The Spare Image in an Unsparing World: Framing the Soldier in an Indeterminate War

Abstract

Jacques Rancière’s notion of aesthetics is inextricably linked to the concept of “sense.” Recently (Rancière 2009) the concept of play in aesthetics has been elaborated on by developing the multiple meanings of sense. Sense, in its double meaning of sensate apprehension and the faculty of understanding, provides the basis for understanding what Rancière means by the “partage du sensible.” Through an analysis of a photograph by Ad van Denderen in his 2009 project Occupation Soldier, the essay analyses how sense in its double-meaning provides a mode for comprehending the critical potential of art to stage the tolerability of a world both divided and shared, in the context of war. The essay deepens Rancière’s understanding of sense in relation to aesthetics, while deploying “detachment/ attachment” as frames through which the critical potential of art may be understood.