Authors

Discussion

Russian-French philosopher Alexandre Kojève is still mainly renowned for his legendary lectures on Hegel, frequented by leading French intellectuals from Jacques Lacan and Maurice Merleau-Ponty to Georges Bataille. Kojève's lifelong engagement with Russian philosophy and visual art is far less well-known. And yet, it is precisely Kojève's relation to visual art and aesthetics that is central to understanding his multifaceted legacy. The significance of his uncle Wassily Kandinsky, Russian painter and art theorist, is especially unexplored. My paper examines the impact of Kandinsky's art on Kojève. An unequaled pioneer of abstract art, Kandinsky shared his nephew’s interests in Russian philosophy and Hegelian aesthetics; his work is furthermore driven by a similar strive toward the concrete. The chapter opens with a brief intellectual history of the notion of concreteness from Hegel, Marx and Solovyov to Kojève. As this analysis will reveal, Kojève's thought cannot be fully grasped without taking into account radically new paradigms of representation brought up by avant-garde artists like Kandinsky. Readings of their correspondence and Kojève's 1936 essay “The Concrete Paintings of Kandinsky” demonstrate an ongoing involvement with Kandinsky. The paper finally contextualizes Kojève in transnational networks of émigré artists, opening up new perspectives on Kojève as a mediator between the Russian avant-garde and Surrealism.