The work of Stephen F. Eisenman, one of the most original and innovative art historians in recent times, casts light on today’s central problems — political violence, animalism, human rights — through a double commitment: social, in relation to his work as an activist, and methodological, through his research and its concerns with social approaches to art history. Eisenman explores issues with ethical and disciplinary significance, elucidating a critical standpoint and acknowledging the ideological ties that join somewhat distant pasts to the present we inhabit.

This interview was conducted in parallel with his participation in the lectures organised by the Juan Antonio Ramírez Chair to mark the start of the 2019–2020 academic year. In this instance, Eisenman looks at the aestheticization and eroticization of violence against the other through his renowned thesis on the photographs recording the Abu Ghraib prison tortures, and the historical link of these images to the representational tradition of Western art.