Synopses & Reviews
Disfiguring is the first sustained interpretation of the deep but often hidden links among twentieth-century art, architecture, and religion. While many of the greatest modern painters and architects have insisted on the spiritual significance of their work, historians of modern art and architecture have largely avoided questions of religion. Likewise, contemporary philosophers and theologians have, for the most part, ignored visual arts. Taylor presents a carefully structured and subtly nuanced analysis of the religious presuppositions that inform recent artistic theory and practice and, in doing so, recasts the cultural landscape of our era. A lavishly illustrated and beautifully printed book, surely the first such vehicle for a theologian in any age. . . . Taylor can see the purest expressions of postmodern art and architecture as epiphanies of 'God, ' a God who is and only is a totally catastrophic abyss, and if that abyss inevitably calls forth our deepest ending, such ending is all that we can truly know as grace. Thomas J. J. Altizer, Journal of Literature and TheologyFrom Schiller to Warhol and back again, Disfiguring reveals the artistic experience as a religious experience, and reconciles conditions that we had assumed were incapable of convergence. This is a rare and important book, the best writing on art and architecture since Walter Benjamin. Thomas Krens, Director, Solomon R. Guggenheim MuseumMark C. Taylor, Preston S. Parish Third Century Professor of Humanities at Williams College, is the author of Erring: A Postmodern A/theology and Altarity, both published by the University of Chicago Press.
Synopsis
Disfiguring is the first sustained interpretation of the deep but often hidden links among twentieth-century art, architecture, and religion. While many of the greatest modern painters and architects have insisted on the spiritual significance of their work, historians of modern art and architecture have largely avoided questions of religion. Likewise, contemporary philosophers and theologians have, for the most part, ignored visual arts. Taylor presents a carefully structured and subtly nuanced analysis of the religious presuppositions that inform recent artistic theory and practiceand#8212;and, in doing so, recasts the cultural landscape of our era.
About the Author
Mark C. Taylor, Preston S. Parish Third Century Professor of Humanities at Williams College, is the author of
Erring: A Postmodern A/theology and
Altarity, both published by the University of Chicago Press.
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
1. Program
2. Theoesthetics
3. Iconoclasm
4. Purity
5. Currency
6. Logo Centrism
7. Refuse
8. Desertion
9. A/Theoesthetics
Abbreviations and Editions
Notes
Index