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Abstract

This essay/assay interrogates the mixture of image/writing that is figured forth - objectified, mediatized, lodged in the brain - as the artifact called an opinion. Opinion is the medium that provides sense for ‘good’ and ‘common’ affirmations and negations. By means of opinions, connections are made that join subject and world - the opinion of the critic that ‘knows’ or can ‘sense’ the value of things, thereby making opinions normal, safe, and easily exchangeable. We contest that entire blockage - ‘good and common sense’- by juxtaposing philosophy and art to opinion, arguing for a mode of criticism that is able to connect isolated instances of opinion with larger social frames. We argue that cultural criticism is often self-serving, and offer notions of philosophy and art that contest the solidity of opinion - philosophy and art conceived as excessive to opinion’s usual reductions.

Keywords

art criticism image/text opinion philosophy subjectivity

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This is not an opinion

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