Theory of art Books

Book SynopsisSurveys a wide range of cultural controversies, from the Mapplethorpe affair to Salman Rushdie's death sentence. This book seeks to show that the fear and outrage these events inspired were the result of dangerous misunderstandings about the relationship between art and life.

Read more less

Book SynopsisWhy do we need new art? How free is the artist in making? And why is the artist, and particularly the poet, a figure of freedom in Western culture? This book explores and celebrates the freedom of artists who, working under finite conditions, make considered choices and shape surprising consequences.Trade Review"Susan Stewart is an investigator of linguistic nuance and a new metaphysics, par excellence.... I believe she is one of the finest poets of the last fifty years." -John Kinsella, Salt Magazine "Stewart's meditations on the history of poetry and the poetic are in themselves an original contribution to the philosophy of culture." -Hayden White, author of Figural Realism"

Read more less

Book SynopsisPoets often have responded vitally to the art of their time, and ever since Susan Stewart began writing about art in the early 1980s, her work has resonated with practicing artists, curators, art historians, and art critics. Rooted in a broad and learned range of references, Stewart's fresh and independent essays bridge the fields of literature, aesthetics, and contemporary art. Gathering most of Stewart's writing on contemporary artlong and short pieces first published in small magazines, museum and gallery publications, and edited collectionsThe Open Studio illuminates work ranging from the installation art of Ann Hamilton to the sculptures and watercolors of Thomas Schütte, the prints and animations of William Kentridge to the films of Tacita Dean. Stewart's essays are often the record of studio conversations with living artists and curators, and of the afterlife of those experiences in the solitude of her own study. Considering a wide variety of art forms, Stewart finds pathbreak

Read more less

Book SynopsisConcentrating on canonical critical texts and images, the book examines modern art through a rhetoric of representation rather than through formalist criticism or the history of the avant-garde.

Read more less

Book SynopsisTrade ReviewRosalyn Deutsche argues for a certain modesty-or perhaps, I should say, a modest uncertainty-with regard to the demands placed upon art in response to war. She brings a deep knowledge of both contemporary art and the psychoanalytic literature on war to her study, as well as the careful exposition and lucid prose we've come to expect from her work. -- Douglas Crimp, author of Melancholia and Moralism: Essays on AIDS and Queer PoliticsTable of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction 1. Silvia Kolbowski 2. Leslie Thornton 3. Krzysztof Wodiczko Notes Bibliography Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisTrade ReviewRosalyn Deutsche argues for a certain modesty-or perhaps, I should say, a modest uncertainty-with regard to the demands placed upon art in response to war. She brings a deep knowledge of both contemporary art and the psychoanalytic literature on war to her study, as well as the careful exposition and lucid prose we've come to expect from her work. -- Douglas Crimp, author of Melancholia and Moralism: Essays on AIDS and Queer PoliticsTable of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction 1. Silvia Kolbowski 2. Leslie Thornton 3. Krzysztof Wodiczko Notes Bibliography Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisTrade ReviewFor artists, critics, theoreticians, and the like, this book is a call to engage with philosophy's numerous critical resources. Michael Kelly takes a significant first stab at healing the deleterious rift between philosophical aesthetics, on the one hand, and art, art criticism, art history, and 'theory' on the other. This is an ambitious and important book! No other work in the literature-art historical or philosophical-makes such an attempt. -- A.W. Eaton, University of Illinois at Chicago In elegant and trenchant commentaries on influential twentieth-century artists, art movements, and art theories (ranging from John Dewey to Susan Sontag and from Pop art to Doris Salcedo), Michael Kelly interrogates the 'anti-aesthetic' stance among certain artists and critics and in recent histories and philosophies of the arts, and reinvigorates the possibility of a robust critical aesthetics of art. Weaving careful attention to the aesthetic, social, and ethical claims of particular artworks with an investigation of a range of philosophical and critical responses to them, Kelly shows that the very possibilities of art as critique and of the critique of art demand-even 'hunger for'-an aesthetics that addresses the moral-political stakes and limits of art. Kelly's explication and defense of aesthetics as the grounds of art critique-rather than inimical to it-will interest not only philosophers of art and aestheticians of all stripes. In developing theoretical resources to renew the relations between aesthetics and ethics, social theory, and political economy, it will command the close attention of curators, historians, sociologists, and practitioners of the arts, especially those who have been tempted to abandon aesthetics. -- Whitney Davis, University of California, Berkeley Useful for scholars in philosophy who are reflecting on the links between aesthetics and beauty in contemporary art. Literature and AestheticsTable of ContentsList of Illustrations Preface Acknowledgements Introduction: The Dewey Effect 1. The Pop Effect 2. The Sontag Effect 3. The Richter Effect 4. The Salcedo Effect Notes Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisA passionate defense of the medium’s truth-telling powers.Trade ReviewPhotography and Its Violations poses a world-transforming ethical challenge to photography's makers, subjects, and viewers alike: to reveal or conceal the exercise of power. Armed with John Roberts's insights into the often insidious, sometimes enfranchising, always intricate interplay of these two opposing violations, sensitive readers will be empowered and emboldened as they battle for position amid the tsunami of photographs that has come to define our world. -- Blake Stimson, University of Illinois at Chicago, author of The Pivot of the World: Photography and Its Nation I know of no other work in photographic history or theory which takes such a wide survey of well-chosen examples in service of making profound and provocative sense of the whole field of photography. This book also successfully proposes a genuinely novel position from which to re-engage the most pressing, important, and persistent problems of photography. -- Tom Huhn, School of Visual ArtsTable of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction: The Social Ontology of Photography Part I. The Document, the Figural, and the Index 1. Photography and Its Truth-Event 2. The Political Form of Photography Today 3. "Fragment, Experiment, Dissonant Prologue": Modernism, Realism, and the Photodocument 4. Two Models of Labor: Figurality and Nonfigurality in Recent Photography Part II. Abstraction, Violation, and Empathy 5. Photography After the Photograph: Event, Archive, and the Nonsymbolic 6. Photography, Abstraction, and the Social Production of Space 7. Violence, Photography, and the Inhuman Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisTraces the lineage of moving-image installation through architecture, painting, sculpture, performance, expanded cinema, film history, and countercultural film and videoTrade Review[A] wild ride of a book... Elwes has made an admirable assault on the field and I am sure this book will influence generations of students. Art Monthly Fascinating. Cinema TechnologyTable of ContentsAcknowledgements Introduction 1. Architecture 2. Painting 3. Sculpture 4. Performance 5. Film History 6. Film as Film 7. Structural Film: Detractions and Revisions 8. The Dialectics of Spectatorship 9. Expanded Cinema 10. Sound 11. Video Installation 12. Closing Thoughts Bibliography Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisArt making as a way of mediating between inner and outer realities.Trade ReviewTo read a book by Michael Jackson is to be in his company: to hear a cultured and cosmopolitan voice relating stories that disclose how the human and universal inhabit the personal and particular. Art and religion, he avers, are transitional phenomena that facilitate links between inner experience and outer worlds such that human life is made more viable. To craft artworks and to engender religious cosmologies and practices is to create that artifice whereby pain may translate into comprehension and anonymity into a sense of control. Jackson is a uniquely insightful and compassionate guide. -- Nigel Rapport, author of I Am Dynamite: An Alternative Anthropology of Power Jackson's meditation on art and religion is an erudite blending of philosophy, personal biography, history, and ethnography. Full of powerful time-space juxtapositions that weave Europe, West Africa, Australia, and New Zealand into the same sentences, paragraphs, and pages, The Work of Art is a sustained inquiry into the affecting sociality of art in its making and sensuous resonance. A wonderful addition to Jackson's elegant writings on key existential themes in anthropology: between-ness, becoming, and relationality. -- Steven Feld, author of Jazz Cosmopolitanism in Accra: Five Musical Years in Ghana Jackson's lucid, elegant, and incisive book is a laser beam piercing the murky discourse that surrounds contemporary art. His clarity restores the reciprocal relations between the work of art and our experience of it; his wisdom honors the age-old link between life, ritual, and soul-making. Most important of all, he shows again what it means to be alive in the world: bearing witness equally to joy and to pain. -- Martin Edmond, author of The Resurrection of Philip Clairmont The Work of Art is a deeply moving, inspirational, and intellectually compelling examination of the myriad ways in which art, religion, and ritual overlap. Combining phenomenological and existential insights with honest and intimate ethnographic reflection, Jackson teases out the productive and transformative implications of art practice. -- Adrian Parr, author of The Wrath of Capital: Neoliberalism and Climate Change Politics [The Work of Art] offers intriguing insights into how we might understand art and religion as two modes of the same creative impulse. Publishers WeeklyTable of ContentsPreamble Part 1 Worlds Within and Worlds Without Melbourne Now The Elementary Forms of Religious Life Art as Religion The Interplay of Coming Out and Going In Consciousness From Joyce to Beuys Production and Reproduction Axes of Bias A Visit to the Kunstmuseum Basel Part 2 The Life and Times of Paddy Jupurrula Nelson Ecstatic Professions Art and Adversity: Ian Fairweather and the Solitude of Art Transplantations: The Art of Simryn Gill My Brother's Keeper: The Art of Susan Norrie Heroic Failure: The Art of Sidney Nolan Une Vie Breve, Mais Intense The Pare Revisited A Man of Constant Sorrow: The Existential Art of Colin McCahon Part 3 Landscape and Nature Morte: The Art of Paul Cezanne Art and the Unspeakable Marina Abramovic and the Shadows of Intersubjectivity Exodus Making It Otherwise Art and the Everyday The Work of Art and the Arts of Life Notes Acknowledgments Permissions Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisWendy Graham traces the critical discourses that shaped the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood’s reception and continues to inform responses to them. She explains the mechanics of fame and the politics of scandal contributing to the rise of aestheticism, providing a new interpretation of the place of aesthetic counterculture in Victorian England.Trade ReviewThis is a useful survey of high Victorian critical values, and it helps prepare the way for a deeper understanding of Henry James and Oscar Wilde. * Choice *Graham’s strengths are in her meticulous historical illustrations of her theoretical claims. -- Erica Haugtvedt, South Dakota School of Mines and Technology Rapid City, South Dakota * Clio *The book makes a helpful addition to the growing scholarship on avant-garde celebrities, from Jean-Jacques Rousseau in the eighteenth century to Gertrude Stein, Truman Capote, and Andy Warhol in the twentieth. -- Sharon Marcus * Victorian Studies *Graham’s is a book for which to feel grateful . . . Her determination to write both the homosociality and the (often denied) homoeroticism of the PRB men back into their story, and thus into cultural history, is an admirable animating purpose. That she does this, too, by means of such energetic, idiosyncratic, passionately engagé prose makes her study a most welcome one. -- MARGARET D. STETZ, University of Delaware * English Literature in Transition 1880-1920 *This book should be welcomed by scholars working in Queer and Gender studies, whom it most directly addresses. Victorianists interested in the figure of the celebrity and the role played by periodicals will also value its detailed reception history. Scholars of Pre-Raphaelite art (and to a lesser extent, literature) will find some interesting and provocative claims to ponder. -- Elizabeth Helsinger * Cercles *Wendy Graham writes with engaging clarity and rigor about the curious homoeroticism of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the volatile sexual politics surrounding the careers of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Algernon Charles Swinburne, and Simeon Solomon in particular. With her subtle eye for the odd erotic enthusiasm, the conflicted allegiance, and the panicky equivocation, she takes a fresh and judicious look at the abundant mythmaking, journalistic backstabbing, and personal betrayals that attended the myriad Pre-Raphaelite challenges to Victorian conventions. -- Ellis Hanson, Cornell UniversityCritics, Coteries, and Pre-Raphaelite Celebrity is chock full of insight. Graham wants us to think of Pre-Raphaelitism as not just a, but the crucial movement in the making of modern ideas of celebrity. Her concern is at once with the Pre-Raphaelites, and with the assortments of critical discourse that greeted their onset, shaped their contemporary reception, and continued to guide critical responses to them well after their supersession. She argues that there exists both within the PRB and its reception a persistent homosocial and often homoerotic dynamic, which shapes the ways we think about art movements and their possibilities. This is a distinguished and fascinating work. -- Jonathan Freedman, University of MichiganTable of ContentsList of IllustrationsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction1. The Pre-Raphaelite Vanguard2. Puff, Slash, Burn: Literary Celebrity3. Fortune’s Weal4. Dante Gabriel Rossetti: Aesthetic Celebrity5. Anonymous Journalism: The Fleshly School Controversy6. Henry James and British AestheticismAfterwordNotesWorks CitedIndex

Read more less

Book SynopsisChiara Cappelletto recasts the relationship between neuroscience and aesthetics and calls for shifting the focus of inquiry from the brain itself to personal experience in the world. Embodying Art offers a strikingly original and profound philosophical account of the human brain as a living artifact.Trade ReviewCappelletto’s Embodying Art marks a new beginning. Skeptics of brain-oriented approaches to art and aesthetics will delight in her trenchant criticisms, even as friends will welcome what is in fact a sympathetic, deeply informed, and highly informative embrace of the emerging field. But whatever side you are on, you will be impressed by her demonstration that neuroaesthetics has become a new arena in which not only scientists of the brain, but also philosophers, art historians, and artists themselves, are reimagining, indeed, remaking what it is to be human. This is a book for anyone interested in why the study of the brain now occupies such a central place in our cultural life. -- Alva Noë, author of Strange Tools: Art and Human NatureChiara Cappelletto is celebrated for writing the first book on neuroaesthetics to come out of Italy, but what we really should be noticing is her powerful ability to dispense with cultural conventions about aesthetics to perform what is among the most careful sifting and analysis of the literatures, including the persistent literature on the mind-body divide, that have informed the disparate threads of this relatively new field, without forcing them into unitary interdisciplinarity. Cappelletto combines an insistence on the field's early and uneven development with measured skepticism about the discipline’s love of its own metaphors and cultures—what she refers to as the 'intractable problem' of neuroesthetics' 'fictional experimental setting' and its narrow thematization of the embodied mind, bringing us to recognize the value of analyzing lived encounters with art in its historical contexts. If you are looking to stay with the trouble of neuroaesthetics without losing sight of the cultural conventions that produce both art and the brain itself, this is the book to stay with. -- Lisa Cartwright, author of Screening the Body: Tracing Medicine’s Visual CultureTable of ContentsAcknowledgmentsNeuroaesthetics Reloaded1. 1994: Putting Neuroaesthetics on the Map2. Neuroaesthetics: Cerebral Attributes and Bodily Ghosts3. Neuroarthistory: On Emotions, Matter, and Time4. Neuroartcriticism: From the Artist’s Lesions to the Artwork and Vice Versa5. The Brain’s Iconoclash6. Brains on StageNotesBibliographyAppendix: Artworks on the BrainIndex

Read more less

Book SynopsisChiara Cappelletto recasts the relationship between neuroscience and aesthetics and calls for shifting the focus of inquiry from the brain itself to personal experience in the world. Embodying Art offers a strikingly original and profound philosophical account of the human brain as a living artifact.Trade ReviewCappelletto’s Embodying Art marks a new beginning. Skeptics of brain-oriented approaches to art and aesthetics will delight in her trenchant criticisms, even as friends will welcome what is in fact a sympathetic, deeply informed, and highly informative embrace of the emerging field. But whatever side you are on, you will be impressed by her demonstration that neuroaesthetics has become a new arena in which not only scientists of the brain, but also philosophers, art historians, and artists themselves, are reimagining, indeed, remaking what it is to be human. This is a book for anyone interested in why the study of the brain now occupies such a central place in our cultural life. -- Alva Noë, author of Strange Tools: Art and Human NatureChiara Cappelletto is celebrated for writing the first book on neuroaesthetics to come out of Italy, but what we really should be noticing is her powerful ability to dispense with cultural conventions about aesthetics to perform what is among the most careful sifting and analysis of the literatures, including the persistent literature on the mind-body divide, that have informed the disparate threads of this relatively new field, without forcing them into unitary interdisciplinarity. Cappelletto combines an insistence on the field's early and uneven development with measured skepticism about the discipline’s love of its own metaphors and cultures—what she refers to as the 'intractable problem' of neuroesthetics' 'fictional experimental setting' and its narrow thematization of the embodied mind, bringing us to recognize the value of analyzing lived encounters with art in its historical contexts. If you are looking to stay with the trouble of neuroaesthetics without losing sight of the cultural conventions that produce both art and the brain itself, this is the book to stay with. -- Lisa Cartwright, author of Screening the Body: Tracing Medicine’s Visual CultureTable of ContentsAcknowledgmentsNeuroaesthetics Reloaded1. 1994: Putting Neuroaesthetics on the Map2. Neuroaesthetics: Cerebral Attributes and Bodily Ghosts3. Neuroarthistory: On Emotions, Matter, and Time4. Neuroartcriticism: From the Artist’s Lesions to the Artwork and Vice Versa5. The Brain’s Iconoclash6. Brains on StageNotesBibliographyAppendix: Artworks on the BrainIndex

Read more less

Book Synopsis Queer Pollen discusses three notable black queer twentieth century artists--painter and writer Richard Bruce Nugent, author James Baldwin, and filmmaker Marlon Riggs--and the unique ways they turned to various media to work through their experiences living as queer black men. David A. Gerstner elucidates the complexities in expressing queer black desire through traditional art forms such as painting, poetry, and literary prose, or in the industrial medium of cinema. This challenge is made particularly sharp when the terms 'black' and 'homosexuality' come freighted with white ideological conceptualizations. Gerstner adroitly demonstrates how Nugent, Baldwin, and Riggs interrogated the seductive power and saturation of white queer cultures, grasping the deceit of an entrenched cultural logic that defined their identity and their desire in terms of whiteness. Their work confounds the notion of foundational origins that prescribe the limits of homosexuTrade ReviewA Choice Outstanding Academic Title, 2012. "Gerstner is a master theorist who renders a compelling and cutting-edge narrative about the complexity of black homosexual desire. The first book of its kind to specifically address the formation of black queer subjectivity in relation to white seduction, Queer Pollen offers a major contribution to African American studies, gender studies, film studies, literary studies, and art history."--E. Patrick Johnson, author of Sweet Tea: Black Gay Men of the South "[Gerstner] is extremely well informed on the landmark work in critical theory...and continues to establish his reputation as an influential daredevil theorist who probes the complexity of identity. Highly recommended."--Choice "Queer Pollen examines the work of three queer black creators: Harlem Renaissance aesthete Richard Bruce Nugent, novelist James Baldwin and filmmaker Marlon Riggs. . . . Like all twentieth and even twenty-first century creators, all three have a relationship to film which emerges in their work in multimedia and in the written word. . . . Gerstner asks us to de-naturalise the cinematic frame of reference and understand how it can be used as a strategy to examine how power relations are manifested as looks and inscribed on the body through desire and shame. Instead of poisoned fruit, these three authors offer insight into the ways in which desire draws its own authenticity by consuming and re-appropriating a collage of different cultural forms."--Dr. Scott Beattie, Somatechnics "A true companion piece to Baldwin's [Go Tell It on the Mountain]. Provides good intellectual theory."--Film InternationalTable of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Introduction 1 1. Richard Bruce Nugent (1906-87) 19 2. James Baldwin (1924-87) 73 3. Marlon Riggs (1957-94) 138 Notes 215 Bibliography 261 Index 277

Read more less

Book SynopsisTrade ReviewMetzger demonstrates that artworks can be vessels that cut pathways through surface representations and move us with the undercurrents of our global networks: art offers us the experience of sensing the world in ways that release us from the script of a totalizing representational system. The Chinese Atlantic contributes to a growing body of scholarship dedicated to exploring the role of aesthetics and cultural production in the totalizing representational system of liberal humanism. -- Hadley Howes * ANTIPODE ONLINE *Table of ContentsPrologueIntroduction1. Reeling2. Incorporating3. Flowing4. Ebbing5. EddyingEpilogueIndex

Read more less

Book SynopsisTo whom should we ascribe the great flowering of the arts in Renaissance Italy? Scholars have attributed great importance to the role played by patrons, arguing that some should even be regarded as artists in their own right. This approach is challenged by Jill Burke.Trade Review“No one writing about Florentine and Italian art history will be able to ignore this elegant and probing book.”—F.W. Kent, Director,Monash University at Prato“Probing, concise and grounded in extensive research, Jill Burke’s Changing Patrons: Social Identity and the Visual Arts in Renaissance Florence is a major study in the current vein. . . . Drawing continually on archival documents, Burke does a masterly job of tracking the ascent of her two families, particularly as seen in the fortunes of their palazzo and religious commissions. Seldom have the ties between social identities and art of display objects been so convincingly shown.”—Lauro Martines Times Literary Supplement“Burke's lucidly argued and well researched study proves to be a thought-provoking read whose significance goes well beyond a circle of readers interested in the study of patronage in Quattrocento Florence.”—Gabriele Neher The Art Book“The great strengths of Changing Patrons are Burke’s archival research into the Nasi and Del Pugliese families and her willingness to examine this research from a broad societal perspective. . . . It is well researched and well informed and both broadens our knowledge of specific examples of Florentine patronage and studies these examples in new ways. . . . Burke should be praised for both indicating and demonstrating how ideas about artistic patronage might be reframed.”—Barnaby Nygren Sixteenth Century Journal“Lucid explanations of artists’ contracts and the patronage of family chapels and building committees make Jill Burke’s first book an extremely useful introduction to ‘how the fifteenth-century [Florentine] patron could use paintings, sculptures, and buildings to mediate relationships with the wider world’ (p.189), and her thoughtful, often controversial, interpretations provide material for reflection.”—Jonathan Katz Nelson Burlington Magazine“The study of patronage in Renaissance Florence has a rich history over the past half a century and Changing Patrons by Jill Burke provides a welcome new chapter. Her succinct historiographical introduction will surely provide essential reading not only for those wishing to work in this specific area but also for any student of Renaissance Florence.”—Samuel Bibby Object“Burke’s lucidly argued and well researched study proves to be a thought-provoking read whose significance goes well beyond a circle of readers interested in the study of patronage in Quattrocento Florence.”—Gabriele Neher The Art BookTable of Contents Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgments A Note on Transcriptions and Translations Abbreviations Introduction Part I: Families, Neighbors, and Friends 1. Family Self-Fashioning 2. Private Wealth and Public Benefit: The Nasi and Del Pugliese Palaces 3. Family, Church, Community: The Appearance of Power in Santo Spirito 4. Patronage and the Art of Friendship: Piero del Pugliese's Patronage of Filippino Lippi Part II: The Individual, the Family, and the Church 5. Patronage Rights and Wrongs: Building Identity at Santa Maria a Lecceto 6. Framing Patronage: Beauty and Order at the Church of the Innocenti 7. Differing Visions: Image and Audience in the Florentine Church Part III: Identity and Change 8. Painted Prayers: Savonarola and the Audience of Images Conclusions and Questions Appendix Nasi Family Tree Del Pugliese Family Tree Unpublished Documents Poems Written About the Portrait of Piero del Pugliese by Filippino Lippi Notes Bibliography Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisExplores tensions in aesthetics and art theory between antique figural sculpture experienced in the round and its translation into two-dimensional representations. Examines the work and thought of Goethe, Winckelmann, Hegel, Walter Pater, Vernon Lee, and others.Trade Review“Like the author’s previous pathbreaking and widely admired book on the relation between portrait painting in the studio of Ingres and the broader problematics of painting ‘history,’ Animating the Antique is painstaking, original, and uncompromising. Weaving art history with aesthetics, the history of archaeology and of collections, and other topics, Betzer’s study of the figuration of sculpture in two-dimensional representations sets a unique insight into a multifaceted framework.”—Whitney Davis,author of Replications: Archaeology, Art History, Psychoanalysis“A beautifully written book. One of the most appealing aspects of Animating the Antique is the way it interweaves the histories of discourse and practice over nearly two hundred years. Something similar can be said about painting and sculpture, media that are typically studied largely in isolation from each other: this is the rare book to bring them together in a substantial and illuminating way.”—Michael Cole,author of Leonardo, Michelangelo, and the Art of the Figure

Read more less

Book SynopsisA collection of essays by art historians on works of art, artifacts, and monuments that are no longer extant, have disappeared, or perhaps never existed outside of language. Addresses destruction, loss, obscurity, and existential uncertainty within the history of art and the study of historical material and visual cultures.Trade Review“Destroyed—Disappeared—Lost—Never Were is the sort of scholarship that begins to fill the literal lacunae cautiously avoided by premodern art historians for so long, but perhaps no longer.”—Elisa A. Foster caa.reviews“Destroyed—Disappeared—Lost—Never Were makes a fresh contribution to the field, one that dexterously balances historical perspectives and theoretical awareness. Its short essays cover a variety of topics with a global reach but with a common concern: how the ‘existential uncertainty’ resulting from works that are no longer extant or may never have existed outside verbal evocations has shaped and continues to shape the practice of art history.”—Brigitte Buettner,author of Boccaccio’s “Des cleres et nobles femmes”: Systems of Signification in an Illuminated Manuscript“Both as a whole and as individual essays, the contents of Destroyed - Disappeared - Lost - Never Were contribute significantly to various urgent scholarly conversations in art history today. Highly original and written by experts in their respective fields, each of the book’s chapters focus on serious lacunae in the medieval discipline, unpacking them in creative ways in relation to both primary and secondary materials. Between them, these exciting essays offer novel readings of previously untreated objects, important revisions to existing historical and theoretical narratives, and original critiques of received historiographies.”—Jack Hartnell,author of Medieval Bodies: Life, Death and Art in the Middle Ages“[A] cathartic book.”—William Chester Jordan MediaevistikTable of ContentsList of IllustrationsAcknowledgementsIntroduction: Destroyed—Disappeared—Lost—Never WereBeate Fricke and Aden Kumler1. Jerusalem’s Local Sancta and Their Perishable FramesMichele Bacci2. John Lloyd Stephens and the Lost Lintel of KabahClaudia Brittenham3. The Sanguine Art: Four FragmentsSonja Drimmer4. The Dreamwork of Positivism: Archaeological Art History and the Imaginative Restoration of the LostJaś Elsner5. Finding Delight in Gardens LostDanielle B. Joyner6. Impermanence, Futurity, and Loss in Twelfth-Century JapanKristopher W. Kersey7. Lonely Bones: Relics sans ReliquariesLena Liepe8. The Manuscript Machine: Assemblages andDivisions in Jazarī’s CompendiumMeekyung MacMurdie9. Cave and Camera: Shades of Loss in theLibrary Cave of DunhuangMichelle McCoy10. Mourning the Loss of Works / Praising Their Absence: A ResponsePeter GeimerList of Contributors

Read more less

Book SynopsisA collection of essays offering critical perspectives on the study of medieval art, challenging chronological, geographical, and cultural boundaries.Trade Review“Out of Bounds is a timely and valuable contribution to the growing body of works on global perspectives for the study of art history and on the place of medieval art in this global discourse. It is a welcome addition to the category of anthologies, which are among the most useful resources enabling us to grasp the expanded and reconfigured landscape of the field of medieval art.”—Eva R. Hoffman,Tufts University, Emerita“Out of Bounds is a compelling body of essays providing access to new concepts on the breadth of the medieval world in time and place and ways to study it in global, non-Eurocentric terms. Patton and Rossi stress the importance of what can be learned from regions and peoples that were once considered the nearly irrelevant periphery and recognize the challenges in seeking such new understandings.”—Helen C. Evans,Mary and Michael Jaharis Curator for Byzantine Art Emerita, Metropolitan Museum of ArtTable of ContentsList of IllustrationsPreface1. Shifting Boundaries: Medieval Art History for NowThelma K. Thomas and Alicia Walker2. On Account of the Rotundity of the Earth: Steps Toward an Inclusive Medieval ArtJill Caskey3. Medieval Masks? Meditations on Method Out of BoundsSarah M. Guérin4. Along the Art-Historical Margins of the Medieval MediterraneanMichele Bacci5. Looking at the “Center” from the “Border”: An Exchange of Franco-Ottoman Gifts and the Perception of Art Around 1400Michele Tomasi6. Alexander the Great’s Encounters with the Sacred in Medieval History Writing: From the Shahnameh to the Histoire ancienne jusqu’à CésarSuzanne Conklin Akbari7. Fashioning the Gendered, Classed, and White Self: A Sephardi Cultural ProjectEva Frojmovic8. Beyond Traditional Boundaries: Medieval Art and Architecture in Eastern EuropeAlice Isabella Sullivan9. “The Summit of the Earth”: What Armenian Texts Can Do for the History of Medieval Art and BeyondChristina MaranciContributorsIndex

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe A.W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts were begun in 1952 at the National Gallery of Art in order to bring the best in contemporary scholarship to the public. This illustrated documentary volume tells the story of the genesis of the lectureship, featuring essays by a variety of scholars.

Read more less

Book SynopsisExplores the artistic practices that employ evocation - the calling forth of past emotions, desires, frustrations, and memories - as a mode of connecting past and present. Featuring the work of artists working in a variety of media, this book challenges the conventional approach to history whereby the past is kept at a distance as historical fact.

Read more less

Book SynopsisTrade Review“[A] sumptuously illustrated survey” —Barbara Kiser, NatureCHOICE Outstanding Academic Titles, 2020“Marcia Hall covers a familiar historical path but in a way that encourages readers to look at works of art through a different and more subtle lens. She explains and illustrates her argument with wonderful clarity.”—Jo Kirby, formerly Senior Scientific Officer, National Gallery, London“Marcia Hall has written a wide-ranging, ambitious book that is the fruit of long reflection on the significance of color in early modern and modern Western painting.”—Stuart Lingo, University of Washington"This book would make an excellent addition to art history curricula, especially those built to expand students’ interest and knowledge into materials and process—both key concepts for pursuing study in conservation and curatorial work. Hall’s clear writing and ability to illustrate connections across time and space make this an excellent resource for a general audience. The extensive notes and bibliography will provide specialists with avenues for additional and deeper research."—L. L. Kriner, Berea College

Read more less

Book SynopsisCovering philosophical issues ranging from tattooed religious symbols to a feminist aesthetics of tattoo, Tattoos and Philosophy offers an enthusiastic analysis of inking that will lead readers to consider the nature of the tattooing arts in a new and profound way. Contains chapters written by philosophers (most all with tattoos themselves), tattoo artists, and tattoo enthusiasts that touch upon many areas in Western and Eastern philosophy Enlightens people to the nature of tattoos and the tattooing arts, leading readers to think deeply about tattoos in new ways Offers thoughtful and humorous insights that make philosophical ideas accessible to the non-philosopher Trade ReviewReview from The Scotman 8 June 2012Table of ContentsI Ink, Therefore I Foreword x Rocky Rakovic I Am, Therefore I Ink: An Introduction to Tattoos – Philosophy for Everyone: I Ink, Therefore I Am xiv Robert Arp Acknowledgments xxvii SHEET I THE HISTORY AND NATURE OF TATTOOS 1 1 Tattoos and the Tattooing Arts in Perspective: An Overview and Some Preliminary Observations 3 Charles Taliaferro and Mark Odden 2 How to Read a Tattoo, and Other Perilous Quests 14 Juniper Ellis SHEET II TATTOOS AND ART 27 3 Are Tattoos Art? 29 Nicolas Michaud 4 Fleshy Canvas: The Aesthetics of Tattoos from Feminist and Hermeneutical Perspectives 38 Kimberly Baltzer-Jaray and Tanya Rodriguez SHEET III THE TATTOOED WOMAN 51 5 Female Tattoos and Graffiti 53 Thorsten Botz-Bornstein 6 Painted Fetters: Tattooing as Feminist Liberation 65 Nancy Kang SHEET IV PERSONAL IDENTITY 81 7 Tattoo You: Personal Identity in Ink 83 Kyle Fruh and Emily Thomas 8 Illusions of Permanence: Tattoos and the Temporary Self 96 Rachel C. Falkenstern 9 My Tattoo May Be Permanent, But My Memory of It Isn't 109 Clancy Smith SHEET V EXPRESSIONS OF FREEDOM 121 10 Tattoos are Forever: Bodily Freedom and the (Im)possibility of Change 123 Felipe Carvalho 11 Bearing the Marks: How Tattoos Reveal Our Embodied Freedom 135 Jonathan Heaps SHEET VI EXPERIENCES AND STORIES SURROUNDING TATTOOS 149 12 Never Merely 'There': Tattooing as a Practice of Writing and a Telling of Stories 151 Wendy Lynne Lee 13 Something Terribly Flawed: Philosophy and ‘The Illustrated Man' 165 Kevin S. Decker SHEET VII ETHICAL CONCERNS 179 14 The Vice of the Tough Tattoo 181 Jennifer Baker 15 To Ink, or Not To Ink: Tattoos and Bioethics 193 Daniel Miori 16 Writing on the Body: The Modern Morality of the Tattoo 206 Simon Woods SHEET VIII EASTERN AND RELIGIOUS PERSPECTIVES 219 17 Is a Tattoo a Sign of Impiety? 221 Adam Barkman 18 Confessions of a Tattooed Buddhist Philosopher 230 Joseph J. Lynch 19 An Atheist and a Theist Discuss a Cross Tattoo and God's Existence 242 Robert Arp Notes on Contributors 261

Read more less

Book SynopsisExplores the complex relationship between avant-garde art and politics to reveal links with right-wing or fascist causes

Read more less

Book SynopsisFeatures an argument that ranges from highly theoretical speculations to highly topical problems of modern art and practical hints for the art teacher, and it is most unlikely that I can find a reader who will feel at home on every level of the argument.Table of ContentsPreface BOOK ONE: CONTROLLING THE WORLD Part I: Order in Chaos 1. The Child's Vision of the World 2. The Two Kinds of Attention 3. Unconscious Scanning Part II: Creative Conflict 4. The Fertile Motif and the Happy Accident 5. The Fragmentation of 'Modern Art' 6. The Inner Fabric Part III: Teaching Creativity 7. The Three Phases of Creativity 8. Enveloping Pictorial Space 9. Abstraction 10. Training Spontaneity through the Intellect BOOK TWO: STIRRING THE IMAGINATION Part IV: The Theme of the Dying God 11. The Minimum Content of Art 12. The Self-Creating God 13. The Scattered and Buried God 14. The Devoured and Burned God Part V: Theoretical Conclusions 15. Towards a Revision of Current Theory 16. Ego Dissociation Appendix: Glossary References Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisA collection of essays that explores concrete poetry and the metaphors of Dante, photography and the meaning of music. It deals with color composition, forgeries, and the problems of perspective, on art in education and therapy, on the style of artists' late works, and the reading of maps.

Read more less

Book SynopsisA guide to one of the most riveting periods of contemporary culture. It explores the relations among the discourses of contemporary art, sexuality, and power.Table of ContentsPreface Craig Owens: "The Indignity of Speaking for Others" by Simon Watney PART I • TOWARD A THEORY OF POSTMODERNISM Einstein on the Beach: The Primacy of Metaphor Photography en abyme Detachment: from the parergon Earthwords The Allegorical Impulse: Toward a Theory of Postmodernism The Allegorical Impulse: Toward a Theory of Postmodernism, Part 2 Representation, Appropriation, and Power Sherrie Levine at A&M Artworks Allan McCollum: Repetition and Difference From Work to Frame, or, Is There Life After "The Death of the Author"? PART II • SEXUALITY/POWER Honor, Power, and the Love of Women William Wegman's Psychoanalytic Vaudeville The Discourse of Others: Feminists and Postmodernism The Medusa Effect, or, The Specular Ruse Posing Outlaws: Gay Men in Feminism PART III • CULTURES Politics of Coppelia Sects and Language The Critic as Realist "The Indignity of Spe'aking for Others": An Imaginary Interview The Problem with Puerilism Analysis Logical and Ideological Improper Names Interview with Craig Owens by Anders Stephanson The Yen for Art Global Issues PART IV • PEDAGOGY Postmodern Art 1971-1986 Bibliography: Contemporary Art and Art Criticism Seminar in Theory and Criticism Bibliography: The Political Economy of Culture Visualizing AIDS Course Bibliography on Visual AIDS Bibliography Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisPresents the development and aesthetic theories of the symbolist movement in art and literature. This book traces symbolism and its roots from artist to artist and critic to critic from the 1860s to the early twentieth century.Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction PROLOGUE: BAUDELAIRE, DELACROIX, AND THE PREMISES OF SYMBOLIST AESTHETICS Charles Baudelaire Correspondences (c.1852-56?) ROMANTIC SYMBOLISTS Dante Gabriel Rossetti Hand and Soul (I850) On His Beata Beatrix (I87I) Edward Burne-]ones Letters to His Family (I854) Walter Pater Poems by William Morris (I868) Fernand Khnop if Memories of Burne-Jones (I898) Theophile Gautier An Early Appraisal ofPuvis de Chavannes (I86I) Jules Lafargue Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (I886) Loris-Karl Huysmans Gustave Moreau (I889) Emile Hennequin Fine Arts: Odilon Redon (I882) Odilon Redon Excerpts from To Oneseif(I898-I909) Andre Mellerio Odilon Redon (I894) Emile Verhaeren A Symbolist Painter: Fernand Khnopff (I887) James McNeill Whistler The Ten O'Clock Lecture (I885) William Ritter Bocklin's Villas by the Sea (I895) Auguste Rodin Conversations with Paul Gsell (I9II) 2 DECORATIVE ARTS AND ARCHITECTURE Owen jones Gleanings from the Great Exhibition (1851) William Morris The Decorative Arts in Modern Life (I877) Arthur H. Mackmurdo The Spiritual in Art (I884) Gustave Eiffel In Defense of the Tower (I887) Paul Gauguin At the Universal Exhibition (I889) Louis H. Sullivan Ornament in Architecture (I892) Henry van de Velde A Clean Sweep for the Future of Art (I894) 3 LITERARY SYMBOLISM Paul Bourget Baudelaire and the Decadent Movement (I88I) Paul Verlaine The Art ofPoetry (I874) Arthur Rimbaud The Unsettling of All the Senses (I87I) Jules Huret Interview with Stephane Mallarme (I89I) Maurice Maeterlinck Small Talk-the Theater (I89o) Teodor de Wyzewa Notes on Wagnerian Painting (I886) jean Moreas A Literary Manifesto-Symbolism (I886) 4 THE POST-IMPRESSIONISTS Felix Feneon Neo-Impressionism (I887) Georges Seurat Aesthetic and Technical Note (I890) Charles Henry Introduction to a Scientific Aesthetics (1885) Gustave Kahn Seurat (I89I) Paul Signac Anarchist Sympathies (I894) Edouard Dujardin Cloisonism (I888) Emile Verhaeren Ensor's Vision (I908) Paul Gauguin Letters to Emile Schuffenecker (I885, I888) G.-Albert Aurier Symbolism in Painting: Paul Gauguin (I89I) Paul Gauguin Letter to Andre Fontainas (I899) Vincent van Gogh Letters on The Night Cafe (I888) G.-Albert Aurier The Lonely Ones-Vincent van Gogh (I890) ]oris-Karl Huysmans Cezanne (I888) Paul Cezanne Excerpts from His Letters (I904, I906) Paul Serusier Nabi Principles (I889) Maurice Denis The Nabis in I890 Edvard Munch The "Saint-Cloud" Manifesto (I889-90?) Ferdinand Hodler The Mission of the Artist (1897) 5 THE ARTISTS OF THE SOUL Roger Marx The Salons of 1895 ]osephin Feladan Materialism in Art (I88I) In Search of the Holy Grail (I888) Armand Point Florence, Botticelli, La Primavera (I896) Octave Mirbeau The Artists of the Soul (I896) EPILOGUE: FORMALIST CRITICISM AND HARBINGERS OF SURREALISM Roger Fry Post Impressionism (1911) The French Post-Impressionists (1912) Clive Bell Cezanne's Pure Form (1914) Remy de Gourmont The Funeral of Style (1902) The Dissociation ofldeas (1900) Alfred ]arry Barnum (1902) Guillaume Apollinaire The New Spirit and the Poets (1917-18) Notes Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisExplores the construction of identities in the psychical space between perception and consciousness, drawing upon psychoanalytic theories to describe the constitution and maintenance of 'self' and 'us' - in imaginary spatial and temporal relations to 'other' and 'them' - through the all-important relay of images.Table of ContentsPreface Introduction 1 Geometry and Abjection 2 Perverse Space 3 Newton's Gravity 4 Chance Encounters 5 Seiburealism 6 Paranoiac Space 7 The City in Pieces 8 Barthes's Discretion 9 Brecciated Time Notes Illustrations Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisChallenges art history from a feminist perspective. Following their Feminism and Art History: Questioning the Litany (1982) and The Expanding Discourse: Feminism and Art History (1992), this volume identifies female agency as a central theme of feminist scholarship. It also features essays on artists and issues from the Renaissance onwards.Trade Review"Extremely stimulating and useful. The authors lay out a strategy for future art historians and theorists." - Paula Harper, University of Miami"Table of ContentsPreface and Acknowledgments Introduction: Reclaiming Female Agency 1. Here's Looking at Me: Sofonisba Anguissola and the Problem of the Woman Artist Mary D. Garrard 2. Learning to Be Looked At: A Portrait of (the Artist as) a Young Woman in Agnes Merlet's Artemisia Sheila ffolliott 3. Artemisia's Hand Mary D. Garrard 4. The Antique Heroines of Elisabetta Sirani Babette Bohn 5. Pictures Fit for a Queen: Peter Paul Rubens and the Marie de' Medici Cycle Geraldine A. Johnson 6. The Portrait of the Queen: Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun's Marie-Antoinette en chemise Mary D. Sheriff 7. Depoliticizing Women: Female Agency, the French Revolution, and the Art of Boucher and David Erica Rand 8. Nudity a la grecque in 1799 Darcy Grimaldo Grigsby 9. A Woman's Pleasure: Ingres's Grande Odalisque Carol Ockman 10. Conduct Unbecoming: Daumier and Les Bas-Bleus Janis Bergman-Carton 11. The Gendering of Impressionism Norma Broude 12. Selling, Seduction, and Soliciting the Eye: Manet's Bar at the Folies-Bergere Ruth E. Iskin 13. Mary Cassatt: Modern Woman or the Cult of True Womanhood? Norma Broude 14. The "Strength of the Weak" as Portrayed by Marie Laurencin Bridget Elliott 15. New Encounters with Les Demoiselles d'Avignon: Gender, Race, and the Origins of Cubism Anna C. Chave 16. The New Woman in Hannah Hoch's Photomontages: Issues of Androgyny, Bisexuality, and Oscillation Maud Lavin 17. Claude Cahun, Marcel Moore, and the Collaborative Construction of a Lesbian Subjectivity Julie Cole 18. Louise Bourgeois's Femmes-Maisons: Confronting Lacan Julie Nicoletta 19. Reconsidering the Stain: On Gender and the Body in Helen Frankenthaler's Painting Lisa Saltzman 20. Minimalism and Biography Anna C. Chave 21. The "Sexual Politics" of The Dinner Party: A Critical Context Amelia Jones 22. Cultural Collisions: Identity and History in the Work of Hung Liu Allison Arieff 23. Shirin Neshat: Double Vision John B. Ravenal Contributors Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisIn the voluminous scholarship that's been written on Paul Cezanne, little has been said about the 24 portraits in oil that Cezanne made of his wife, Hortense Fiquet Cezanne, over an extended twenty-year period. This title focuses on these paintings as a group and looks at the differences that render many of them unrecognizable as the same person.Trade Review"This rich substantial reading raises Cezanne studies to a new level... Highly recommended." Choice "[Sidlauskas's] eloquent and penetrating visual analyses are a pleasure to read... [An] impressive and important book." Women's Art Journal "Sidlauskas's observations are detailed, sensitive and sometimes truly poetic." -- Karsten Schubert Burlington MagazineTable of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction: Seeing Cezanne 1. The Counter-Muse A Brief History 2. The Color of Emotion 3. The Materiality of Vision 4. Toward an Ideal Dissolving Difference Conclusion: The Woman in Question Appendix: Paintings of Hortense Fiquet Cezanne Notes Bibliography List of Illustrations Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisA biography of Peter Selz that traces the journey of this Jewish-German immigrant from Hitler's Munich to the United States and on to an important career as a pioneer historian of modern art. It illuminates key historical and cultural events of the twentieth-century, describing Selz's extraordinary career.Trade Review"An intellectual bildungsroman recounting a life in art that never stopped evolving." Artillery "A paean to a man who is both vastly experienced and eternally youthful in his outlook." Huffington Post "Life is short, art is long, but sometimes it's the other way, too." San Francisco Chronicle "A fascinating account of an individual who has made many contributions to art history." Washington Ind Rev Of Bks "An enjoyable account of a man who seemed always to be in the right place at the right time with the right passions." Artnet Magazine "Like a moving still life... Peter Selz was a great subject, and Karstrom matched him with a great biography." -- Wayne Andersen European Legacy "An essential read for anyone seriously involved in the field." Whitehot Magazine "With Selz at the helm, the Berkeley Art Museum redefined many aspects of modern art and brought overdue attention to California artists." Berkeleyside "A captivating story... This Selz biography offers not only a study into the life of a renowned art figure but also an analysis of the art world of the twentieth century as a whole." -- Kate Sowada Oral History Review "California art enthusiasts and libraries will especially appreciate this detailed and well-researched, scholarly book." Library JournalTable of ContentsPreface: Setting the Scene 1. Childhood: Munich, Art, and Hitler 2. New York: Stieglitz, Rheingold, and 57th Street 3. Chicago to Pomona: New Bauhaus and Early Career 4. Back to New York: Inside MoMA 5. MoMA Exhibitions: From New Images of Man to Alberto Giacometti 6. POP Goes the Art World: Departure from New York 7. Berkeley: Politics, Funk, Sex, and Finances 8. Students, Colleagues, and Controversy 9. A Career in Retirement: Returning to Early Themes and Passions 10. A Conclusion: Looking at Kentridge and Warhol Notes Selected Bibliography and Exhibition History Acknowledgments Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisFrom Francis Alys and Ursula Biemann to Vivan Sundaram, Allora & Calzadilla, and the Center for Urban Pedagogy, some of the most compelling artists today are engaging with the politics of land use. This book brings together a range of international voices and artworks to illuminate this critical mass of practices.Trade Review"The book is a wonderful hybrid, both a collection of essays and a catalog of projects by artists engaged in contemporary land use. Unlike landscape architecture, land use-according to the book's editors-more directly engages the relationship between environmental and economic structures, not to mention demands for spatial and environmental justice." Public BooksTable of ContentsIntroduction Emily Eliza Scott and Kirsten Swenson, "Contemporary Art and the Politics of Land Use" I. Against the Abstraction of Space 1. Julian D. Myers-Szupinska, "After the Production of Space" 2. Trevor Paglen, "Experimental Geography: from Cultural Production to the Production of Space" 3. Sarah Kanouse, "Critical Daytrips: Tourism and Land-based Practice" Short entries on individual artworks: 4. Ursula Biemann, Sahara Chronicle (2006-9) 5. Kirsten Swenson, on Francis Alys, When Faith Moves Mountains (2002) 6. Amy Balkin, An Archive of Melting and Sinking (2012-) 7. Ruth Erickson, on the Otilith Group, The Radiant (2012) 8. Edgar Arceneaux & Julian Myers-Szupinska, Mirror Travel in the Motor City (2005-) II. Land Claims: Space and Subjectivity 9. Julia Bryan-Wilson, "Aftermath: Two Queer Artists Respond to Nuclear Spaces" 10. Jeannine Tang, "Look Again: Subjectivity, Sovereignty, and Andrea Geyer's Spiral Lands" 11. Kelly C. Baum, "Earth Keeping, Earth Shaking" Short entries on individual artworks: 12. Nuit Banai, on Sigalit Landau, DeadSee (2005) 13. Yazan Khalil, What is a Photograph? (2013) 14. Aaron Bobrow-Strain, on Allora & Calzadilla, Land Mark (footprints) (2001-2) 15. Shiloh Krupar, Where Eagles Dare (2013) 16. Nicholas Brown, The Vanishing Indian Repeat Photography Project (2011-) 17. Lorenzo Pezzani, on Decolonizing Architecture, Return to Jaffa (2012) 18. The Institute for Infinitely Small Things, The Border Crossed Us (2011) III. Geographies of Global Capitalism 19. T.J. Demos, "Another World, and Another: Notes on Uneven Geographies" 20. Ashley Dawson, "Documenting Accumulation by Dispossession" Short entries on individual artworks: 21. Dongsei Kim on Teddy Cruz, The Political Equator (2005-11) 22. Kelly C. Baum, on Santiago Sierra, Sumision(Submission, formerly Word of Fire) (2006-7) 23. James Nisbet, on Simon Starling, One Ton II (2005) 24. Giulia Paoletti, on George Osodi, Oil Rich Niger Delta (2003-7) 25. Ursula Biemann, Deep Weather (2013) 26. Luke Skrebowski, on Tue Greenfort, Exceeding 2 Degrees (2007) 27. Lize Mogel, Area of Detail (2010) IV. Urbanization With No Outside 28. Janet Kraynak, "The Land and the Economics of Sustainability" 29. Ying Zhou, "Growing Ecologies of Contemporary Art: Vignettes from Shanghai" Short entries on individual artworks: 30. Chunghoon Shin, on Flying City, All Things Park (2004) 31. David Pinder, on Nils Norman, The Contemporary Picturesque (2001) 32. Jenna Lloyd and Andrew Burridge, on Laura Kurgan, Million Dollar Blocks (2005) 33. Lize Mogel, on The Center for Urban Pedagogy, What Is Affordable Housing? (2010) 34. Robby Herbst, on Olga Koumoundouros, Notorious Possession (2012) 35. Paul Monty Paret, on eteam, International Airport Montello (2005-8) 36. Saloni Mathur, on Vivan Sundaram, Trash (2005-8)

Read more less

Book SynopsisA distinguished group of art historians reflect on the work of Michael Baxandall, in terms of its importance for their own formation, its location in the development of a new art history, and its influence on the broader languages and theories of contemporary cultural theory.Table of Contents1. Patterns in the Shadows: Attention in/to the Writings of Michael Baxandall: Michael Anne Holly (University of Rochester). 2. Aspects of the Critical Reception and Intellectual History of Baxandall's Concept of the Period Eye: Alland Langdale (University of British Columbia). 3. Limewood, Chiromancy and Narratives of Making. Writing about the Materials and Processes of Sculpture: Malcolm Baker (Victoria and Albert Museum). 4. Michael Baxandall and the Shadows in Plato's Cave: Alex Potts (University of Reading). 5. Last Words (Rilke, Wittgenstein)(Duchamp): Molly Nesbit (Vassar University). 6. Women under the Gaze, a Renaissance Genealogy: Paolo Berdini (Stanford University). 7. A Baxandall Bibliography: Allan Langdale (University of California at Santa Barbara).

Read more less

Book Synopsis* Provides an overview of the most significant issues and debates in Gothic studies. * Explains the origins and development of the term Gothic. * Explores the evolution of the Gothic in both literary and non-literary forms, including art, architecture and film.Trade Review"The overall result is wonderfully informative and suggestive for the beginning student, while offering some striking additional insights spread across the book for advanced students of Gothic who have yet to consider such contexts for it as postcolonialism, 'goth' subcultures and 'Hallucination and the Narcotic'." Gothic StudiesTable of ContentsHow to Use This Book. Chronology. Introduction. Backgrounds and Contexts. Civilisation and the Goths. Gothic in the Eighteenth Century. Gothic and Romantic. Science, Industry and the Gothic. Victorian Gothic. Art and Architecture. Gothic and Decadence. Imperial Gothic. Gothic Postmodernism. Postcolonial Gothic. Goths and Gothic Subcultures. Gothic Film. Gothic and the Graphic Novel. Writers of Gothic. William Harrison Ainsworth (1805-82). Jane Austen (1775-1817). J. G. Ballard (1930-). Iain Banks (1954-). John Banville (1945-). Clive Barker (1952-). William Beckford (1760-1844). E. F. Benson (1867-1940). Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914). Algernon Blackwood (1869-1951). Robert Bloch (1917-1994). Elizabeth Bowen (1899-1973). Mary Elizabeth Braddon (1835-1915). Charlotte Brontë (1816-1855) and Emily Brontë (1818-1848). Charles Brockden Brown (1771-1810). Edward George Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873). James Branch Cabell (1879-1958). Ramsey Campbell (1946-). Angela Carter (1940-1992). Robert W. Chambers (1865-1933). Wilkie Collins (1824-1889). Marie Corelli (1855-1924). Charlotte Dacre (1771/1772?-1825). Walter de la Mare (1873-1956). August Derleth (1909-1971). Charles Dickens (1812-1870). 'Isak Dinesen' (1885-1962). Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930). Lord Dunsany (1878-1957). Bret Easton Ellis (1964-). William Faulkner (1897-1962). Elizabeth Gaskell (1810-1865). William Gibson (1948-). William Godwin (1756-1836). H. Rider Haggard (1856-1925). Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864). James Herbert (1943-). William Hope Hodgson (1877-1918). E. T. A. Hoffmann (1776-1822). James Hogg (1770-1835). Washington Irving (1783-1859). G. P. R. James (1799-1860). Henry James (1843-1916). M. R. James (1862-1936). Stephen King (1947-). Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936). Francis Lathom (1777-1832). J. Sheridan Le Fanu (1814-1873). Sophia Lee (1750-1824). Vernon Lee (1856-1935). M. G. Lewis (1775-1818). David Lindsay (1878-1945). H. P. Lovecraft (1890-1937). George MacDonald (1824-1905). Arthur Machen (1863-1947). James Macpherson (1736-1796). Richard Matheson (1926-). Charles Robert Maturin (1780-1824). Herman Melville (1819-1891). Joyce Carol Oates (1938-). Margaret Oliphant (1828-1897). Mervyn Peake (1911-1968). Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849). John Polidori (1795-1821). Radcliffe, Ann (1764-1823). Reeve, Clara (1729-1807). G. W. M. Reynolds (1814-1879). Anne Rice (1941-). Walter Scott (1771-1832). Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797-1851). Charlotte Smith (1740-1806). Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894). Bram Stoker (1847-1912). Horace Walpole (1717-1797). H. G. Wells (1866-1946). Edith Wharton (1862-1937). Oscar Wilde (1854-1900). Key Works. Horace Walpole, The Castle of Otranto (1764). William Beckford, Vathek (1786). Ann Radcliffe, The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794). William Godwin, Caleb Williams (1794). M. G. Lewis, The Monk (1796). Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (1818, revised 1831). C. R. Maturin, Melmoth the Wanderer (1820). James Hogg, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (1824). Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights (1847). Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White (1860). Sheridan Le Fanu, Uncle Silas (1864). Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886). Bram Stoker, Dracula (1897). Henry James, The Turn of the Screw (1898). Robert Bloch, Psycho (1959). Anne Rice, Interview with the Vampire (1976). Stephen King, The Shining (1977). Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho (1991). Themes and Topics. The Haunted Castle. The Monster. The Vampire. Persecution and Paranoia. Female Gothic. The Uncanny. The History of Abuse. Hallucination and the Narcotic. Guide to Further Reading. Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis is a comprehensive overview of the sociology of art and an authoritative work of scholarship by a leading expert in the field. The international selection of perspectives, empirical research, and case studies makes this book essential for teaching and studying the sociology of art. Synthesizes the various theoretical models of art sociology. Provides empirical examples of books, films, television shows, dance, and music, as well as exemplars of sociological work on the arts. Discusses works from both fine and popular ends of the cultural spectrum. Explores how art is created, distributed, received, consumed, and used by people who experience it. Trade Review"In the twenty-five years that I have worked and taught in the field of sociology, this is the first textbook that I can remember enjoying and learning a lot from. Alexander’s Sociology of the Arts brings to life both cutting-edge research and classic works in the sociology of literature, music, art, and popular culture. Students will discover what fascinating things researchers have learned by studying the arts sociologically. And specialists will know what is happening in the forefront of the field." Ann Swidler, University of California at Berkeley "Sociology of the Arts is a most welcome addition to the field. With a high level of sophistication, but without unnecessary jargon, Dr. Alexander clearly lays out the different frameworks of analysis that have emerged in recent years." Vera Zolberg, New School for Social Research "This is an informative and thoughtful text for courses in the sociology of art." D. Harper, Univesity of RochesterTable of ContentsPreface. 1. Introduction: What is Art?. Part I: The Relationship between Art and Society. 2. Reflection Approaches. Case Study. The Reflection of Race in Children's Books. 3. Shaping Theory. Case Study. Violence and Television. 4. A Mediated View: The Cultural Diamond. Part II: The Cultural Diamond. A. The Production of Culture. 5. Art Worlds. Case Study. From Academy to Public Sale. 6. Culture Industries. Case Study. Innovation and Diversity in the Production of Music. 7. Networks and Nonprofits. Case Study. Piccolos on the Picket Line: A Strike in the Symphony. 8. Artists. Case Study. Nothing Succeeds Like Success: Careers in the Film Industry. 9. Globalization. Case Study. The Return of the Elgin (or Parthenon) Marbles?. B. The Consumption of Culture. 10. Reception Approaches. Case Study. Romance Novels as Combat and Compensation. 11. Audience Studies. Case Study. Cowboys, Indians, and Western Movies. 12. Art and Social Boundaries. Case Study. Framing Heavy Metal and Rap Music. Part III: Art in Society. 13. The Art Itself. Case Study. The Renaissance Way of Seeing. 14. The Constitution of Art in Society. Case Study. A Strange Sensation: Controversies in Art. Part IV: Conclusion. 15. Studying Art Sociologically. Notes. References.

Read more less

Book SynopsisTamen shows how inanimate objects take on life through interpretation—notably as they are collected and housed in museums. He claims that an object becomes interpretable only in the context of a “society of friends.” Thus, he suggests, our tendency as humans to interpret the phenomenal world gives objects both a life and a society.Trade ReviewBecause Tamen is willing to go out on various disciplinary and logical limbs, this is a book like no other. It will appeal to students of literature and the visual arts, it will be debated by the more humanistic of philosophers, and it will perform noble cross-over activity between those disciplines and material from theories of law, science, and ecology. The book will work in this admirable way for those who are open-minded, inquisitive, and seducible by some lovely instances of intellectual wit. -- Leonard Barkan, Princeton UniversityFriends of Interpretable Objects is an idiosyncratic, breath-taking inquiry into the human capacity to cherish the material object world and to hate it, to hold it responsible, and to grant it its own humanity...This book should be read by art historians, anthropologists, curators, literary critics, and anyone who has ever shouted at a car or kicked a door. -- Bill Brown, author of A Sense of ThingsAs its wacky title might indicate, this is a book of striking originality. Its subject, broadly speaking, is art, whose works are the interpretable objects of the title. In another sense, however, Tamen's concern is to show how inanimate objects take on life through their interpretation...There is quite simply nothing like it...The learning is real...Written in a highly idiosyncratic style, learned but not hermetically so, Friends of Interpretable Objects takes wide aim at an audience that could conceivably come from many walks of life: from the museum world, from art history, law, philosophy, not to mention that educated general reader whose voracious habits take in a far richer banquet of ideas than we can ever imagine. -- Ingrid Rowland, Professor of Art History, University of ChicagoThe art world and interpreting institutions of museums can learn from Tamen's artful journey across disciplines and ways of knowing and experiencing the world around us. Friends of Interpretable Objects opens up the museum and places artworks into networks of interpretation that make them part of the cognitive worlds we share with diverse animate and inanimate bodies and objects. -- John G. Hanhardt, Senior Curator of Film and Media Arts, Guggenheim MuseumIn an exquisitely idiosyncratic book of enormous intellectual ambition crammed into a tiny space...Tamen wants to redefine aesthetics, by way of intently focused chapters on, inter alia, Byzantine theology and image-smashing, human rights, and bodies (of corporations and of babies). In his scheme, the interpretable object (which might be what we recognize as an artwork, but does not need to be) exists by virtue of its 'friends'--those people who gather round it and, so to speak, talk to it, as we might do with a statue or painting. How do objects 'talk back' from within a museum or a church? Suavely Wittgensteinian and insatiably curious, Tamen's arguments are hardly devalued by the lack of any earth-shattering conclusion. -- Stephen Poole * The Guardian *

Read more less

Book SynopsisTheory—an embattled discourse for decades—faces a new challenge from those who want to model the methods of all scholarly disciplines on the sciences. What is urgently needed, says D. N. Rodowick, is a revitalized concept of theory that can assess the limits of scientific explanation and defend the unique character of humanistic understanding.Trade ReviewIn this beautiful meditation on film and philosophy, D. N. Rodowick guides us through original combinations of thinkers, artworks, and ideas to argue for new ethical possibilities for the humanities. His studies transcend disciplinary boundaries in style and approach such that new ways of reflecting on deep social and existential problems come to the fore, carried by exceptional learning and feel. His surprising alliance of Cavell and Deleuze allows for the most moving and wise appreciation of film as ethical domain available today. -- James Williams, University of Dundee

Read more less

Book SynopsisAs anyone who has wielded a camera knows, photography has a unique relationship to chance. It also represents a struggle to reconcile aesthetic aspiration with a mechanical process. Robin Kelsey reveals how daring innovators expanded the aesthetic limits of photography in order to create art for a modern world.Trade ReviewIn examining 20th-century photography, [Kelsey] fearlessly wades into the war of words among critics, curators, philosophers and artists alike trying to nail down the jelly-like nature and importance of photography. His prose is concise and academically framed but with a pleasing lack of jargon that makes this book accessible to a non-academic reader, unlike many books published on photo history in the past two decades… Kelsey’s book is a first incursion into an issue that has not been well explored in print, and its conclusions and assertions will certainly be the start of many years of arguments… It should be a standard text for those studying the history of photography in depth. But it also gives lay readers an opportunity to look afresh at the canon of photography and gain a deeper understanding of the constant tension between the camera’s mechanical nature and the photographer’s art. -- Roger Watson * Wall Street Journal *[A] revisionist and erudite history of the medium. -- Christopher Turner * Times Literary Supplement *This intriguing study delves into a subject that has troubled photographers since the invention of the medium in the 1840s: how do the happy accidents arising from a mechanical process relate to human dexterity in creating artistic images? Kelsey’s subjects range from early practitioners, including Fox Talbot and Stieglitz, to modernist innovators and 20th-century news photography. * Apollo *Kelsey interweaves history, art, philosophy, psychology, and more with chance and photography to explore the complexity of photography’s roles and its challenges and changes to the visual arts. -- C. Chiarenza * Choice *This ambitious text, both scholarly and affecting, combines art history, psychology, and the history of philosophy and science into a shrewd exploration of ‘how meaning is produced in a medium prone to chance.’ …Though Kelsey’s primary focus is the development of photography, the end result is a wholly informative, refreshing, and rich perspective on photography and Modernism. * Publishers Weekly (starred review) *Photography and the Art of Chance takes up a venerable question: how can a photograph be art, when it is made with a machine that registers phenomena beyond the operator’s full awareness? With great originality, Kelsey shows that photography’s history is entangled with the history of chance, and he complicates our understanding of the medium in a refreshing way. -- Douglas R. Nickel, Brown UniversityA brilliant choice of theme for an encompassing, revisionist history of photography that shows canonical figures at their best; chance is the flip side of techne and the motor of avant-garde aesthetics, as well as a key subject in the history of modern consciousness. Kelsey’s explanatory clarity and gift for concision, meanwhile, are no accident. -- Matthew S. Witkovsky, The Art Institute of ChicagoPhotography and the Art of Chance brilliantly interweaves the history of photography with a broader history of art and an intellectual history of chance. This interdisciplinary approach helps Kelsey sidestep claims about the ontological status of photography that separate the medium entirely from other forms…Perhaps more remarkable than the book’s breadth is that Kelsey moves across fields with a language that is both specific and accessible enough to make his book a satisfying read for a varied audience…Photography and the Art of Chance will reward specialists and general audiences, providing insights to a spectrum of readers disconcerted, resigned, or even enlivened by the apparent randomness and indifference that still characterizes so much of our modern lives. -- Lauren Kroiz * caa.reviews *

Read more less

Book SynopsisMark Rose uses case studies to show how gender and gentility have influenced the self-presentation of authors in court and how the personal styles, public personas, and histories of novelists, dramatists, poets, photographers, and cartoonists have influenced the development of legal doctrine around issues of copyright.

Read more less

Book SynopsisCan painting transform philosophy? This title looks at Neapolitan art around 1700 through the eyes of the philosopher Giambattista Vico. It presents the masterpieces of late Baroque painting in early eighteenth-century Naples from an entirely new perspective.Trade Review"[A] highly compelling account of an important subject... Bull is to be congratulated on presenting such a thought-provoking study ... welcome addition to the study of early modern art and thought."--Alexander Marr, Apollo "[T]antalizingly meaty."--Choice "[A]rt historians and critics will find in it a fascinating account of how paintings can initiate and/or facilitate philosophical reflection."--Giorgio Baruchello, European Legacy "This is a daring and highly imaginative book."--Helen Langdon, Burlington MagazineTable of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Prologue xi ONE Vico 1 TWO Icastic Painting 43 THREE Fantastic Painting 69 FOUR Theological Painting 101 Epilogue 121 Notes 127 Index 141

Read more less

Book SynopsisWhat happens when we look at a painting? What do we think about? What do we imagine? How can we explain, even to ourselves, what we see or think we see? And how can art historians interpret with any seriousness what they observe? This title deals with these questions.Trade ReviewOne of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 2014 "In six short essays, Arasse shows what it is to enter into the complexity of a work, inspect the nooks and crannies, and reject conventional wisdom."--Phillippe Dagen, Le Monde "The casual nature of [Arasse's] language cannot mask his tremendous erudition, all while emphasizing his ease in navigating within the pieces and his familiarity with the Zeitgeist."--Armelle Godeluck, Lire "[The chapters in Take a Closer Look] have the depth of scholarly essays and the irreverent charm of the best fiction."--Michele Gazier, Telerama "Take a Closer Look is an outstanding example of what is possible when the stiff formalities of scholarly prose are cast aside in favour of a more playful, imaginative approach... [A] delightful guide to seeing art with new eyes."--K. E. Gover, Times Higher Education "In this publication of work by the eminent late art historian Arasse, the author searches for the meaning of master paintings. He discusses details of work that are often overlooked, and thus provides descriptions of things usually not seen."--ChoiceTable of ContentsCara Giulia: Mars and Venus Surprised by Vulcan, Tintoretto 1 The Snail's Gaze: The Annunciation, Francesco del Cossa 17 Paint It Black: The Adoration of the Magi, Bruegel the Elder 39 Mary Magdalene's "Fleece" 71 The Woman in the Chest: The Venus of Urbino, Titian 89 The Eye of the Master: Las Meninas, Velazquez 129 Illustration Credits 161 Index 163

Read more less

Book SynopsisTrade Review"A Choice Outstanding Academic Title of the Year""This is a must-read for art historians, museum curators and those who are studying to enter these fields, as a buyer or a viewer might ask about it after this read (because the subject is particularly communicative)." * Pennsylvania Literary Journal *"Bedell shows how subtly and certainly sentimentalism pervades the work of nineteenth-century American artists. She shows that sentimentalism, by pulling on heartstrings, by creating sympathetic ties, was a force that artists used to their own ends as they went about their work of making appealing art. "---Karen Zukowski, Nineteenth Century

Read more less

Book SynopsisTrade Review"Shortlisted for the Apollo Awards Book of the Year, Apollo Magazine""Wood’s history is one of only a handful of book-length attempts to offer a synthetic treatment of the history of art history. . . . Owing to its extraordinary range and original insights, it is destined to become the standard work for many years to come."---Sam Rose, Apollo Magazine"This substantial volume is more than just a chronicle of half-forgotten scholarship or a thrashing out of methodological issues of little import. In fact, A History of Art History will be eye-opening for anyone who cares about art."---Barry Schwabsky, Hyperallergic"Wood’s account of what art historians do – and how they have done it over the centuries – is a typically learned and polemical work that challenges the reader with its many approaches and arguments." * Apollo Magazine *"The research compiled here does not stumbled into abstractions that the topic invites, but really delivers an accuratehistory of the changes in this culture-defining field . . . this book is really needed."---Anna Faktorovich, Pennsylvania Literary Review"Well informed and extremely personal, this is a brilliant overview of writings on art, from responses to the recovery of art representing ancient gods c. 800 CE through to the anti-formalist revolution of the present day. The amount of carefully considered information packed into this compact volume is breathtaking. Wood (NYU) takes on not only professional writers on art but also practitioners such as Piranesi and William Blake—whose emotional critiques of the past made them, in effect, historians of art. Writing in a rather leisurely narrative style, Wood places selected authors within a precise historical moment. Original perceptions are scattered like bonbons—for example, an analysis of Aby Warburg and Alois Riegl locates them as very different but very much related classifiers of the image within late 19th and early 20th century devotion to formalism. There is a fascinating chapter on the foundation of the Louvre in the context of the French Revolution. . . . The book stands as a much-needed contribution at a time when the discipline badly needs an appreciative, even-handed view of the past."---Debra Pincus, Choice"Wood’s intimacy with the material is self-evident. He offers any number of remarkably lucid exegeses of complex and easily misunderstood concepts (Riegl’s Kunstwollen) and texts (Hegel’s Lectures on Aesthetics), and brings in numerous lesser-known thinkers."---Rachel Wetzler, Art in America"[A History of Art History] by Christopher Wood will live constantly on my priority bookshelf. Wood’s welcome synthesis of the essential sources from which art history created itself as a discipline is revelatory on many levels, not least because it clarifies the extent to which such a historiography can never be totally comprehensive nor totally consensual. . . . Every informed reader will come away from the book with some startling new coalescence of insight."---Sally Hickson, Renaissance and Reformation"Magisterial . . . [A History of Art History] includes little-known factual gems, eloquent witticisms, or unexpected insights. . . . Undoubtedly, Wood has set the bar high for any future overview in terms of the diversity of his interests and analytic depth."---Thijs Weststeijn, History of Humanities"Christopher Wood cares for the idea that art history could consist in what he calls a ‘biography of form’. This is one of the chief sympathies underpinning his huge and hugely impressive chronological narrative A History of Art History."---Julian Bell, London Review of Books"Christopher S. Wood’s A History of Art History is a robust volume that traces and critically examines the evolution of art history as a discipline, beginning with the late middle ages and leading up to the emergence of contemporary art history. . . . It is . . . [the] close re-examination of the role of the art historian, of individuals and their writing, that Wood offers a rethinking of art’s history."---Jenna Dufour, ARLIS/NA"A History of Art History is the obvious result of considerable labour and learning. It offers innumerable individual observations of interest. . . . [I]t is of inestimable value in prompting renewed reflection on what might be gained from exploring the past of the discipline and how one might define it."---Matthew Rampley, Estetika"[A History of Art History is] an accessible and timely book on art history’s history is a gap that needed to be filled…Wood reforms various aspects of art history as we know it."---Sjoukje van der Meulen, CAA Reviews"This is a project made possible only by years, perhaps decades, of reading. The depth of Wood’s accumulated knowledge means this is a book that will appeal as much to veteran art historians as it will a more general audience."---Surya Bowyer, MAKE: Literary Magazine"Refreshing and encouraging. . . . A History of Art History is an erudite, if very personal, tour of a discipline forever redefining its central tasks. . . . Wood’s chronological collection of approaches to thinking about art’s history is an illuminating juxtaposition of rival, often mutually incompatible claims to what art history is and might be."---Lisa DeBoer, Fides Historia Review

Read more less