Beyond the object. (Re)thinking art in neoliberalism

Challenged by the neoliberal market, art today appears an elitist commodity. To Negri and Virno the market puts both art and politics at stake by its demand for commodifyable objects: knowable, welldefined entities, products of creative thinking at work for that market.

Yet creative thinking may potentially produce politics, and art. Not objectively defined, but Intersubjectively signified by linguistic communication, creative thinking produces structures of being in society, argue Castoriadis and Alma and Van Heeswijck. It produces the multitude, state Negri, Virno, and Lavaert, as intersubjective signification belongs to the heterogenous public, the multitude. And to art, hold Negri, Virno and Agamben. Founded in creative thinking, it too potentially creates structures of being in society. But art criticism obscures its original being, writes Agamben. It assigns objective meaning before works are publicly signified, argue Gielen, Sontag and Piper, and commodify it. Negri and Virno aim to decommodify, de-objectify it, yet fail to posit a notion of intersubjective art signification. Lijster departs from Gielen and Virno to subjectify art criticism.
Yet intersubjectifying it appears to be done by contemporary art practices that take Negri and Virno as basis for a different art notion. Reconnecting creative thinking and intersubjective signification, they may propose an art paradigm reclaiming public signification, resisting reduction to a commodity on the neoliberal market.