PROLOGUE
The Carnal Immanence of Political Realism—
Realism, Materiality, and Agency
A key feature of the new materialism is its insistence on the recalcitrance
and vitality of matter and thus on its role in constraining and engendering
the ways it is understood and handled. Matter is recognized as having its
own forces of resilience, resistance, and productivity.
—DIANE COOLE, “FROM WITHIN THE MIDST OF THINGS: NEW SENSIBILITY, NEW ALCHEMY,
AND THE RENEWAL OF CRITICAL THEORY”
What I say instead is that artworks produce their own real objects, rather
than imitating pre-existing ones.
—GRAHAM HARMAN, “ART AND OBJECTHOOD”
I
n April 1881, the Parisian artworld was rocked to its core by a work of
art exhibited at the sixth impressionist exhibition. This one, like the
first in 1874, was staged at the studio of renowned, pioneering photog-
rapher Nadar. The exhibition included works by Morisot, Cassatt,
Gauguin, and Pissarro, among others, but Degas’s Little Dancer Aged
Fourteen (plate 1) captured more attention than any other work in the
show. It was not a painting but, surprisingly for the established impres-
sionist canon, a diminutive wax sculpture of a young girl. Today, the work
has become one of the most recognizable and cherished pieces of impres-
sionism. But its 1874 reception reveals a more complex picture. Upon its
