Jennifer Ponce de León, "Another Aesthetics Is Possible: Arts of Rebellion in the Fourth World War" (Duke UP, 2021)

Aug 23, 2024

Jennifer Ponce de León, an author exploring the intersection of art and social movements, discusses how art serves as a tool for rebellion against neoliberal capitalism. She highlights inspiring case studies from Argentina, Mexico, and the U.S., showcasing how artists fuse experimental practices with political activism. The conversation touches on anti-colonial perspectives, the transformative role of street art, and the ideological tensions between artistic autonomy and political engagement, revealing how creativity can shape a more just world.

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Intro

00:00 • 2min

Art and Activism: A Collective Journey

01:31 • 14min

Challenging Colonial Narratives: Anti-Imperialist Perspectives

15:45 • 4min

Art, Activism, and Decolonization in Argentina

20:05 • 24min

Artistic Autonomy and Political Engagement: A Complex Relationship

44:11 • 3min

Art as Activism: Exploring Para-Disciplinarity

47:14 • 16min

In Another Aesthetics Is Possible: Arts of Rebellion in the Fourth World War (Duke UP, 2021), Jennifer Ponce de León examines the roles that art can play in the collective labour of creating and defending another social reality. Focusing on artists and art collectives in Argentina, Mexico, and the United States, Ponce de León shows how experimental practices in the visual, literary, and performing arts have been influenced by and articulated with leftist movements and popular uprisings that have repudiated neoliberal capitalism and its violence. Whether enacting solidarity with Zapatista communities through an alternate reality game or using surrealist street theatre to amplify the more radical strands of Argentina's human rights movement, these artists fuse their praxis with forms of political mobilization from direct-action tactics to economic resistance. Advancing an innovative transnational and transdisciplinary framework of analysis, Ponce de León proposes a materialist understanding of art and politics that brings to the fore the power of aesthetics to both compose and make visible a world beyond capitalism.

Jennifer Ponce de León speaks with Pierre d'Alancaisez about the counter colonial practice of the artist Fran Ilich, the activist performances of Grupo de Arte Callejero, Etcétera, and International Errorista rooted in the political histories of Latin America as a site of resistance in which the boundaries between art and politics blur.

Jennifer Ponce de León is an assistant professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania and an interdisciplinary scholar whose research focuses on cultural production and antisystemic movements in the Americas since the 1960s.

Pierre d’Alancaisez is a contemporary art curator, cultural strategist, researcher. Sometime scientist, financial services professional.

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