Synopses & Reviews
Throughout its diverse manifestations, the utopian entails two related but contradictory elements: the aspiration to a better world, and the acknowledgement that its form may only ever live in our imaginations. Furthermore, we are as haunted by the failures of utopian enterprise as we are inspired by the desire to repair the failed and build the new. Contemporary art reflects this general ambivalence. The utopian impulse informs politically activist and relational art, practices that fuse elements of art, design, and architecture, and collaborative projects aspiring to progressive social or political change. Two other tendencies have emerged in recent art: a looking backward to investigate the utopian elements of previous eras, and the imaginative modeling of alternative worlds as intimations of possibility. This anthology contextualizes these utopian currents in relation to political thought, viewing the utopian as a key term in the artistic lineage of modernity. It illuminates how the exploration of utopian themes in art today contributes to our understanding of contemporary cultures, and the possibilities for shaping their futures.
Artistis surveyed includeJoseph Beuys, Paul Chan, Guy Debord, Jeremy Deller, Liam Gillick, Antony Gormley, Dan Graham, Thomas Hirschhorn, Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, Bodys Isek Kingelez, Paul McCarthy, Constant A. Nieuwenheuys, Paul Noble, Nils Norman, Philippe Parreno, Pil and Galia Kollectiv, Superflex, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Mark Titchner, Atelier van Lieshout, Jeff Wall, Andy Warhol, Wochenklauser, Carey Young.
Writers includeTheodor Adorno, Jennifer Allen, Catherine Bernard, Ernst Bloch, Yve-Alain Bois, Nicolas Bourriaud, Benjamin H.D. Buchloh, Alex Farquharson, Hal Foster, Michel Foucault, Alison Green, Fredric Jameson, Rosalind Krauss, Hari Kunzru, Donald Kuspit, Dermis P. Leon, Karl Marx, Jeremy Millar, Thomas More, William Morris, Molly Nesbit, Hans Ulrich Obrist, George Orwell, Jacques Rancière, Stephanie Rosenthal, Beatrix Ru.
Review
"This is an exceptionally stimulating book, helping explain why Utopia continues to mean 'Nowhere.'" Arthur C. Danto , Johnsonian Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, Columbia University, and art critic, The Nation The MIT Press
Review
Richard Noble has brilliantly brought together a selection of writings by artists, political theorists, critics and philosophers in order to investigate the utopian in contemporary art and culture -- how art explores the impulse towards a better world, as well as how it plays out the intimation of a dystopian and dark universe so near to us. From canonical historical texts such as More's Utopia of 1516 and Marx and Engels' writings in the nineteenth century, to Orwell's 1949 dark vision of utopia gone sour in Nineteen Eighty-Four; from Adorno's avant-garde negativity to Debord and Constant's views of the total integration of art and political revolution in the 1950s and 1960s; from Beuys' view of a practical and realizable utopia of the 1970s, up to Pierre Huyghe, Hans Ulrich Obrist, and Philippe Parreno's views of relational communities and conviviality at the turn of this new century; this collection of essays and interviews provides insight and challenges us to imagine the twenty-first century with absolute freedom. Alex Alberro, Virginia Bloedel Wright Associate Professor of Art History, Barnard College and Columbia University
Review
This volume is essential reading for anyone interested in the art-world's current impasse between willful naïveté and postmodern cynicism. < b=""> Arthur C. Danto <> , Johnsonian Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, Columbia University, and art critic, < i=""> The Nation <>
Review
What truly distinguishes this volume is the manner in which it reveals that the imagination of a perfect society is the other half of a critique of society, and that the two halves rarely add up. Some of the authors project brilliant visions of the future, others seek to examine the contemporary blockages on the utopian impulse, while most investigate the confusion of what makes (or does not make) something utopian within the context of art. This excellent selection of pieces that in one way or another contemplate utopia will help renew interest in this most important of subjects. The MIT Press
Review
This is an exceptionally stimulating book, helping explain why Utopia continues to mean 'Nowhere.' < b=""> Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev <> , Chief Curator, Castello di Rivoli, Turin; Artistic Director, Documenta 13
Review
This volume is essential reading for anyone interested in the art-world's current impasse between willful naïveté and postmodern cynicism. < b=""> Arthur C. Danto <> , Johnsonian Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, Columbia University, and art critic, < i=""> The Nation <>
Synopsis
Utopian strategies in contemporary art seen in the context of the histories of utopian thinking and avant-garde art.
Throughout its diverse manifestations, the utopian entails two related but contradictory elements: the aspiration to a better world, and the acknowledgement that its form may only ever live in our imaginations. Furthermore, we are as haunted by the failures of utopian enterprise as we are inspired by the desire to repair the failed and build the new. Contemporary art reflects this general ambivalence. The utopian impulse informs politically activist and relational art, practices that fuse elements of art, design, and architecture, and collaborative projects aspiring to progressive social or political change. Two other tendencies have emerged in recent art: a looking backward to investigate the utopian elements of previous eras, and the imaginative modeling of alternative worlds as intimations of possibility. This anthology contextualizes these utopian currents in relation to political thought, viewing the utopian as a key term in the artistic lineage of modernity. It illuminates how the exploration of utopian themes in art today contributes to our understanding of contemporary cultures, and the possibilities for shaping their futures.
Artistis surveyed includeJoseph Beuys, Paul Chan, Guy Debord, Jeremy Deller, Liam Gillick, Antony Gormley, Dan Graham, Thomas Hirschhorn, Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, Bodys Isek Kingelez, Paul McCarthy, Constant A. Nieuwenheuys, Paul Noble, Nils Norman, Philippe Parreno, Pil and Galia Kollectiv, Superflex, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Mark Titchner, Atelier van Lieshout, Jeff Wall, Andy Warhol, Wochenklauser, Carey Young.
Writers includeTheodor Adorno, Jennifer Allen, Catherine Bernard, Ernst Bloch, Yve-Alain Bois, Nicolas Bourriaud, Benjamin H.D. Buchloh, Alex Farquharson, Hal Foster, Michel Foucault, Alison Green, Fredric Jameson, Rosalind Krauss, Hari Kunzru, Donald Kuspit, Dermis P. Leon, Karl Marx, Jeremy Millar, Thomas More, William Morris, Molly Nesbit, Hans Ulrich Obrist, George Orwell, Jacques Ranciere, Stephanie Rosenthal, Beatrix Ru.
Synopsis
Throughout its diverse manifestations, the utopian entails two related but contradictory elements: the aspiration to a better world, and the acknowledgment that its form may only ever live in our imaginations. Furthermore, we are as haunted by the failures of utopian enterprise as we are inspired by the desire to repair the failed and build the new. Contemporary art reflects this general ambivalence. The utopian impulse informs politically activist and relational art, practices that fuse elements of art, design, and architecture, and collaborative projects aspiring to progressive social or political change. Two other tendencies have emerged in recent art: a looking backward to investigate the utopian elements of previous eras, and the imaginative modeling of alternative worlds as intimations of possibility. This anthology contextualizes these utopian currents in relation to political thought, viewing the utopian as a key term in the artistic lineage of modernity. It illuminates how the exploration of utopian themes in art today contributes to our understanding of contemporary cultures, and the possibilities for shaping their futures.
Synopsis
Utopian strategies in contemporary art seen in the context of the histories of utopian thinking and avant-garde 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
Richard Noble is a scholar of contemporary art, critical theory, and the interrelation of art and politics. He is a Lecturer in Fine Arts at Goldsmiths College, London.
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