Rethinking the Form-Matter Nexus after the Material Turn 2/2

In recent decades, the notion of matter has become increasingly important in theoretical (philosophical, artistic, political, and social) debates. This new centrality is characterised by the redefinition of matter as an autonomous concept, freed from its traditional subordination to form. With this newfound freedom, matter came to be understood as a continuous, "thick" and active principle. On the one hand, this led to a transdisciplinary effort that was often limited to an almost literal transposition of the laws of matter formalised by the so-called hard sciences into the materialisms of the so-called soft sciences. On the other hand, this implied an aestheticization of matter through its vibrant fluctuations and indeterminacy.

In contrast to the often hasty new materialist drive to overthrow the realm of form, the panel focuses on the complexity of the dialectic of matter and form, subtracting the two concepts from the logic of subjugation and proposing the possibility of a horizontal relationship between the two. The theory and history of art, insofar as they are concerned with the constant (re)use and (re)definition of the form-matter nexus, constitute the privileged vantage point from which to retrace its genealogy and reconfigure its internal dialectic, both in the history of Western art and in other artistic traditions.

In this sense, the panel invites us to rethink the genealogy of the form-matter nexus in three ways. First, by tracing the disruptions within its classical definitions from Plato's chora, Aristotelian and Scholastic hylomorphism, to Schiller’s aesthetics and Hegel's dialectics. Second, by exploring other genealogies, which are tangent to the Western tradition – as in the case of Ibn Rushd and Ibn Sina rethinking of Aristotle’s notions of form and matter – or completely heterogeneous from it. Third, by examining its contemporary transformations in aesthetics and art history, e.g. through Rancière's archaeological study of the rise of aesthetics, Didi-Huberman’s study of Renaissance art, and other methodological perspectives committed to developing a genealogical critique of the matter-form nexus.

Interventions :

• Allison MILLER - The Form-Matter Nexus in the Early Chinese Intellectual Tradition and its Implication for the Genealogy of Chinese Art
• Catherine STUER - Matter and Form in Nineteenth-Century Chinese Aesthetic Discourse
• Xue LI - The Evolution of Textile Craft into Feminist Artistry: Transforming Matter and Form in Modern and Contemporary Contexts
• Angèle TENCE - Le 'devenir informe' dans un ensemble de peintures de Rubens