THE PROBLEM OF MIMESIS IN RANCIÈRE S CONCEPTUALIZATION OF AESTHETIC REGIME OF ART

Asserting ideas on the politics of art, political art, and the social function of art initially requires the development of a reflexive approach, and a comprehensive understanding of both art and politics. Such critical actions may also provide an appropriate basis for the discussion about whether art can possess a unique politics of its own distinction. One of the original perspectives with regards to this issue has been proposed by Jacques Rancière in his Aesthetic Regime conceptualization. Through the perspective of the Aesthetic Regime , he manifests that by the end of the 18th century art becomes political insofar as art and politics are correlated with the (dis)sensual experiences and the (re)distribution of the sensible. In terms of its political potential, art could no longer be considered as ‘the ways of doing or making’ as it were in mimetic or representational traditions/regimes of the past, which enables the concordance amongst senses and operates as a pedagogical model in Rancière s point of view. This brings to fore one aspect which makes Rancière s theory controversial and this paper will discuss the following questions with regard to this: How mimesis or mimetic tradition lost its political potential in this historical turn? Is there a room for mimetic ways of doing or making which are not predefined by rules and are non-hierarchical, for dissensual or political practices? In short, this paper aims to rethink mimesis in Rancière s sense of politics. In order to do so, at the very outset, Rancière s concept of Aesthetic Regime of Art and the question of why art becomes political in this regime will be examined. In the sequel, by focusing on Rancière s historical and theoretical approach to mimesis and mimetic practices, the problems of the Aesthetic Regime will be discussed. Through both a critical reading of Rancière s writings and a comparative reading with the mimesis theory from ancient to modern times, a counter approach on the politics of mimesis will be proposed.