Description
Book SynopsisNoa Roei is Assistant Professor in the Comparative Literature and Cultural Analysis department at the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands and a research fellow at the Amsterdam School of Cultural Analysis.
Trade ReviewCivic Aesthetics is an original contribution to an understanding of the links among culture, art, and militarism. Roei skillfully employs a complex academic and artistic perspective in order to problematize the very basic questions of art and Israeli identity. This book will surely serve as a worthwhile resource for scholars from a diverse range of disciplines. * Israel Studies Review *
Noa Roei’s
Civic Aesthetics traces the evolution and the centrality of militarism in post 1948 Israeli art and visual culture. Engaging closely with and offering nuanced readings of a wide-range of artworks including: paintings, photography, exhibit catalogues and other visual installations, the book exposes the ‘open secret’ of militarism as the key feature, governing and dictating the constitution of much of Israel’s visual artistic production. It is a must-read for anyone who wishes a better understanding of the intricate relationship between politics and aesthetics, the military and the civic, as well as the visible and invisible in the context of today’s and yesterday’s visual culture in Israel. * Gil Z. Hochberg, Professor of Comparative Literature and Gender Studies, University of California, Los Angeles, USA *
Civic Aesthetics is a highly original and profoundly significant publication that enhances our understanding of contemporary Israeli art, culture and society. Roei’s rigorous multidisciplinary scholarship is embedded within a nuanced theoretical framework, as she cogently demonstrates how various military ‘components’ manifest themselves within Israeli visual culture, both explicitly and implicitly. Roei’s subtle understanding of how visible or invisible contexts or ‘framing devices’ shape vision itself -- exposing sights, oversights, and blind spots – and her examination of the simultaneous complicity and criticality inherent in cultural artifacts and practiced by artists and viewers alike – present eye-opening issues vis-à-vis the complexities that bind art and politics. Roei’s lucid and fascinating text concerning Israeli culture, goes well beyond its specific locus, and offers a prime example of the poignancy and potency of “visual epistemology” as a mode of knowing and understanding. * Gannit Ankori, Professor of Art History and Theory, Brandeis University, USA *
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgements Introduction In Search of a Civic Aesthetics Between Critique and Complicity Showing Seeing: The Critical Image Chapter 1: Can(n)ons of Israeli Society Frames and Set-Ups Soldier Figures, Civilian Militarism, and Israeli Art Taking Sides: Exhibitions as Framing Agents Visual Performatives Critical Frictions Chapter 2: Bodies of the Nation: Eroticized Soldiers Serial Quotations National Bodies Rewriting the Jewish Body, Again Women Soldiers Queer Dreams of the Nation Chapter 3: Looking Through Landscape The Landscape Way of Seeing The “Stifling of the Gaze” Israeli Mindscapes Chapter 4: Kebab in Theory: Mapping Vision Zooming in on the Thinking Image Contesting Mis/interpretations The Archaeology of the Still Life: Bringing back the Anti-Image Distortion and Desire: The Mapping Impulse Seeing Green: Shaping Emplacement Chapter 5: Greetings to the Soldier-Citizen: Consuming Nostalgia Peace, Security, and Sparkles From Guns to Cream Cheese The Politics of Nostalgia Preposterous Postcards The Limits of Critical Discourse Chapter 6: Fence Art: Re/Framing Politics Bil’in and Beyond: Aesthetics of Disagreement Redistributing Visibility Changing Contexts, Shifting Frames Conclusion: the Work, the World, and the Critical Image Works Cited Index
