Art & Philosophy: Or How Philosophers Got Curated by Maja and Reuben Fowkes

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THE TRADITIONAL ANTAGONISM BETWEEN PHILOSOPHY AND ART, which goes back to Plato's infamous eviction of artists from his ideal state for distracting citizens from the higher truths of philosophy, is offset by a mutual fascination that is becoming ever more noticeable. That we are going through a phase of intense attraction and interaction between the old rivals is affirmed by the Map of Friendship between Art and Philosophy, which was produced jointly by artist Thomas Hirschhorn and philosopher Marcus Steinweg as a centre spread for Le Monde Diplomatique in 2007. Commissioned as one of the 'Utopia Stations' that grew out of a curatorial project initiated at the 2003 Venice Biennale, the map depicts the conceptual common ground between art and philosophy. Shared notions, such as universality, resistance, autonomy and love are marked in red, while deleted concepts, including honour, harmony, identity and individualism, are shown in blue, with the friendship confirmed by a slightly ironic comradely handshake at the centre. Another map, as yet uncharted, could trace the trajectories of leading contemporary philosophers through their appearances in museums, biennales, art fairs, art magazines, catalogues and art conferences. There is ample data for such an undertaking, with Giorgio Agamben speaking at the Moscow Biennial, Jacques Ranciere at Frieze Art Fair, Antonio Negri at Tate, Chantal Mouffe at Van Abbe Museum, Slavoj Zizek at the ICA, and the list could go on. Arguably the involvement of philosophers with contemporary art has changed, and goes beyond the use of theories to explicate particular art movements, as in the regular invocation of Jean Baudrillard's concepts of hyperreality and simulacra to justify the work of the New York appropriationists in the 80s or, conversely, the use of art works by philosophers to illustrate their theories, such as Jacques Derrida's legendary deconstruction of Van Gogh's boots in The Truth in Painting, published in 1987.

So, what are the reasons for the proliferation of philosophers in the world of contemporary art? Is it because their theories are so relevant for the production, distribution and reception of contemporary art? Is it because of their own …