Tobin Siebers. Photo by Claire Siebers.

We understand that weakness makes us human, yet the culture we embrace laughs at imperfection. It’s this sort of dissonance/irony Tobin Siebers loves to probe as a professor of English Literature at the University of Michigan. His two newest books couple a life-long look at disability with the creative process. Zerbrockene Schönheit (Broken Beauty: Essays on Art, Aesthetics, and Disability) was published last year in Germany, and Disability Aesthetics is now out in North America. Both confront a one-dimensional view of disability and how, for the past 300 years, art has tried to reconfigure how we see human weakness, both positively and negatively. The following is from an interview with Siebers:

Mike Levin (UnFolding magazine): Why does our culture continue to believe that the disabled are relatively incapable of producing or appreciating creativity?

Tobin Siebers: For one thing, we do not recognize degrees of disability. Disabled people are believed to be disabled all the way down. If you have trouble seeing, you must have trouble hearing and thinking too. The myth of the genius artist is powerful in our society. These artists are brilliant and beautiful, perhaps a little “crazy” but not in any way that resembles mental disability. The disabled are the most economically deprived minority group. Given these circumstances, it is not surprising that our culture does not recognize the creativity of disabled people or the influence of disability in the art world, the one small corner of the human universe with the greatest claim to create and recognize beauty, where people with disabilities are represented as beautiful. This is why disability aesthetics is not only of concern to art critics and museum directors. Disability aesthetics is everyone’s concern because it touches upon fundamental issues of human rights.

ML: Do you think disabled people are as creatively capable as the nondisabled?

TS: Neil Marcus, the disabled dancer, observes that “disability is not a brave struggle or courage in the face of adversity. Disability is an art. It’s an ingenious way to live.” It requires a great deal of artfulness and creativity to figure out how to make it through the day when you are disabled, given the condition of our society. I see no signs that nondisabled people are by their nature more creative or that the disabled are by their nature less creative.

ML: Why does disability “reflected in art’s broken mirror grow more beautiful” if our North American culture becomes more intolerant of imperfections?

TS: What we call aesthetic beauty has been developing for many centuries, but with modern art it emerges in all of its glory, and in a way where it becomes quite difficult to confuse its ideals with those of commercial beauty. The culture of commercial beauty is intolerant of imperfections.

ML: “Aesthetics opens us,” you state, “to more expansive and diverse conceptions of the human.” In art, perhaps. But aren’t we hardwired to reject imperfection?

TS: Human beings value other human beings who show what we might call cultural intelligence. Culture is the tool that humans use to affect their environment, and we value people who make contributions to culture, new tools, methods of organizing ourselves. Art is a mode of perception, a lamp, a means by which we reveal hidden things about ourselves. Disability aesthetics asks us to see our fellow human beings differently and introduces a critical distance in the perception of society and cultural values. At the same time, it asks us to set down this usage, to understand that ability is not one-dimensional, that there is a great diversity in the ways that human beings belong to and contribute to the world.

ML: You argue that the acceptance of disability enriches and complicates materialist notions of the aesthetic, and that the rejection of disability limits definitions of artistic ideas and objects.

TS: The history of art charts in many ways a conflict between materialism and idealism, under the heading of “disinterestedness.” Disinterestedness separates the idea of an emotion from its physical reaction. Disability, because it is so powerfully located in the body and its emotional substrata, compels us to rethink the artificial separation between what art makes us think and what it makes us feel. Art is the active site designed to explore and expand the spectrum of humanity that we will accept among us. It accomplishes this goal by breaking down the separation between idealism and materialism, by compelling us to face the fact that artworks are bodies that make us feel. The acceptance of disability enlarges our material and physical responses, while the rejection of disability limits the definition of art.

ML: So, the goal of embracing disability in art is to further fuel the idea that art is an emotional provocateur, boosting our emotional reactions and theoretically enjoying art more rather than simply reacting to art’s material representation?

TS: It is certainly not the case that any art object eliciting the image of disability will qualify as a successful work of art. But I do believe that at this moment in time, because of the role currently played by disability, works representing disability have a strong and unique capacity to summon feelings and thoughts that make us perceive the human condition anew.

ML: What are you trying to say with your two new books?

TS: My first goal is to disrupt the belief that disability can have no connection to the ancient craft of the beautiful. Most people have a difficult time conceptualizing the idea that disabled people are in a position to make significant contributions to art, either as symbols of aesthetic beauty or by making art themselves. Nevertheless, the history of modern art unveils increasingly as it evolves a powerful connection to disability. Aesthetics opens us to more expansive and diverse conceptions of the human, and disability has become a powerful tool for rethinking human appearance, intelligence, behavior and creativity. My second goal, related to the first, is to mount a historical argument that demonstrates the awareness and use of disability by modern artists.

This is an abridged version of the interview. The full version will be published in Disabilities Studies Quarterly May 20.