French Literature Reviews - 2026

B. Edelmann, Tous artistes en droit. Une petite histoire de l'esthétique à l'ère des droits de l'homme
Philosophy, Anthropology and Ideas

Tous artistes en droit. Une petite histoire de l'esthétique à l'ère des droits de l'homme
Bernard Edelman

ISBN: 9782705682064
310 pages - 14 x 21 - 2011
« Hermann Philosophie » series edited by Roger Bruyeron and Arthur Cohen

22.00 €

There is no longer any eternal art, nor any solitary genius inspired by the muses and working away in a studio. From morning till night, we are all adrift, digital nomads. The earth has flattened out like a computer screen displaying a continuous stream of all the world's artworks, all commodities, all advertisements. We are left breathless, and the market is the only reality that matters: just as there is no longer any beyond-history, there is no longer any beyond-the-market.

And art, which was once our ultimate consolation—art that made us dream and warded off our fears and anxieties—has staged this very market, turning it into a universal spectacle, while we have become consumers of culture and consumers of ourselves.

In our aesthetic democracy, every human being is an artist because every human being views themselves as a work of art; anyone can proclaim, "Just look at me, that's enough," much as Duchamp might have said of a ready-made, "Just buy me, that's enough."

The history of modern aesthetics has unfolded in barely two centuries. The Industrial Revolution of the 19th century ushered in industrial art—or utilitarian art, as it was called—and dragged the halo of the assassinated poet through the mud; the 20th century witnessed the grand spectacles of totalitarian regimes, the utopian vision of a people as a "total work of art" orchestrated by a supreme leader—whether Hitler or Stalin. This has led right up to the advent of aesthetic democracy, which reconciles the market with the narcissism of the "last man".

A philosopher, supreme court advocate, doctor of law, and specialist in personality rights, copyright, and press law, Bernard Edelman currently teaches at the Paris Institute of Political Studies (Sciences Po).

The intersection of law, aesthetics, and political philosophy has long formed a terrain for examining how modern societies regulate representation and subjectivity. Within French intellectual traditions, thinkers have frequently investigated the ways in which industrialization and mass culture transform the status of the creator and the artwork. Bernard Edelman writes within this lineage, drawing upon his background in jurisprudence and personality rights to reflect on the historical mutations of artistic practice from the nineteenth century onward.

Readers interested in the intersections of legal theory, modern aesthetics, and the sociology of culture may find this volume a relevant contribution to ongoing debates about art in the age of global markets. Bernard Edelman is a philosopher, supreme court advocate, doctor of law, and specialist in personality rights, copyright, and press law who currently teaches at the Paris Institute of Political Studies (Sciences Po).