Imposed subservience: a cautionary note on misuses of Jacques Rancière's taxonomy of art

Many in the art world have embraced the thinking of the political philosopher Jacques Rancière, who offers some valuable tools for art criticism. The danger, this chapter argues, is that Rancière's philosophy contains the kernel of a populist approach to artistic production that, if misappropriated by artists or curators too eager to champion Rancière's cause, could undermine artists' capacity for individual expression and subversion.