A portrait of the artist as a worker. Aesthetic postures in La carte et le territoire
Abstract
According to Lipovetsky and Serroy, beauty has risen to a new ontological requirement: the aesthetic phenomenon has expanded beyond its traditional boundaries, influencing reality and, above all, the economic dimension. The result has been an art market in which the aesthetic work responds to unprecedented hierarchies of value, and the author finds himself assuming professional postures fueled by innovative deontologies. This contribution investigates the transformations the aesthetic job undergoes in the late capitalist and post-Fordist logic through a close reading of Michel Houellebecq’s La carte et le territoire. In the novel, it is possible to observe the professional attitudes of three different artists: the photographer and painter Jed Martin, the fictional writer Michel Houellebecq and – through a metanarrative refraction – the narrator Michel Houellebecq. All three face the professionalization of the artistic activity oscillating between the poles of a dialectic that is difficult to resolve between artisanal and industrial work, creativity and methodicalness.
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