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From Heterology of Matter to the Abjects’ Art: A Focus on Georges Bataille’s Thoughts

  • Journal of History of Modern Art
  • 2023, (53), pp.5-21
  • Publisher : 현대미술사학회
  • Research Area : Arts and Kinesiology > Art > Arts in general > Art History
  • Received : May 15, 2023
  • Accepted : May 26, 2023
  • Published : June 30, 2023

HAN EUI JUNG 1

1충북대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

This study follows Georges Bataille’s thoughts in order to investigate the ambivalence of “disgust of matter” found in human society. Bataille, who insisted on bas materialism, that is, “material in a low and humble place,” explains human beings and society as a structure in which the wastes left after being appropriated by the human body and society are excreted. In the process of abjection, which excludes and expels inferior heterogeneous things, superior heterogeneous beings acquire fascination that captivates the group, and the abandoned miserable ones become the abjects in a state of helplessness. However, at the level of art, the abjects have the power to operate while constantly traversing low places in a formless state. Artists who have become ragpickers reappropriate the abjects abandoned by society in the realm of art, but they also realize abjection by adopting a method of dragging out the abjects such as excrement, confronting them, and then discharging them again.

Citation status

* References for papers published after 2023 are currently being built.

This paper was written with support from the National Research Foundation of Korea.