Using Georges Bataille in Art History: Informe, Figuration and Politics

The theories of the French intellectual Georges Bataille have had a significant influence on much recent arts practice and criticism. Bataille’s later work (c.1937–1962), however, is often overlooked in cultural practice and theory. In this later period his thought becomes richer; no less transgressive, no less excessive, and indubitably more philosophical. This thesis will argue the importance of using the chronological range of Bataille’s writing. In particular, it will redress the critical neglect in art history of his later work. The selective use of Bataille’s early work, especially the informe, in the American art history of Rosalind Krauss will be critiqued. The thesis will deploy concepts developed extensively in two late works, Inner Experience and The Accursed Share, to discuss the practice of two visual artists that do not figure in the type of methodology that Krauss adopts; the Anglo-Irish painter Francis Bacon and the Swiss installation artist Thomas Hirschhorn. Inner Experience, a work revolving around the theme of ‘limit-experience’, will be the catalyst in an analysis of the works of Francis Bacon. This thesis will demonstrate that although Bacon was an avowed atheist, he ventures to capture a sacred and impossible moment in his painting that parallels the “movement of contestation” in “inner experience.” The conception of economy developed in The Accursed Share derives from the germ of Bataille’s economic theory, first outlined in the 1933 essay “The Notion of Expenditure.” Thomas Hirschhorn’s practice and his desire to “work politically” will be examined from the perspective of Bataillean expenditure and the notion of general economy.