<p>In <em>The Future of the Image</em>, Jacques Rancière develops a fascinatingnew concept of the image in contemporary art, showing how art and politics havealways been intrinsically intertwined. Covering a range of art movements,filmmakers such as Godard and Bresson, and thinkers such as Foucault, Deleuze,Adorno, Barthes, Lyotard and Greenberg, Rancière shows that contemporarytheorists of the image are suffering from religious tendencies.</p><p>He argues that there is a stark political choice in art: it can eitherreinforce a radical democracy, or create a new reactionary mysticism. ForRancière there is never a pure art: the aesthetic revolution must alwaysembrace egalitarian ideals.</p>