Wreck: The Graduate Journal of Art History, Visual Art & Theory

Realist art might either corroborate or subvert the world it addresses. It may serve as a colonial strategy, as a method of subsuming cultural traditions under a domineering ideal. On the contrary, the politics of resemblance at the heart of realism can provide a mode of resistance by pointing out the injustice of one reality attempting to displace another. The present-day critic has ample proof that the term “reality” has become increasingly contested and seems to offer an unconvincing connection between sensing and knowing. We therefore ask: does “realism” have political legs to stand on? Can realism still be understood as a means of thinking past appearance, of critique beyond resemblance? Or does it entrench the dominant norms and values of the oppressive systems it depicts? Does realism solidify capitalist dogma or deride it as tentative and contingent? What does it offer and what does it take?