The Relationship between Art and Politics in Jean-Francois Lyotard’s Opinion

As justice and freedom are the pivots of Jean-Francois Lyotard’s thoughts, what he thinks of art can be a significant reply to the relation of art and politics. According to Lyotard the ruling power of metanarratives of modern societies has been over in post modern ones, since the metanarratives are problematic themselves and they cause some injustices. In order to resist against the metanarratives, Lyotard proposed desire. According to Lyotard desire can appear as different forms, a common thing such as an art. As Lyotard puts it, art is free of modern discussions and negotiations because of intending to be childlike or unconditional inhuman. In the other words human is like a newborn baby without being under any pedagogical method, like a white plate without any drawing on it, without any allegiance to any ideology with specific aims. It has natural needs and aims. This creature exists inside of every mature and immature human. Now art is like an event and wills this creature. What is meant by event is an occurrence which is not compatible with any predefined systems acquiring to reflective judgment being able to challenge the ruler system and manifest the differences. Accordingly, it eliminates the previous methods of explanation and wants to create a fairer world by prescribing new remedies. From this point of view, art cannot support and be the complement of policy making. After having studied, translated, and analyzed Lyotard's opinions and his commentator, this paper aims at clarifying this relation.