a fleeting encounter

*

The art which is and which is to come should be as solidly united as a demonstration, as surprising as a night attack, and as elevated as a star. Here is what these three images as abstractions confirm.

The work to come should be as solidly united as a demonstration, because it should oppose to the perpetual market mobility of the imperial world an inflexible principle of consequence. The work to come spurns relativisms and suspects doubt. It explores its affirmation to the very end.

The work to come should be as surprising as a night attack because it makes an event of the ignored real. It imposes this real violently, this piece of the real on whatever it seizes. It does not make it circulate, it does not communicate it. It imposes it, with a necessary small touch of terror.

The work to come should be as elevated as a star because it desires non-temporal indifference to its invented form. It is not fraternal, corporeal, it does not install itself in the lukewarmness of sharing. The work of art to come is detached from imperial commerce.

– Alain Badiou, Manifesto of Affirmationism.