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Rereading Abstract Expressionism, Clement Greenberg and the Cold War
Since the 1970s, it has been argued that Abstract Expressionism was exhibited abroad by the post-war US establishment in an attempt to culturally match and reinforce its newfound economic and military dominance. The account of Abstract Expressionism developed by the American critic Clement Greenberg is often identified as central to these efforts. However, this book rereads Greenberg's account through Theodor Adorno and Maurice Merleau-Ponty in order to contend that Greenberg's criticism in fact testifies to how Abstract Expressionism opposes the ends to which it was deployed. With reference not only to the most famous artists of the movement, but also female artists and artists of colour whom Greenberg himself neglected, such as Joan Mitchell and Norman Lewis, it is argued that, far from reinforcing the capitalist status quo, Abstract Expressionism engages corporeal and affective elements of experience dismissed or delegitimated by capitalism, and promises a world that would do justice to them.
Good Day Today
In his speech following the 2011nationwide riots in Britain, Prime Minister David Cameron spoke out against people “being too unwilling for too long to talk about what is right and what is wrong” and proclaimed “this relativism – it’s not going to cut it anymore”. He was, then, presumably laying the foundation for one-size-fits-all absolutist authoritarianism and, worryingly, the moral outrage induced by the riots means a large proportion of the British public might not oppose such measures. When such a mindset is on the verge of becoming pandemic, where do we turn? This book suggests that the work of another David, born 20 years before and 3,000 miles away from Cameron, might engender a mode of thinking which does not apprehend the world in terms of such easy distinctions. In David Lynch, we find a director whose films – by utilising the tropes of the Hollywood movie, but subverting their accepted meanings - profoundly destablise spectators, and lead them to consider things not in terms of prescribed binaries, but as complex and multi-faceted. ,
Pornopolitics and Other Precedents
'Each precedent is an image. It is an image produced by judicial mechanisms of power, and it has a clear aesthetic value. Can any image produced by prosecutors, investigators or judges be called a precedent? No. What constitutes a precedent is only the aesthetically valuable product of their work that they create in the process of judicially oppressing an artist and their art. To make a precedent happen, however, the artist should turn this oppression against power itself. For that is when the artist effects a turn-around so much needed by art. They turn upside down the perennial disposition between art and power, making power work for art.'
Postinternet Art and Its Afterlives
Focusing on the ‘postinternet’ art of the 2010s, this volume explores the widespread impact of recent internet culture on the formal and conceptual concerns of contemporary art. The ‘postinternet’ art movement is splintered and loosely defined, both in terms of its form and its politics, and has come under significant critique for this reason. This study will provide this definition, offering a much-needed critical context for this period of artistic activity that has had and is still having a major impact on contemporary culture. The book presents a picture of what the art and culture made within and against the constraints of the online experience look, sound, and feel like. It includes works by Petra Cortright, Jon Rafman, Jordan Wolfson, DIS, Amalia Ulman, and Thomas Ruff, and presents new analyses of case studies drawn from the online worlds of the 2010s, including vaporwave, anonymous image board culture, ‘irony bros’ and ‘edgelords’, viral extreme sports stunts, and GIFs. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, contemporary art, and digital culture.
Wound Building
"Wound Building is a volume of essays, with digressions, on one group of contemporary poets active in a self-organizing political poetry scene in the UK, most of whom have little to no audience outside of the little magazines that they publish and the reading series they put on. The book is a front-line report on the rapid development of this poetry in the period between 2015 and 2020, with a particular focus on the relationship of poetry to violence and its representation ... Ultimately, Hayward argues that the lessons this poetry teaches is never to write a "worthy" narrative when a fucked up collage will do. Rather than a cohesive "account" of a "school" of poets, or a "contribution" to t...
Language in Ernst Bloch's Speculative Materialism
Nathaniel Barron offers the first book length account in English of Ernst Bloch’s contribution to a Marxist philosophy of language. It is ambitious both in situating Bloch’s ideas in the broader Marxist engagement with language as it currently exists, and in using Bloch’s utopian categories to challenge that engagement. In particular, Barron reads Voloshinov’s insights into language through Bloch’s categories, and argues that Bloch advances on Voloshinov by offering an understanding of the social materiality of language which is more useful for challenging fascist forms of utterance.
Totality
An original and ambitious approach to understanding the creative achievements of one of the most important American artists of the twentieth century. Totality offers a deeply researched and thoughtful account of the art of Barnett Newman (1905-1970). While Newman's paintings are widely regarded as among the most significant statements of abstract expressionism--and emblematic of modernism at midcentury--they pose distinct challenges to formal description and historical evaluation. With this book, Michael Schreyach guides readers toward a transformed understanding of Newman's profound body of work. Through a sequence of close readings, Schreyach examines six key terms--symbol, surface, self-evidence, space, standpoint, and scale--that illuminate the meaning of Newman's claims for the "metaphysical" content of his art. Totality progresses from the meticulous analysis of the technical structure and visual appearance of specific works to critical and archivally documented arguments about Newman's intentions. The result is an altogether original interpretation of the artist's enterprise, as surprising as it is nuanced.
Performance, Masculinity, and Self-Injury
This book is an ambitious and expansive examination of the visual language of self-injury in performance art from the 1960s to the present. Inspired by the gendered nature of discussion around self-harm, the book challenges established readings of risk-taking and self-injury in global performance practice. The interdisciplinary methodology draws from art history and sociology to provide a new critical analysis of the relationship between masculinity and self-inflicted injury. Based upon interviews with a range of artists around the world, it offers an innovative understanding of the diverse meanings behind self-injury in performance, and delves into the gendered coding of self-harming bodies. Individual chapters examine the work of Ron Athey, Günter Brus, Wafaa Bilal, Franko B, André Stitt, Pyotr Pavlensky, and Yang Zhichao, offering a new perspective on the forms and functions of self-injury in performance art. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, performance studies, gender studies, and cultural studies.
The Annotated Reader
None
Rereading Abstract Expressionism, Clement Greenberg and the Cold War
Since the 1970s, it has been argued that Abstract Expressionism was exhibited abroad by the post-war US establishment in an attempt to culturally match and reinforce its newfound economic and military dominance. The account of Abstract Expressionism developed by the American critic Clement Greenberg is often identified as central to these efforts. However, this book rereads Greenberg's account through Theodor Adorno and Maurice Merleau-Ponty in order to contend that Greenberg's criticism in fact testifies to how Abstract Expressionism opposes the ends to which it was deployed. With reference not only to the most famous artists of the movement, but also female artists and artists of colour whom Greenberg himself neglected, such as Joan Mitchell and Norman Lewis, it is argued that, far from reinforcing the capitalist status quo, Abstract Expressionism engages corporeal and affective elements of experience dismissed or delegitimated by capitalism, and promises a world that would do justice to them.
