Chronic Illness as Critique: Crip Aesthetics Across the Atlantic. Issue 2 (17th March 2021) - Smith, Giulia
Abstract : A growing body of theories proposes rethinking chronic illness as a position from which to analyse and resist neoliberalism. Interest in these ideas has been steadily growing in the art world, especially in the United Kingdom and the United States. Following on from a period of renewed institutional engagement with the politics of identity, this phenomenon also reflects the rise of 'crip theory' as an intersectional discourse that purports to offer insights beyond the traditional remit of disability studies. With the recent politics of austerity responsible for insolvency, dispossession and vulnerability on a mass scale, some even propose thinking of the present at large as 'crip times'. Others caution against galleries and museums turning real people living with disabilities into a Zeitgeist. This essay explores these debates in relation to the work of Carolyn Lazard and Jesse Darling, two artists based on opposite sides of the Atlantic, who take a contrasting approach to the representation of sickness and vulnerability.