Description
Book SynopsisA reexamination of the art of Arshile Gorky (1904-1948), and an exploration of his role in the development of modern abstraction in America.
Trade Review“Kim Theriault’s remarkable scholarly reassessment of Gorky comes as a breath of fresh air and will be considered in years to come as a landmark publication in the field of modern art and criticism. Theriault’s critical study represents the first attempt to link the horrific and traumatic circumstances of Gorky’s early life with his abstract paintings of the 1940s, which she persuasively argues to be a visual manifestation of displacement and trauma rather than simply the assimilation of modernist painting practices.”
—Michael Taylor,The Philadelphia Museum of Art
“Rethinking [Arshile] Gorky is truly a breakthrough publication. It firmly places Gorky as both an artist of note and a sage who tells us, in vivid images, about the brutal impact of genocide on the survivor. Theriault’s book offers scholars of art history and genocide studies a foundation for understanding both Gorky and his art in the right context—as a survivor of the Armenian Genocide. Theriault has unveiled his abstract images and rebuilt his memory, constructing a new view of one of the greatest artists of the twentieth century.”
—Sara Cohan Genocide Studies and Prevention
Table of ContentsContents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Genocide, Displacement, and Identity
2. Constructions of Gender, Self, and Other
3. Language, Translation, and Diaspora
4. Exile, Abstraction, and Nonobjectivity
5. Difference, Likeness, and Synthesis
6. Conflation, Re-membering, and Indeterminacy
7. Primitivism, the Feminine, and Orientalization
8. Enigma, Erasure, and Arshile Gorky’s Afterlife
Conclusion
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index
