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El complot del arte. Ilusión y desilusión estéticas

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Todo el dilema es este: o bien la simulación es irreversible y no existe nada más allá de ella, no se trata siquiera de un acontecimiento sino de nuestra banalidad absoluta, de una obscenidad cotidiana... o bien existe de todos modos un arte de la simulación, una cualidad irónica que resucita una y otra vez las apariencias del mundo para destruirlas. De lo contrario, el arte no haría otra cosa, como suele suceder hoy, que encarnizarse sobre su propio cadáver. No hay que sumar lo mismo a lo mismo, y así sucesivamente, en abismo: esto es la simulación pobre. Hay que arrancar lo mismo de lo mismo. Es preciso que cada imagen le quite algo a la realidad del mundo, es preciso que en cada imagen algo desaparezca, pero no se debe ceder a la tentacióndel aniquilamiento, de la entropía definitiva, es preciso que la desaparición continúe viva: este es el secreto del arte...

124 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

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About the author

Jean Baudrillard

210 books1,977 followers
Jean Baudrillard was a French sociologist, philosopher and poet, with interest in cultural studies. He is best known for his analyses of media, contemporary culture, and technological communication, as well as his formulation of concepts such as hyperreality. Baudrillard wrote about diverse subjects, including consumerism, critique of economy, social history, aesthetics, Western foreign policy, and popular culture. Among his most well-known works are Seduction (1978), Simulacra and Simulation (1981), America (1986), and The Gulf War Did Not Take Place (1991). His work is frequently associated with postmodernism and specifically post-structuralism. Nevertheless, Baudrillard had also opposed post-structuralism, and had distanced himself from postmodernism.

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Displaying 1 - 30 of 40 reviews
Profile Image for Zeynep T..
925 reviews130 followers
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September 8, 2024
Bu kitap Avelina Lésper'in Çağdaş Sanatın Sahtekarlığı ile birlikte önerildiği için okumak istemiştim fakat öncesinde Simülakrlar ve Simülasyon'u okumak lazım, ikisi birbiriyle epey bağlantılı.

Her iki kitabın yorumlarında da belirtildiği üzere yazar/düşünür öngörülerinde haklı çıkmış gibi duruyor günümüzde. Okurken sürekli yapay zeka geldi aklıma.

"İmgeyle gösterdiği gerçeklik parçası arasındaki bağ ne kadar zayıfsa etkileme gücü de o kadar büyüktür. Oysa biz hiç durmadan geliştirdiğimiz teknolojiyle imgeyi gerçeğinin kusursuz bir benzeri haline getirmeye çalışıyoruz. Bugün artık gösterilen şeyin görüntüde yer almayan simgesel bir anlama sahip olmasını sağlayamadığımız için ters olarak nitelendirilebilecek bir illüzyon duygusu yani gereğinden çok daha fazla miktarda imge üretiminin yol açtığı bir düşkırıklığı içinde olup, her yeri ekran ve imgeyle doldurmak gibi modern bir yanılsama içindeyiz."

Çağdaş Sanatın Sahtekarlığına dair bir alıntı;

"Bad Painting, New Painting, değişik enstalasyon ve performans örneklerinde görüldüğü üzere resim sanatı kendi varlığını yadsımakta, kendi kendisiyle dalga geçmekte, resim kusmaktadır. Resim sanatı plastik, cam ve buzdan dışkılar üretmektedir. Çöplerle sergiler açmakta, onları ölümsüz kılmaya çalışmaktadır. İnsanın bunlara bakası bile gelmemektedir. Bütün bunlara bakılmak istenilmemesinin nedeniyse artık resme duyulan ilginin yitirilmiş olmasıdır. İlgilenmediğiniz bir şeye karşı tamamen duyarsız kalabilirsiniz. Bu resim sanatının artık ne resimle ne sanatla ne de gerçekten daha etkileyici bir illüzyon duygusu üretimiyle hiçbir ilişkisi kalmamıştır. Resim sanatı artık bir illüzyon sanatı olduğuna inanmadığından kendi kendinin simülasyonuna benzemekte ve aşağılanmaktadır."

42. sayfaya kadar geldim, geri kalana şöyle bir göz atacağım. Okuma hedefine (Reading challenge) dahil etmiyorum.
Profile Image for Ron.
6 reviews
October 19, 2018
Auschwitz e Hiroshima segnano un punto di svolta nella storia della modernità: l’avvento dei mezzi di comunicazione fredda (radio, televisione, internet) determina l’esplosione delle immagini e il loro raffreddamento. Immagini vuote, in cui non c’è più niente da vedere.
Il mondo è tornato a essere iconoclasta, dice Baudrillard, in una maniera profondamente diversa dall'iconoclastia familiare ai bizantini: la proliferazione delle immagini e l’estetizzazione del mondo uccidono l’estetica, la sensazione. Le immagini degradano a icone, perdono il loro valore estetico, la capacità di affettare la sensibilità. L’estetica muore, lascia il posto a una transestetica.
A Bisanzio l’iconoclastia aveva il senso di nascondere la domanda sull'esistenza di Dio. Alla stessa maniera per l’uomo moderno l’estetizzazione del senso permette all’arte di sparire sotto i suoi occhi, dissolvendosi e disseminandosi nella quotidianità, degradandosi a merce tra le altre merci.
Ora, l’arte contemporanea perpetua questo meccanismo, simula la sparizione di un’arte che, in verità, è sparita già da tempo. E da qui la domanda di Baudrillard: What are you doing after the orgy? Cosa si fa dopo l'orgia della modernità? Per quanto ancora l’arte continuerà a simulare la propria sparizione?

"Molto più che la speculazione mercantile, bisogna temere la trascrizione di tutto in termini culturali, estetici, in segni museografici. Questo è la cultura, la nostra cultura dominante, l'immensa pretesa di stoccaggio estetico, di risimulazione e reprografia estetica di tutte le forme che ci circondano. Questa è la più grande minaccia, è ciò che io chiamerei il grado Xerox della cultura."
Profile Image for S©aP.
407 reviews72 followers
October 18, 2019
Descrive e definisce la vanificazione dell'Arte. È il testo di risposta a domande da me inseguite per anni. Ovviamente si tratta di una risposta, non della "Risposta". Ma per quanto mi riguarda dissipa ogni dubbio. Illustra. Spiega. Soddisfa. Completa vecchi studi aggiungendovi l'attualità.
Il librino, minuscolo ma pesantissimo, richiede applicazione. Si compone di due saggi, trascrizione di due conferenze risalenti al 1997. Il discorso, pur chiaro, è concettuoso, filosofico, impegnativo, molto serrato. Per chi fosse davvero interessato, illuminante e ricco di spunti di riflessione. Ha richiesto due letture, una esegetica e l'altra meditativa, attraverso la quale verificare le idee acquisite e immaginarne gli effetti sulla realtà. Perché si parla di Arte, è vero, ma si declinano fatalmente anche concetti sociologici di universale respiro e interesse.
Un osservazione (che è anche un consiglio di lettura): personalmente avrei invertito l'ordine dei due saggi, nell'edizione. Il primo tra i due diviene molto più facilmente intellegibile, se letto dopo il secondo.
Profile Image for Luke.
924 reviews5 followers
December 22, 2021
Andy Warhol is Baudrillard's favorite artist because he admits he's a machine. The machinery of the real world. The picture of the Campbells soup can symbolizes the death of art because meaning has become dissolved into everything. Warhol's soup can is as real as any other kind of art. There is nothing left to retaliate against. The art industry, hijacked by the same manufacturers of everything else, have either killed art or have at least put an end to the final cultural retaliation. There is too much information.

“we live in a world of simulation, a world where the highest function of the sign is to make reality disappear and to mask this disappearance at the same time.”

This book shows how powerful Baudrillard's philosophy can be in any facet of society at a given time. His sociological understanding goes way beyond literally anyone else's throughout history. Not just in a theoretical way but in a practical way. Architects, painters, photographers, economists, psychologists, and sure philosophers too, are all inspired by him when they can understand how his theory connects to reality and hyperreality. The death of contemporary art is not some way for Baudrillard to make waves and get his photography noticed, it's a way for him to explore the manifestation of culture throughout the economy and its effects on our humanity...because it's not banal.
Profile Image for Riclaz.
14 reviews9 followers
March 24, 2013
Fantastico. Dopo averlo letto ho guardato la data di pubblicazione: 1988. Ammirazione per quello che ha capito di ciò che era accaduto e di ciò che sarebbe accaduto poi nel mondo e nell'arte. Emozione per vedere scritte le cose che si pensano e non si è in grado di dire, proprio perchè non si ha la chiarezza necessaria, nè nelle idee nè nel linguaggio.
124 reviews47 followers
April 16, 2020
"Andy Warhol starts by eliminating the imaginary aspects of any image and turning into a pure visual product. Pure logic, unconditional simulacrum…. — One uses the machine to remake art, the other (Warhol) is a machine. Warhol is the true machinic metamorphosis."
"Through images, through technical artifacts of all kinds, of which Wharhol’s artifacts are the modern “Idealtype.” the world imposes the world imposes its disconitiuny, its fragmentation, its stereophonic, its superficial instantaneity.
Evidence of the Warhol-machine, of this extraordinary machine for filtering the world in its material evidence: Warhol images are not banal because they would reflect a banal world but because there is no attempt by a subject to interpret it-his images manage to raise the image to a a state of pure figuration without the slightest transfiguration. "

I've been always found Warhol overrated, but here Baudrillard made me understand him more and I *might* start to like him? Anyway, I really like this book and I think every artist should read it in order to understand why contemporary art is banal so we can move forward and change that.
Profile Image for Vincent Perrone.
Author 2 books24 followers
January 18, 2021
Art is a form. A form is something that does not exactly have a history, but a destiny.

Nullity, virtuality, conspiracy, and illusion. Baudrillard is at his best retreading his concepts through new pathways. This time his concepts of simulacrum and simulation are filtered through Warhol, Duchamp, Jarry, and Artraud. His voice is piercing as ever, cutting straight through the metaphysical to the pataphysical—turning the world on its side to reveal the unreality that has and continues to take place.

His writing on Le Pen and the War on Terror are terribly prescient. He knows that the events of our reality and unreality will continue to repeat themselves. He criticizes Faucalt, praises Baudelaire, all underline all notions with contradictions. Through all liberation, he expresses, we have made ourselves null. A weird, riveting, and often confusing ride—it is best I think to submerge yourself fully in Baudrillard if you hope to come out with anything.
Profile Image for Jennifer.
9 reviews1 follower
October 16, 2012
Best line "I don't know how to use a computer." Never change, Baudrillard, never change!
Profile Image for Eric.
70 reviews45 followers
January 14, 2019
Baudrillard's most famous essay is presented along with various other essays and interviews. Some are extraordinarily prescient while others, perhaps most, are more performative than informative. He anticipated and lived the quippiness and insincerity of social media and was enamored of his own celebrity. You'll never meet anyone as fond of Warhol but only his early stuff... do not make a mistake there; he'd never forgive you. Though he'd have insisted that he does not care what you think. And repeated it six times just so, you know, you understand that it doesn't matter at all. Nope. Are we clear? That you care that he might care is an insight into how little he cares or perhaps the absence of the ability to care because the self-negation of the act of caring is so deeply ingrained into his not caring. So there.
Profile Image for Victoria Ferrari.
80 reviews6 followers
September 12, 2025
amo le persone pazze anticulturali :) mi piace quando un filosofo francese afferma delle cose radicali in modo folle e spregiudicato di modo che possa citarlo per dare credito alle mie posizioni ragionevoli ed educate di giovane donna :)
Profile Image for Cwpper David.
89 reviews10 followers
March 20, 2015
Un libro para coger con pinzas. Lleno de ideas caóticas y pretenciosas muy bien engalanadas. Habla de arte morderno. Habla de obras plásticas que se parodian y vomitan a sí mismas. Habla de Warhol como gran fundador de la modernidad que al mismo tiempo destruyó la idea de arte moderno. Habla de Warhol introduciendo la nada en el corazón de la imagen. Warhol logrando el vacío. Warhol alcanzando el nivel cero. Warhol como el alfa y el omega. El gran simulador al que todos simulan. Warhol como el acabose.

En definitiva, un libro corto para coger con pinzas. Tal vez su parte más amena sea el contrapunteo final de preguntas y respuestas donde los reporteros simulan entender las respuestas de Baudrillard y replican con nuevas preguntas como si le entendieran algo.

Link de Descarga: http://losmenosprecie.blogspot.com/20...
5 reviews3 followers
June 7, 2008
When I first this book I was just entering the world of post-modernism, and more critical art theory.
I love his writing style. It is completely embellished and pretentious, but it is almost as if you are reading a play and you need to approach it from a similar standpoint to that.
There are some really affecting concepts that changed the way I think about art.
I am an artist through and through, but it is good to question the place and function that art has in the world.
A good lead to further exploration in Baudrillard, art theory and post-modern concepts
6 reviews
July 31, 2022
Cihangir "entellerine" son! :)

Kural yıkıcı, açık yaralara dokunan, çağdaş sanattan muzdarip bireylere ilaç gibi gelecek bir metin. Benim düşüncelerime çok dokundu, yön verdi. Sanata başka bir açıdan bakmamı sağladı, bu açı birazcık ters köşeye düşürse de beni. Çok şanslı hissediyorum kendimi bu kitabı okuduğum için. Modern sanat araştırmalarıyla ilgilenenlere şiddetle tavsiye ederim.
11 reviews
July 22, 2008
Good overview of Baudrillard's theories on Hyperreality and the state of art in today's society.
Profile Image for Ilaria Massariol.
448 reviews15 followers
May 22, 2025
Un'immagine senza contenuto, dove esiste più l'idea dell'estetica dell'arte. Guardi Un'opera e ti senti in colpa se non la capisci, anche se il significato non c'è, oppure ce ne sono troppi, oppure il vero significato è il nulla: è ciò che crea l'arte nel Novecento.
L’arte che vive ancora d'ideologie o estetiche si trasforma in illusione e metamorfosi del mai dato.
È sempre interessante vedere come in quel secolo l'arte di evolva così improvvisamente e come gli artisti si dividano in chi è nostalgico di quell'estetica perfetta anatomica e realistica, e chi invece apprezza e incoraggia la simbologia di un'illusione che mostra il nulla e il tutto.
Questo libro/saggio è un atto di accusa verso l'arte che non esiste eppure esiste, un concetto che rientra nella mentalità della società del tempo che stava cambiando insieme all'arte diventata puro mero mezzo di speculazione commerciale.

Interessante, anche se ne ho letti di saggi simili, è sempre curioso e stimolante leggere pareri di artisti diversi su questo tema così accesso.
Profile Image for Jeff J.
39 reviews
April 26, 2025
It’s funny to refer to this as “typical” Baudrillard, though it is a collection of disparate essays from across his career, including the title essay, which is a shot across the bow at contemporary art in the 80’s/90’s. I like that he is openly disdainful of so much about our media-saturated lives.

At one point he criticizes The Matrix as being a movie they’d make in the actual Matrix if there was one. Fun concept. Many of his observations regarding virality, technology and speculative capitalism have come true and then some. Downright prophetic, if a bit polemical.

Was not quite as enamored with the portion on Artaud, but his critique of reality television and France’s equivalent to Big Brother called The Loft held some excellent analysis of the stupidity and banality of those types of shows. Not quite as much discussion of fine art per se but still worth a read.
Profile Image for Adriana Maguregui.
3 reviews
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June 29, 2025
Las ultimas dos entrevistas no las he terminado. Cualquier juicio que emita sobre el libro no tiene mucho valor ya que para leer este debería haber leído mas sobre el posicionamiento estetico de baudrillard. Debido a ello (que este fuese mi primer acercamiento) no he entendido tanto. Aun así, desde mi ignorancia sobre su pensamiento, creo que puedo decir que el señoro hace unas frases ininteligibles, como si no quisiera ser entendido por nadie. Puede que me equivoque, pero de primeras me ha olido a señor que quiere sonar rimbombante. Ojalá cuando vuelva a este libro habiendo leido otras obras suyas pueda decir que no se está chupando la polla.
Profile Image for Polilecto.
43 reviews1 follower
November 13, 2021
El autor se traga el espejo donde se simula su imagen y se nos muestra trasparente, como diría él mismo, antropológicamente sin valor, nulo, un pseudofilósofo. Da tumbos de cielo a tierra en retórica que se siente tediosa, más cuando el texto se torna en un panegírico sosamente grandilocuente a Warhol. Rescatar quizá a modo de advertencia el "delito de iniciados" en el complot.
Profile Image for Aleksander.
69 reviews2 followers
July 30, 2024
Great essay on art, or rather lack of art in todays world. Just as hard to review as reading it with proper understanding. This slim book offers a little dose of baudrillardianism for everyone who wanting a little mental gymnastics. But remember that something is gone only when it is everywhere around us, so much it becomes transparent. Death as a an opposition to true nothingness .
Profile Image for Carlos Torres.
67 reviews3 followers
August 27, 2020
Un ensayo muy interesante y aún vanguardista acerca del arte por parte de Baudrillard. La premisa consiste en la idea de la crisis de valores que han llevado al arte a la nulidad. El libro remata, luego de la tesis, con algunas entrevistas hechas al autor con respecto al tema.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Profile Image for gio!!.
35 reviews
May 18, 2024
“Michael Jackson é […] l’androgino artificiale della favola che, meglio di Cristo, può regnare sul mondo e riconciliarlo, perché è meglio di un bambino-dio: un bambino-protesi, un embrione di tutte le forme sognate di mutazione che ci libereranno dalla razza e dal sesso”
Profile Image for Dominik.
176 reviews8 followers
April 10, 2025
he just can't stop winning. he knew everything (altought he was somewhat politically impotent and didn't know what to do with all of his melancholic, desintegrated world).

If art should still exist, it must stop repeat itself and go for alternative.
Profile Image for Sho Nagata.
67 reviews
September 27, 2025
The language is super-irritating, but I can't say it was just full of shit. It's like even the people in the book were talking passed each other. Intellectualising buddhism to the Nth degree. So french!

Mon review la bas:
https://youtu.be/H-E0xB2ZFrQ
Profile Image for Luke.
241 reviews8 followers
February 3, 2023
Ah sure you know how these French theorists are!
Profile Image for Eric Phetteplace.
517 reviews71 followers
May 16, 2010
I must've been seduced by the semiotexte packaging on this one as I do not remember the purchase impetus and a quick scan through reveals it's mostly interviews, always a bad sign. This is one of those closet-clearing collections of essays and interviews of an important thinker who elsewhere articulates his/her ideas in a much superior form. As such, it suffers from severe redundancy, the same topics handled in different essays, and at least 2 entire pages are duplicated in their entirety.
That said, there are probably 3 sections which are truly excellent: "Pataphysics" an essay from 1952 which is incredible, "Radical Thought" which is maybe the best manifesto he ever authored, and then "The Violence of Indifference" is pretty good too. I think the former two are available for free online though, Pataphysics is on CTheory.net, so this is a fairly superfluous book.
Profile Image for Gytis Dovydaitis.
28 reviews6 followers
February 14, 2018
Ok, so that's the deal - I'm working in contemporary art field. And I love Baudrillard. Now I know that all my work is pointless, because contemporary art claims to be null (what you can easily notice by its' urge to eliminate aesthetics and concept), and it actually is null (what is hidden by a tricster-like dance of commercial value, pretentious appreciation of intellectuals, and many more). How do I feel? Perplexed. This paradoxical effect of forcing you to reconceptualize your view of society is what Baudrillard is brilliant at. His ideas here are sharp and concentrated as always, but the book itself is compiled rather poorly. It feels like Semiotext(e) just tried to make a bit more money of this famous author by stacking up a bunch of essays and interviews in one place, what resulted in a book where most of the contents are not too interesting.
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