Synopses & Reviews
Beauty has emerged as one of the most hotly contested subjects in current discussions on art and culture. After more than half a century of suspicion and interrogation, beauty's resurgence in visual practice and discourse since the late 1980s has engaged some of the most influential artists and writers on art. From the avant-garde to the conceptual era, anti-aesthetic strategies have resisted beauty because of its perceived complicity with dominant systems and ideologies. Thus politicized and opened to critique, beauty, invoked in relation to contemporary art, no longer sustains a singular or universal meaning but is always contentious. Spanning a range of positions on beauty--both for and against--this anthology assembles the key texts on the controversy and situates the debate over the revival of beauty in the broader context of the history of ideas and artistic practice.Artists survyed includeVito Acconci, Jake and Dinos Chapman, Gustave Courbet, Marcel Duchamp, Marlene Dumas, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Adolph Gottlieb, Hans Hofmann, Gary Hume, Asger Jorn, Alex Katz, Willem de Kooning, Joseph Kosuth, Paul McCarthy, Édouard Manet, Robert Mapplethorpe, Agnes Martin, Robert Morris, Barnett Newman, Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Gerhard Richter, Mark Rothko, Robert Smithson, Nancy Spero, Frank Stella, Clyfford Still, Andy WarholWriters includeTheodor Adorno, Alexander Alberro, Rasheed Araeen, Art & Language, Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, T. J. Clark, Mark Cousins, Arthur C. Danto, Jacques Derrida, Thierry de Duve, Fredric Jameson, Christoph Grunenberg, Dave Hickey, Suzanne Perling Hudson, Caroline A. Jones, John Roberts, Elaine Scarry, Wendy Steiner, Paul Wood
Review
Dave Beech is a London-based British artist, a regular contributor to Art Monthly, and coauthor of The Philistine Conspiracy.
"In his introduction to this fascinating and timely anthology, Dave Beech tackles the politics of beauty, arguing with characteristic clarity that beauty is neither purely individual and subjective, nor is it entirely socially inscribed; rather it exists at the point of tension between the individual and society. It is thus political in the true sense because we can bring about changes in our perception of beauty. If, back in 1993, Dave Hickey resurrected the idea of beauty in art from the critical 'dead zone' into which it had been consigned, then with this anthology Beech has not only revivified the debate about the politics of beauty but he has brought it up to date."- Patricia Bickers, Editor, Art Monthly, and Principal Lecturer, History and Theory of Art, University of Westminster, London --Patricia Bickers
Synopsis
Key texts on beauty and its revival in contemporary art.
Beauty has emerged as one of the most hotly contested subjects in current discussions on art and culture. After more than half a century of suspicion and interrogation, beauty's resurgence in visual practice and discourse since the late 1980s has engaged some of the most influential artists and writers on art. From the avant-garde to the conceptual era, anti-aesthetic strategies have resisted beauty because of its perceived complicity with dominant systems and ideologies. Thus politicized and opened to critique, beauty, invoked in relation to contemporary art, no longer sustains a singular or universal meaning but is always contentious. Spanning a range of positions on beauty--both for and against--this anthology assembles the key texts on the controversy and situates the debate over the revival of beauty in the broader context of the history of ideas and artistic practice. Artists survyed include: Vito Acconci, Jake and Dinos Chapman, Gustave Courbet, Marcel Duchamp, Marlene Dumas, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Adolph Gottlieb, Hans Hofmann, Gary Hume, Asger Jorn, Alex Katz, Willem de Kooning, Joseph Kosuth, Paul McCarthy, Edouard Manet, Robert Mapplethorpe, Agnes Martin, Robert Morris, Barnett Newman, Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Gerhard Richter, Mark Rothko, Robert Smithson, Nancy Spero, Frank Stella, Clyfford Still, Andy Warhol. Writers include: Theodor Adorno, Alexander Alberro, Rasheed Araeen, Art & Language, Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, T. J. Clark, Mark Cousins, Arthur C. Danto, Jacques Derrida, Thierry de Duve, Fredric Jameson, Christoph Grunenberg, Dave Hickey, Suzanne Perling Hudson, Caroline A. Jones, John Roberts, Elaine Scarry, Wendy Steiner, Paul Wood.
Synopsis
Key texts on beauty and its revival in contemporary art.
Synopsis
Beauty has emerged as one of the most hotly contested subjects in current discussions on art and culture. After more than half a century of suspicion and interrogation, beauty's resurgence in visual practice and discourse since the late 1980s has engaged some of the most influential artists and writers on art.
Synopsis
Based on a 2012 symposium on Perfection, held at the Whitechapel Gallery in East London, this book explores the ways in which artists engage with ideas of perfection, drawing on screenings, performances, and discussions. The symposium featured the work of an eclectic group of artists and writers, who use photographic lenses of many kinds to create works that engage with or disrupt ideas of perfection. Framed from an artistandrsquo;s perspective and spanning a diverse range of artworks that question how these ideas shape our personal identities and our social and political systems,
On Perfection considers the multifaceted nature of lens-based practices.
About the Author
Jo Longhurst is an artist and a former Leverhulme Fellow of the European Centre for Photographic Research at the University of Wales, Newport.
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION
JO LONGHURST
FOREWORD
ALFREDO CRAMEROTTI
A NOTE FROM OUR SPONSOR
ROBERT HISCOX
DESPOILING THE IDEAL
EVA STENRAM
ON PERFECTION and AFFIRMATION IN STREET PHOTOGRPAHY
MARK DURDEN
LEADING PLATO INTO THE DARKROOM
CLIVE CAVEAUX
FAILURE and PERFECTION: FILM WORKS BY JULIAN ROSEFELDT
JULIAN ROSEFELDT
CLIVE CAVEAUX and JULIAN ROSEFELDT DISCUSSION
CHAIRED BY LIAM DEVLIN
THE EFFORT OF PERFECTION: PERFORMING ADOLECSENCE
CATHERINE GRANT
OTHER SPACES: NEW WORKS WITH ELITE GYMNISTS
JO LONGHURST
A PERFECT MYTH
RAY Mand#220;LLER, DIRECTOR OF THE WONDERFUL HORRIBLE LIFE OF LENI RIEFENSTAHL, IN CONVERSATION WITH CERI HIGGINS
ERNST Jand#220;NGER and POST-HUMAN PERFECTION
DAVID EVANS
SEEING THROUGH
FRANCETTE PACTEAU
BOUNDARY LINES
LESLIE DICK, WITH AUDREY WOLLEN
PERFECTING DESIRE: RECONCILING MEMORY
JONATHON WHITEHALL
A PERFECT STRIKE: DOUBLE STANDARDS and ATTACKS ON PERFECTION
MICHAL HEIMAN
JONATHAN WHITEHALL and MICHAL HEIMAN DISCUSSION
CHAIRED BY LIAM DEVLIN
THE PERFECT STUDENT
ORIANA FOX
ZIDANE: A 21ST CENTURY PORTRAIT, A FILM BY DOUGLAS GORDON and PHILIPPE PARRENO
DAN HILL
EREWHON
JANE AND LOUISE WILSON
DECONSTRUCTING GENDER IDENTITY and NONand#8211;PERFECTION IN THE PHOTOGRAPHS OF YURIE NAGASHIMA
MARCO BOHR
LOUISE WILSON and MARCO BOHR DISCUSSION
CHAIRED BY MARK DURDEN
ABSTRACTS and BIOGRAPHIES
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS