1. What is the desire that drives museumgoers to photograph artworks?
The desire that drives museumgoers to photograph artworks is the desire to possess art's temporal freedom. This desire has existed throughout history, and it is the power of art to summon alterity, an 'elsewhere' or 'otherwise.' The politics of art is the story of that alterity's capture, whether by art historians, the Christian church, absolute monarchs, twenty-first-century oligarchs, or the authors of selfies in contemporary museums. Art's value lies in its capacity to generate experience over time, which cannot be fully captured or consumed.
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