The aesthetic revolution

In this paper Jacques Rancière outlines the main threads of his book Aisthesis and the overall logic connecting them. Aisthesis concerns the logic of what Rancière calls the aesthetic regime of art, the regime within which, from the mid-eighteenth century on, Art (with a capital ‘A’) comes to be identified as a sphere in its own right. This regime consists in a democratization of sensible experience, which in turn fosters the project of an aesthetic revolution in which the aim is to reshape the very forms of sensible experience. Rancière describes the aspects and logic of this unique project.