Description
Book SynopsisTrade Review“In this extraordinarily illuminating book, Klinger builds on a painstaking consideration of Richter’s artistic practice to derive a pragmatist theory of artistic form and of form’s ultimate purpose. In addition to its exciting philosophical and art historical interventions, Klinger’s analysis delineates a practical ethics of art-making that deserves to be read by anyone interested in the theory and practice of art in today’s crisis of world-sharing.” -- Whitney Davis, University of California at Berkeley
“
Theory of Form is a twofold triumph: it presents the most original study of Richter’s aesthetics in recent years, and it is also a groundbreaking contribution to theorizing contemporary art. Remarkably linking form to reaction, judgment, and transformation, it is essential reading for anyone interested in art’s capacity to profoundly touch us and to partake in shaping our world.” -- Amir Eshel, author of Poetic Thinking Today
“Klinger’s
Theory of Form combines astute philosophical thought with a fascinating close analysis of Richter’s practice, yielding a new understanding of historical time and contemporaneity. It raises the theory of form to another level – indeed, it makes one see how form in art ought to be thought today.” -- Rahel Villinger, author of Kant und die Imagination der Tiere (Kant and the Imagination of Animals)
Table of ContentsI Response to a Contemporary Challenge
II Morphological Question: Form as Reaction
III Poetological Question: Form as Judgment
IV Eschatological Question: Form as Transformation
V Form as Paradigm?
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index
