This article seeks to show how different conceptions of aesthetics can determine the relationship between art and politics. To achieve this, it first explores the link found by Walter Benjamin between l’art pour l’art and the “aestheticization of politics.” It then compares this idea to the “politics of aesthetics” and “aesthetics of politics,” which Jacques Rancière locates in the heart of what he calls the “distribution of the sensible.” The article highlights how autonomous aesthetics leads to an aestheticization of politics, while an inherently political aesthetics illuminates the liberating potential of art.