Description
Book SynopsisNicholas Brown theorizes the historical and theoretical conditions for the persistence of art's autonomy from the realm of the commodity by showing how an artist's commitment to form and by demanding interpretive attention elude the logic of capital.
Trade Review"In
Autonomy, Brown revitalizes a modernist commitment to form and offers a compelling vision of the work of art in the age of its commodification." -- Adam Theron-Lee Rensch * Los Angeles Review of Books *
"Brown's argument feels, in the end, surprisingly liberating.… No doubt, there are questions prompted by the book that we still might want to have answered.… But these queries are obviously presented less as a critique of
Autonomy than a plea to scholars to take up related questions in future volumes.
Autonomy inspires such questions because this is a book that unabashedly and provocatively makes demands of us, in the way the very best scholarship, like the very best manifestos and all art, does too." -- Lisa Siraganian * Modernism/modernity *
"A thorough and valuable commentary on the contemporary position of art within capitalism.
Autonomy is essential reading for researchers and students with an interest in contemporary art in relation to the market, and for those interested in Marxist approaches to contemporary aesthetic form." -- Oliver Haslam * New Formations *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix
Introduction. On Art and the Commodity Form 1
1. Photography as Film and Film as Photography 41
2. The Novel and the Ruse of the Work 79
3. Citation and Affect in Music 115
4. Modernism on TV 152
Epilogue. Taking Sides 178
Notes 183
Bibliography 207
Index 215
