TOWARDS AN AESTHETICS OF THE CROWD: PUBLICS, POLITICS AND THE DEMOCRATIC SELF IN SCHLINGENSIEFʼS PLEASE LOVE AUSTRIA (2000)

Abstract

This paper aims to develop an account of the political consequences and operation of public art in Christoph Schlingensief’s performance artwork, Bitte Liebt Österreich. What, if any, are the possibilities to conceive of public art in a distinctly democratic manner, that is, as enabling a certain democratic – or pluralising – movement? How are we to account for the (perhaps democratic) experience of an encounter with a work of public art, in this case, with Bitte Liebt Österreich? Ultimately, what is the central ‘operation’ of public art that activates its political possibilities? This paper develops exploratory responses to these questions by engaging in a three-way dialogue between Schlingensief’s Bitte Liebt Österreich, post-foundational political theory, and philosophical aesthetics. It argues that the core operation of public art is in its setting into motion of an ‘aesthetics of the crowd’; an experience of polyvocal multiplicity and radical difference that makes possible distinctly democratic modes of re-imagination and self-formation.