Usages de la Notion de Travail dans le Champ de l'Art Contemporain: Vers de Nouvelles Reconfigurations Entre Critique Artiste et Critique Sociale / Wykorzystanie Koncepcji Pracy w Obszarze Sztuki Współczesnej: w Stronę Nowych Rekonfiguracji Pomiędzy
Uses of The Concept of Work in The Field of Contemporary Art: Towards New Reconfigurations Between Artistic Critique and Social Critique

Summary/Abstract: Based on an analysis of artistic and activist practices involving the notion of "work" in the field of contemporary art, this article aims to understand the political and strategic stakes of contemporary reconfigurations between social critique and "artist' critique," defined by Luc Boltanski and Ève Chiapello in The New Spirit of Capitalism as "a demand for liberation, autonomy, and authenticity." This analysis is based first on a brief history of the relationship between art and work, then on a genealogy of social critique in the avant-gardes of the 20th century, confused in this field of research with a "sociological critique." Finally, the article analyzes two contemporary artistic approaches that merge art and work but function as inverted mirrors on aesthetic, social, and political discourse levels. Beyond these symbolic or discursive divergences, these mechanisms converge around a shared relationship to the art market and capitalism, opening the way to a comparison with the movements of "art workers" who set aside aesthetic concerns to focus their demands on material interests. For both historical and sociological reasons, these critical exchanges between art and labor, according to the author, possess a particular value that touches upon the strategic and ideological core of capitalism.

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