Seventeenth International Conference on the Arts in Society

Abstract

Tears, turned into artistic gestures, have a long history in Western art. In this communication, we explore how this transhistoric gesture can, on the one hand, make the missing links of history, heterochronies and the repressed appear, and on the other hand, it serves to dignify those who had no name in history, those silenced by politics, society or culture. In this sense, it is the task of the artist to make the people “representable” by making the very thing that is “repressed” or silenced appear. We analyze how artists such as the Hungarian composer György Ligeti (his piano étude Automne à Varsovie) or the Colombian sculpturer Doris Salcedo (A Flor de Piel, Palimpsesto) have made sensible, through their works, the failures, the places, and the moments through which, when declaring themselves “powerless”, the people affirm at the same time what they lack and what they desire. Our analyses and the consequences that emerge from the works lead us to reflect on the role of art in building a new ethic of care and fragility.