On Catastrophe Considered as One of the Fine Arts

The theme of the disaster is now pervasive, whether in the field of economics, politics, environmental policies, or the arts. The widespread use of the word, its protean nature and the growing confusion that has now become its distinctive trait, invite to question what is at stake in its current emergence. Based on concrete examples borrowed from Japanese art, including some works inspired by the recent Fukushima disaster, we will question this notion and link it to the surfacing of “new regimes of the disaster” (the “stealth disasters”) and what might be called an “elusive representation”, that turns the artistic gesture in the age of Fukushima an experience of immeasurable negativity as well as a possible tool for liberation.