The Subject of Art from Alain Badiou's Point of View: Artist or Work of Art?

Abstract

One of the complications of Badiou's theory of the subject is that he did not provide a uniform and specific definition of the subject; And in reading his works, we are faced with different definitions of the subject, especially the subject of art. The basic question of this research is how we can provide a comprehensive and understandable definition of the subject of art in Alain Badiou's subject theory. Considering the efforts that have been made before to answer this question, this research aims to provide a new answer to this question. Unlike his predecessors and greatly influenced by Lacan, Badiou introduces a subject that is created during a process of truth. A subject that did not exist before the occurrence of an event and is created in a historical or artistic situation; But the complexity of Badiou's definition lies in the fact that despite having human characteristics, such as loyalty to an event, this subject is not a human person. Badiou introduces both the artwork and the artist as subjects in an artistic situation; And according to Badiou's definitions and subjectization procedure in Badiou's thought, we answered the question that in an artistic situation we are faced with the artist-work pair as a part of the subject faithful to the artistic event.

Keywords

• alain badiou
• faithful subject
• subject theory
• state of art
• art subject
• subjectification
• art occurrence.