The author has evolved an altogether new psychology of the artist and the art-work which accounts particularly for the development, significance, possibilities and limitations of modern abstract art.
The author has evolved an altogether new psychology of the artist and the art-work which accounts particularly for the development, significance, possibilities and limitations of modern abstract art.
During the mid-1960s, sculptors in the USA and Europe simultaneously lost interest in making objects. Instead, under banners such as Anti-Form and Arte Povera, they began to present undifferentiated matter as sculpture: industrial felt, lead, dirt, vegetables, even live animals. Such heaps, arrays and environments seemed to mark the end of modern sculpture. They dominated sculptural debate at the time of their appearance, and they have since proved enormously influential on contemporary art.
Shows how key metaphors of Freudian and Kleinian psychoanalysis - splitting, projection, sublimation, identification, the schizoid and reparative mechanisms - as well as Lacan's concepts of the stade du mirroir and the objet petit, can be fruitfully applied to a range of modern three-dimensional art.
Introduction : from mirror to anamorphosis -- Uncanny : the blind field in Edward Hopper -- Paranoia : Dalí meets Lacan -- Encounter : Breton meets Lacan -- Death drive: Robert Smithson's Spiral jetty -- Mourning : the Vietnam Veterans Memorial -- The real : what is a photograph? -- Conclusion : after Camera lucida.
The work of mid-twentieth century art theorist Anton Ehrenzweig is explored in this original and timely study. An analysis of the dynamic and invigorating intellectual influences, institutional framework and legacy of his work, Between Art Practice and Psychoanalysis reveals the context within which Ehrenzweig worked, how that influenced him and those artists with whom he worked closely. Beth Williamson looks to the writing of Melanie Klein, Marion Milner, Adrian Stokes and others to elaborate Ehrenzweig?s theory of art, a theory that extends beyond the visual arts to music. In this first full-length study on his work, including an inventory of his library, previously unexamined archival material and unseen artworks sit at the heart of a book that examines Ehrenzweig?s working relationships with important British artists such as Bridget Riley, Eduardo Paolozzi and other members of the Independent Group in London in the 1950s and 1960s. In Ehrenzweig?s second book The Hidden Order of Art (1967) his thinking on Jackson Pollock is important too. It was this book that inspired American artists Robert Smithson and Robert Morris when they deployed his concept of ?dedifferentiation?. Here Williamson offers new readings of process art c. 1970 showing how Ehrenzweig?s aesthetic retains relevance beyond the immediate post-war era.
Signs of the Time is an investigation into contemporary art theory and the philosophy of art from 1945 till postmodernism. The author treats important precursors such as Freud and Marx, and contemporary theorists and philosophers such as Gombrich, Lacan, Heidegger, Sartre, Althusser, Marcuse, Gadamer, Derrida, Eco, Barthes, Foucault, Baudrillard, and Lyotard. Various texts are discussed, criticized and related to movements in contemporary art and to contemporary artists. The author addresses students in the field of art history, communica-tions, aesthetics, art education, art history, communications, aesthetics, as well as the art lover. Art as a sign of the time reveals the hidden dimensions of the world in which we live.
An international movement that followed specific geographical-cultural patterns, Conceptual Art built on the legacy of Marcel Duchamp, redefining the institutional and social relationships among production, work and audience in ways which have comprehensively transformed the nature of the art object and forms of artistic practice, both historically and in the present. Investigating and documenting the histories, theories and forms of Conceptual Art, this timely book, including both established writers and a new generation of art historians, shows that Conceptual Art was a broad movement encompassing a range of artistic tendencies. This is the most stimulating account of the movement to date, arguing forcefully for its vitality and potential as well as examining its influence on art today. With essays by Alex Alberro, Stephen Bann, Jon Bird, David Campany, Helen Molesworth, Michael Newman, Peter Osborne, Birgit Pelzer, Desa Philipagesi, Anne Rorimer, Peter Wollen and William Wood.
Many of us take for granted that what we perceive is a completely accurate representation of the world around us. Yet we have all had the experience of suddenly realizing that the keys or glasses that we had been looking for in vain were right in front of us the whole time. The capacity of our sense organs far exceeds our mental capabilities, and as such, looking at something does not guarantee that we will notice it. Our minds constantly prioritize and organize the information we take in, bringing certain things to the foreground, while letting others - that which we deem irrelevant - recede into the background. What ultimately determines what we perceive, and what we do not? In this fascinating book, noted sociologist Eviatar Zerubavel argues that we perceive things not just as human beings but as social beings. Drawing on fascinating examples from science, the art world, optical illusions, and all walks of life, he shows that what we notice or ignore varies across cultures and throughout history, and illustrates how our environment and our social lives - everything from our lifestyles to our professions to our nationalities - play a role in determining how we actually use our senses to access the world. A subtle yet powerful examination of one of the central features of our conscious life, this book offers a way to think about all that might otherwise remain hidden in plain sight.
Christianity has repeatedly valued the "Word" over and above the non-verbal arts. Art has been seen through the interpretative lens of theology, rather than being valued for what it can bring to the discipline. 'Explorations in Art, Theology and Imagination' argues that art is crucially important to theology. The book explores the interconnecting themes of embodiment and incarnation, faith and imagination, and the similarities and differences between art and theology. Arguing for a critique that begins with art and moves to theology, 'Explorations in Art, Theology and Imagination' offers a radical re-evaluation of the role of art in Christian discourse.
Contending that many good poets live and write in the American West, Andrew Elkins suggests that the western landscape--be it New Mexico desert or Alaskan wilderness--shapes the work that is created there. The place's essence and spirit inevitably become part of the work that flows from the poet's creativity. Elkins examines the work of Peggy Pond Church, John Haines, Adrian C. Louis, Richard Hugo, Jane Hirshfield, and several cowboy poets. --Texas Christian University Press.
