This volume aims to question challenge supplement and revise current understandings of the
relationship between aesthetic and political operations. The authors transcend disciplinary
boundaries and nurture a wide-ranging sensibility about art and sovereignty two highly complex
and interwoven dimensions of human experience that have rarely been explored by scholars in one
conceptual space. Several chapters consider the intertwining of modern philosophical currents
and modernist artistic forms in particular those revealing formal abstraction stylistic
experimentation self-conscious expression and resistance to traditional definitions of Art.
Other chapters deal with currents that emerged as facets of art became increasingly
commercialized merging with industrial design and popular entertainment industries. Some
contributors address Post-Modernist art and theory highlighting power relations and providing
sceptical critical commentary on repercussions of colonialism and notions of universal truths
rooted in Western ideals. By interfering with established dichotomies and unsettling stable
debates related to art and sovereignty all contributors frame new perspectives on the
co-constitution of artworks and practices of sovereignty.
