: 978-1584350286
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #391,472 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Baudrillard vs. Art = entertaining and informative, July 5, 2006

By 

Steward Willons (Illinois) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Conspiracy of Art (Paperback)

This is a fascinating collection of some of Baudrillard's most polemical writings on art. He freely admits in one of the interviews within that he is, by no means, an art expert. He doesn't appreciate it and he doesn't necessarily *like* it. He does respect traditional/classical art's beauty and importance. This positions him in an excellent place to offer remarkably disinterested observations. He's not partial to any one movement, any one school, or any one artist (with the possible exception of Andy Warhol) and he pulls no punches in his critique of the meaninglessness of contemporary art.

It is important to note that Baudrillard is NOT an art hater. From his interviews and from other writings, I get the impression that art is simply "not his thing". I believe this is a positive factor because he isn't required to tip-toe around issues for fear of being rejected by the art community, a community he is happy to avoid altogether.

As a student of contemporary art, and as a contemporary artist myself, I don't always agree with Baudrillard, at least to the extent that he goes. In his essay, "The Conspiracy of Art", he tends to make sweeping generalizations. Such is the format of his polemic - a brief essay. Had he developed these ideas in a longer format, I'm sure some points would be smoothed by further explanation and clarification. Fortunately, this book includes and number of interviews where he explains some of his points and gets a chance to defend himself against his many critics.

I believe this text would be most useful to any student of contemporary art. Baudrillard does raise many important issues, even if his conclusions are questionable. Even if you hate every word, it's at least an amusing read. I've always enjoyed his style. It's very conversational - a welcome relief from reading the prolix, convoluted texts of Deleuze and Lacan. He is clear, cogent, and concise.

13 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Before you read it, it makes sense, January 1, 2008

By 

S. Koropeckyj "Romi Panchir" (The Bright Side of the Moon) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Conspiracy of Art (Paperback)

I always thought that Baudrillard's ideas were interesting. I always thought that they were an interesting way to look at certain issues, a new lens of sorts. However, upon reading this book, I finally understood Baudrillard and as a result found his theory to be inane. Baudrillard makes a lot of sense before you really read the evidence (oh, wait he doesn't use evidence) or rather analysis he provides.

The first problem that I found with the book is its utter lack of defining terms. If a reader has not read Simulations and Simulacra, then this book would be completely unaccessible. However, Baudrillard just throws terms around, seemingly knowing the definition himself, but withholding it from the reader. Words like 'event' come to mind. Actually 'null' is also strangely ambiguous in this book. The 1970s seemed to pass over Baudrillard and this was written as though post-structuralism never happened (was that an event). So what does this come down to? A lot of Baudrillard's criticism is then nothing more than a linguistic problem... He says that a certain thing happens as a result of art, but then that is just a word, an undefined floating signifier that leaves me, and probably will leave you, uncertain as to what is the worth of anything written.

Another gripe that I have is the sequence of the articles and interviews. (Actually I think many of the interviews could have been left out entirely, since many interviews were nothing more than the interviewers massaging Baudrillard's late-inflated ego.) Some of the essays make absolutely no sense until later essays are read. It seems as though they were thrown together randomly or perhaps intentionally in the most incomprehensible way possible.

At the end of the day, I thought Baudrillard was cool. I thought his ideas were interesting, but upon reading this book I really lost faith. It isn't that I think that Baudrillard's ideas are irrelevant to current discourses, but rather that the analysis he provides is often questionable and so against the laws of logic and rationality. His ideas are interesting if you take them and attempt to formulate them into your own worldview, but otherwise I can't say that this conspiracy of an assertion-fest is worth reading.

4.0 out of 5 stars gutter balls of French indignation, December 21, 2011

By 

Bruce P. Barten (Saint Paul, MN United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Conspiracy of Art (Paperback)

Having a financial crisis is merely a crack in time compared to the way money dominates what happens in a society which has exhausted other motivations. I find some support in an interview printed in The Conspiracy of Art (2005) where Jean Baudrillard is quoted as saying:

Money is obscene,
but it's not all the financial
and banking scandals that bug me most.
. . . What I find most degrading really
are discourses.
The discourses of justification,
of repentance.
The people who use these kinds
of arguments are completely dishonorable.
For instance they said some really stupid
things about what happened to the old folks,
the deaths, the heat wave.
In short, they alleged that people today
are living too long.
The latest poll, meticulously orchestrated,
topped it all. They found that a vast proportion
of the elderly who died were mentally diminished.
I found that truly disgraceful.
Not only did they die because they lived too long,
but they were declared mentally incompetent as well.
So they weren't really human.
People who say those things should be shot.
What you get to read in the papers today
makes your blood boil. (pp. 81-81).

Fans of the movie Bowling for Columbine have already concluded that the main purpose of the media is to make blood boil so the leaders have the opportunity to keep building nuclear submarines. Spelling it out so it is all so clear can make culture seem like a high horse eating its way through hair.