Description
Book SynopsisThis is a subtle, yet uncompromising analysis of the iconic photographs of torture from the prison at Abu Ghraib.
Trade ReviewIlluminating and timely ... Eisenman's concepts and questions constitute a challenging discourse on politics and art. Art in America Stephen Eisenman's provocative discussion of the omnipresence of the imagery of aggression, domination, and subjugation in Western art is as disturbing as it is timely. Coming as it does in the wake of the exposure of American torture of detainees, it reminds us that what we call "culture" is as marked by the evidence of cruelty and brutality as is the history of warfare itself. His book is an exemplary demonstration of the inseparability of the aesthetic and the political. -- Abigail Solomon-Godeau, Professor of Art History, University of California Santa Barbara a potent book ... This brilliantly argued volume should be read by all art historians. The Art Book Illuminating and timely ... Eisenman's concepts and questions constitute a challenging discourse on politics and art. Art in America Presented in a slim, stylish volume of 142-pages with sixty-six black and white images, The Abu Ghraib Effect ... traverses revolutionary terrain in its unravelling of the function of artistic metaphor in the justification of imperialist power. Media-Culture Review Writing about events that never, ever should have happened is no small challenge, even for the citizens of a US culture that now flirts with "representing the unrepresentable" and disputes any evidential role for photography. Nonetheless, Stephen Eisenman has taken up this daunting challenge with an unflinching analysis that will long endure - as will our stark memories of the horrors unleashed by the administration of George W. Bush. -- Professor David Craven, author of Art & Revolution in Latin America, 1910-1990
Table of ContentsPreface 7 1 Resemblance 11 2 Freudian Slip 18 3 Documents of Barbarism 42 4 Pathos Formula 60 5 Stages of Cruelty 73 6 Muscle and Bone 92 7 Theatre of Cruelty 101 8 Orientalism 108 Afterword: What is Western Art? 111 References 123 Acknowledgements 139 Photographic Acknowledgements 141
