In his article, Voelker examines Badiou’s reinscription of the Platonic distinction between poetry and philosophy, out of which he develops an account of the contemporaneity of philosophy. For Badiou, the author argues, a repetition of this founding gesture of philosophy is necessary. However, this is complicated both by the fact that the Platonic gesture itself does not amount to a simple dismissal of poetry, and that a contemporary reinscription of the distinction between poetry and philosophy takes place in a completely changed situation, namely that of modernity.

Although art always takes place in time, its manifestations – actual works of art – can be characterized by the specific and close connection they maintain between contemporaneity and timelessness. Their relation to time must be differentiated in a twofold manner: on the one hand, there is the relation to the time in which they are embedded, and, on the other, the relation to the time that they themselves create. In particular historical conditions a specific temporality of the artwork emerges. Both temporalities are superimposed on by one another, namely as a timelessness of artworks as such. The book assembles a variety of thinkers that confront one of the most crucial questions when dealing with the very definition, concept and operativity of art: How to link art to the concept of the contemporary?