The aim of this thesis is to study polemics, or public controversy, in the expanded field of art, as a performative act and a place of strength. Contrary to the recurrent idea of polemics as something depreciated and filled with negativity - an idea reinforced by the media of controversy as an unproductive disagreement -, polemics, or public controversy is approached here as a discourse phenomenon and as a means, an engine, for cultural movement. The thesis investigates the genealogy of polemics through the analysis of its occurrence in different contexts within the cultural field: as a literary genre largely spread in periodicals of the late 19th century until the 1920 s; as performance and aesthetic radicalization; and as a media phenomenon. The final part of the thesis is dedicated to the analysis of the main obstacles for coexistence in dissensus, and possible ways to overcome them, replacing polemics not only as an engine to democracy but as a condition for its existence.