Care as political artistic practice

Résumé

This article aims to show how care is playing an important role in socially engaged artistic practices, in line with the political significance that care has today. It argues that the interest in care relationships is also part of a transformation in the affective regime of contemporary art, which now seeks to reclaim the value of emotions such as empathy—emotions that may have been considered soft, or even taboo, in much of twentieth-century art, particularly political art. Furthermore, it contends that ethical practices of care possess an inherently aesthetic dimension that make it possible to articulate an aesthetics of care. Ethical-aesthetic care practices are embedded in forms of participatory political art that that seeks to empower individuals by involving them in collaborative activities that inspire more democratic and just forms of sociability.