Forum on Samir Gandesha - Johan Hartle (eds.), "Aesthetic Marx"

The title of this book is Aesthetic Marx, and not, for example, Marx and Aesthetics, Marxist Aesthetics, or – shifting from the domain of ‘the aesthetic’ to that of ‘the artistic’, which, as we will see, is not automatic and devoid of consequences – Marx and the Philosophy of Art, Marx in the Arts, et similia. From our point of view, this means that the main focus in this book, regardless of the different particular themes and topics that the single chapters of the book written by the various authors are obviously centered on, is represented by the relationship between Karl Marx, the philosopher, and ‘the aesthetic’ or, say, the aesthetic dimension or component of our experience. Where the latter is clearly assumed as one of fundamental importance for philosophy to deal with. So, far from being a less relevant philosophical discipline in comparison to logic, epistemology, philosophy of science or even ethics – as it is sometimes argued, or at least suspected, especially in certain academic contexts in which the leading philosophical trends have a prejudicial anti-aesthetic and, say, purely theoretical basic attitude –, according to this book what Marx seems to confirm is rather the ‘deadly serious’ character of aesthetics. In fact, the fundamental concern of the book seems to be precisely «the role of the aesthetic/aesthetics within Marx» but also, shifting perspective in the transition from one part of the book to another, «the increasing presence of Marx (both as figure and inscription) in contemporary artistic practices». Precisely for this unorthodox, original and potentially groundbreaking approach to the ‘aesthetic Marx’, we have decided to dedicate this forum not to a single monographic study, but instead to a collection of writings, or rather to the spirit in which the collection has been realized. In the following pages Samir Gandesha (Associate Professor in the Department of the Humanities and Director of the Institute for the Humanities at Simon Fraser University) and Johan Frederik Hartle (Professor for Art Studies and Media Theory at the University of Arts and Design of Karlsruhe) will answer a set of questions asked by a group of Italian scholars, whose members integrate interests in Marx and Marxism with an aesthetic and historical-philosophical approach. As editors of this forum, our aim is to stimulate a discussion between different philosophical traditions, a discussion able to draw the theoretical potential of an aesthetic interpretation of Marx into open. The following forum has therefore the task to uncover the most fruitful tensions of the book edited by Gandesha and Hartle, and to bring to light its innovative method and contents.