Georges Didi-Huberman (Saint-Étienne, 1953), French philosopher and art historian, is an eminence in the use and meanings of images in contemporary culture, in their ethical, political and symbolic dimension. He has written 60 essays focused on this issue, but on all kinds of topics: our vision of madness —The invention of hysteria: Charcot and the photographic iconography of the Salpêtrière—, the benefit of exposing the images of the cremation of Jews that the member of a Sonderkommando, those prisoners who had to be taken to the final solution to his fellow men—Images despite everything: visual memory of the Holocaust—, the importance of our gestures in social revolts (in the exhibition Soulèvements, uprisings) or even on the groundbreaking choreographies of the Sevillian National Dance Prize winner Israel Galván —The dancer of solitudes—. His latest book, Imagine. Recommence (Abada Editores, May 2023), delves into the anthropology of political imagination.
On the 21st he participated in a meeting of the Thought cycle of the Condeduque Contemporary Culture Center —Images, ways of looking and thinking—, in which he was very close. Hours later, in the lobby of his hotel, he asks to change the chair in which he is going to be photographed (too pompous) and is blunt, brimming with precision but also with ideas.
ASK. There is something about the norm of the art world that doesn’t convince you. He believes that art should open itself to other positions.
ANSWER.The discourse of art has a long history, it is tradition. My purpose is not to get rid of tradition. For me the key is to overcome conformity. Questioning something does not mean considering everything that came before obsolete. Nothing is obsolete. But when a tradition fossilizes and becomes conformist, it becomes problematized. I am interested in rereading diverse topics, doing it like a child, freeing them from conformity.
If you want to support the production of quality journalism, subscribe.
Subscribe
Q.You say that “rereading is a political act.”
R.What did Lacan say? He reread Freud. Deleuze? He reread Spinoza and Nietzsche. I reread in search of the new. I recommend Miguel Abensour, who allows you to rediscover Marx. We haven’t exhausted Plato yet!
“We must defend utopia. It is never fulfilled, but it sets us on the path.”
Q.What is an image for you?
R.An image is never unique, your question is poorly posed. It is always one of many. What counts is his place in the series. There is no ontology of the image. My position is very modest, I look at two or three photographs and try to deduce something concrete. I refuse to answer your question.
Q.Rephrase: what do you notice when looking at a series of images?
R.It’s like I’m asking you what you expect from someone. If I were looking for something specific, I would go on a dating app to find out if they like running, horse riding… No, what you expect from someone is a surprise. We live in an excess of images but, when you encounter one, the same thing happens as with people, we look for the unexpected. That’s what I’m looking for. Feeling, escape from conformity.
Q.In Condeduque he stated that human beings often turn towards beauty because we are afraid, because of our rejection of the horror of the world.
R.If you visit the Prado to admire Botticelli, you will find a man standing behind a woman who cuts open her skin with a knife, tears out her heart and feeds it to a dog. When we look at images we realize that its beauty is made of the horror of the world, what attracts us and what repels us are always intertwined in art. Another example is Goya. Goya, is he pretty or isn’t he?
Q.He also said that with Goya the political imagination was born.
R.You should never say that something is born at a specific moment… But if you compare The disasters of war, by Goya, with The great miseries of war, of Jacques Callot, we find that Callot represented horror from afar. Goya comes as close as possible, like Capa, he introduces a new essential way of relating to violence, of representing it. At the same time as Kant, Goya criticizes him through the image. What we need is to be able to criticize. You don’t have to be conformist nor reject. Criticizing is very difficult. A philosopher always tries to criticize fairly.
Q.You defended in an essay that the terrible images of the cremation of innocents taken by the member of a Sonderkommando, the prisoners who were in charge of applying the final solution to other Jews. With Israel’s invasion of Gaza, this is a debate facing the media. Should reality be shown in its harshness?
R.When we show something, we should never do it without context. We must try to explain or raise awareness of the perspective of the person who took that photograph. There are bastard looks, tender looks… But I don’t know the photographs he’s talking about. I have not seen the images of the Hamas attack.
Q.But perhaps the one about Israel’s attacks in Gaza.
R. A priori I am never in favor of censorship. But a common mistake is not taking into account the circumstances that led to that image.
Q.You are of Jewish origin. What do you think of Israel’s actions in Gaza?
R.The Israeli Government is a Government of fascist lunatics. Fascism has reversed the Israeli Government. Be careful not to tell the Israelis. The State of Israel is in danger, it is true. Hamas is a fascist militia, so essentially what we have is fascists against fascists and, in between, the people. This is a fatal chain and I fear for both. I don’t dare sign tribunes… But let me point out that philosophically this is not interesting at all. Today it is common for intellectuals to be asked to give their opinion on everything; they are given enormous, too great, power. Don’t you find it strange to ask an art historian for his opinion on the war between Gaza and Israel?
Q.He mentioned the fascist emotion. What does it consist of?
R.I give you a real example: a German listens to Hitler and gets emotional, his emotion is political. A year later, he kills babies devoid of feeling. What happened? The emotion of that young Nazi has been dissociated from that of the others. He only cares about his own. He has lost his sense of ethics. That’s where fascism is built. Trump is emotional, Milei, Le Pen… Emotions, but dissociated from the rest.
Q.It says: “Tenderness opens doors.”
R.Tenderness is shaking someone’s hand. A political man will say that what I say is completely utopian. But utopia has a necessary political role. You have to defend it. It is never fulfilled, but it sets us on the path.
Sign up here to the weekly Ideas newsletter.
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits
_
#Georges #DidiHuberman #art #theorist #Israel #Gaza #fascists #fascists