(Re-)Negotiating Ambiguity’s (Added) Value(lessness)

Abstract

What would an issue on ambiguity be without countering the affirmative calls for a concept that established itself as an aesthetic paradigm and thus as a norm in art discourse as early as around 1800? To answer this, this multi-voiced _Perspective is dedicated not only to the potentials (added value) but also to the limits (valuelessness) of ambiguity as an analytical tool. David J. Getsy, who works at the intersection of art history, queer studies, and transgender studies, initially delivered his* reservations about ambiguity at the Symposium Ambiguity Forum, held at the Renaissance Society, University of Chicago, on 14 January 2017. In the sense of a deconstructive (re-)reading practice, 12 contributors from various disciplinary backgrounds accepted the invitation to respond to Getsy’s critique of the concept of ambiguity with a short comment. In the current _Perspective, Getsy has the last word by responding to the forum with a closing comment at the end. What emerges through this experimental-discursive format is, on the one hand, a structurally ambiguous discussion room in which the reader is invited to search for possible contradictions and ambiguous relations of tension between the individual comments and to evaluate them as a contribution to the issues topic. On the other hand, this contribution is above all an invitation to add more views to this open discussion, for example by writing a _Perspective in reaction to one of the comments.

Keywords

• ambiguity
• critique
• deconstructive (re-)reading practices
• interdisciplinary