RANCIÈRE, FOR DUMMIES
by Ben Davis


Jacques Rancière, The Politics of Aesthetics, 116 pp., Continuum, 2006, $12.95.
The 66-year-old French philosopher Jacques Rancière is clearly the new go-to guy for hip art theorists. Artforum magazine’s ever-sagacious online "Diary" has referred to Rancière as the art world’s "darling du jour," and in its recent issue, the magazine itself has called digital video artist Paul Chan’s work "Rancièrian" -- as an aside, without further explanation, no less! For anyone looking for a primer, Rancière’s slim The Politics of Aesthetics has just been published in paperback.

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