Join IMPULSE Magazine on Wednesday, February 25th, for IMPULSE Forum, a community-based conversation program. Doors will open at 6 pm, and the discussion will begin by 6:30 pm. 

In the epilogue to The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, Walter Benjamin argues that fascism introduces aesthetics into political life. Rather than transforming material conditions, it offers expression — spectacle, choreography, affect. Politics becomes image.

To think through this proposition in a contemporary context, participants are asked to watch No Church in the Wild. The stylized confrontation between protesters and police, the fetishization of tension, and the aesthetic framing of violence invite reflection on Benjamin’s claim that politics can become aestheticized rather than resolved.

The aim is not to draw direct equivalences, but to consider whether aesthetic organization — whether monumental, spectacular, or minimal and “neutral” — participates in shaping political imagination.

“Beautiful Order: Aesthetics, Myth, and the Stabilization of Power” will be moderated by Józefina Chętko and hosted at Petzel (520 W 25th St)  in conversation with an exhibition of works by Troy Brauntuch.

RSVP for a FREE ticket and receive a discussion guide and reference material in your inbox when you sign up!