MİCHEL FOUCAULT’DA SANAT VE İKTİDAR İLİŞKİSİ ÜZERİNE BİR İNCELEME
A STUDY ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ART AND POWER IN MICHEL FOUCAULT

Summary/Abstract: In this study, Michel Foucault’s thoughts about the structure of the mutual relationship between art and power are examined. While discussing the impact of power on art, Foucault tried to analyze the structural situation of power through various institutions and disciplines of modern societies. He created this analysis on the basis of the relationship between power and knowledge. According to Foucault, the relationship between art and power should be considered at the level of knowledge because knowledge shapes how society perceives a certain issue and how it acts upon this perception. Art is a functional tool in the transmission and distribution of a certain type of information. For this reason, while Foucault considered power and knowledge as an inseparable whole, he investigated the areas where power, knowledge and art are intertwined. According to him, all types of knowledge are associated with epistemological conditions and structural perspectives specific to a particular period. This concept also plays a central role in Foucault’s thoughts about art and is explained within the nature of art itself. Power controls the production of a particular type of knowledge through the episteme and therefore determines what art will represent. Foucault also discussed art at the center of the concept of knowledge genealogy. The study was structured as a qualitative research with the descriptive data analysis method, and the data obtained from the literature were evaluated in line with this method. As a result, a conceptual framework has been drawn on the relationship between art and power, with Foucault’s thoughts on art discussed under these headings being examined on the basis of knowledge.

• Details
• Contents