In our inaugural public lecture Udith Dematagoda and Christos Asomatos present their forthcoming article, which puts forward the concept of the Ideological Aesthetic; a theory which aims to explicate the hypertrophy of the ‘political’ in relation to contemporary art, literature and culture.
Using a critique of Nicholas Bourriaud’s 2016’s work 'The Exform' as a starting point, we read Bourriaud’s engagement with contemporary art, Walter Benjamin, Louis Althusser’s theory of ideology and its most recent re-appraisal - alongside the thought of controversial political theorist Carl Schmitt.
