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POLITICS INC.

Klein Yves, Leap into the Void, 1960, © Succession Yves Klein c/o ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2022, Shunk-Kender © J. Paul Getty Trust. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles

Essay Publish date: 10 aug 2023

Written by Vladimir Safatle

This text is part of Afterall Journal Issue 54 ‘Voicings’ which interrogates and challenge the imposition of normative or dominant modes of being, perception and expression.

In a text appearing for the first time in English translation, Brazilian philosopher Vladimir Safatle describes the function of art as an opening that allows the (metaphorical) breaking of bodies, so that new circuits of affects might appear in place of fossilised formations. Building on Freud’s understanding of political subjection as affectively constructed and perpetuated, Safatle sees in the production of new affective circuits the possibility of political emancipation.

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