The Question of Painting: Rethinking Thought with Merleau-Ponty

Since the latter half of the 20th century, committed art has been associated with conceptual, critical and activist practices. Painting, by contrast, is all too often defined as an outmoded, reactionary, market-led venture; an ineffectual medium from the perspective of social and political engagement. How can paintings change the world today?

The question of painting, in particular, fuelled the investigations of a major 20th-century philosopher: the French phenomenologist, Maurice Merleau-Po...