Mark Rothko: The Artist’s Reality: Philosophies of Art (2004)
Filed under book | Tags: · abstraction, art, art theory, beauty, colour, environment, light, myth, painting, philosophy of art, reality, renaissance, representation, space, symbolism
“One of the most important artists of the twentieth century, Mark Rothko (1903–1970) created a new and impassioned form of abstract painting over the course of his career. Rothko also wrote a number of essays and critical reviews during his lifetime. Although the artist never published a book of his views, his heirs indicate that he occasionally spoke of the existence of such a manuscript to friends and colleagues. Stored in a New York City warehouse since the artist’s death more than thirty years ago, this manuscript, titled The Artist’s Reality, is now being published for the first time.
Probably written around 1940–41, this book discusses Rothko’s ideas on the modern art world, art history, myth, beauty, the challenges of being an artist in society, the true nature of “American art,” and much more. The Artist’s Reality also includes an introduction by Christopher Rothko, the artist’s son, who describes the discovery of the manuscript and the process of bringing it to publication. The introduction is illustrated with a small selection of relevant examples of the artist’s own work as well as with reproductions of pages from the actual manuscript.”
Edited and with an Introduction by Christopher Rothko
Publisher Yale University Press, 2004
ISBN 0300115857, 9780300115857
136 pages
IRWIN (ed.): State in Time (2014)
Filed under book | Tags: · aesthetics, appropriation, art, art theory, contemporary art, politics, retro-avant-garde, theory, utopia
“The NSK State in Time emerged in 1992, evolving in the context of the dissolution of Yugoslavia and the transformation Neue Slowenische Kunst. Existing both as an artwork and a social formation, a state that encompasses all time but holding no territory, the NSK State in Time has for two decades pushed the boundaries of artistic and political practice. This volume collects together, for the first time, analyses of the NSK State in Time including its relationship with the changing context of Eastern Europe, the connection between aesthetics and the state, the rise of NSK folk art, and documents the First NSK Citizen’s Congress in 2010.”
Includes essays by Inke Arns, Huang Chien-Hung, Eda Čufer, Marina Gržinić, Irwin, Tomaz Mastnak, Viktor Misiano, Alexei Monroe, Ian Parker, Avi Pitchon, Stevphen Shukaitis, Slavoj Žižek, and Jonah Westerman.
Publisher Minor Compositions, Wivenhoe / New York / Port Watson, 2014
Open Access
ISBN 9781570272769
178 pages
Alfred Gell: Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory (1998)
Filed under book | Tags: · aesthetics, agency, anthropology, art, art theory, causality, image, representation, style, tattoo
“Alfred Gell puts forward an anthropological theory of visual art seen as a form of instrumental action: the making of things as a means of influencing the thoughts and actions of others. He argues that existing anthropological and aesthetic theories take an overwhelmingly passive point of view, and questions the criteria that accord art status only to a certain class of objects and not to others. The anthropology of art is here reformulated as the anthropology of a category of action: Gell shows how art objects embody complex intentionalities and mediate social agency. He explores the psychology of patterns and perceptions, art and personhood, the control of knowledge, and the interpretation of meaning, drawing upon a diversity of artistic traditions-European, Indian, Polynesian, Melanesian, and Australian.”
With a Foreword by Nicholas Thomas
Publisher Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1998
ISBN 0198280149, 9780198280149
272 pages
via mrcds
Reviews: Michèle Coquet (L’Homme, 2001, FR), Kate Sharpe (European Journal of Archaeology, 2004), Jan Willem Noldus (Histara, 2009, FR), Gilles Bastin (Le Monde, 2009, FR), Christophe Domino (Le Journal des arts, 2009, FR), Pierre Charbonnier (Tina, 2010, FR), Marcel Alocco (PerformArts, 2010, FR), Agnès Giard (Libération, 2014, FR), Mylene Mizrahi (Proa, 2019, PT).
Critical analyses: Maurice Bloch (Terrain, 1999, FR), Robert Layton (Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 2003), Ross Bowden (Oceania, 2004), Howard Morphy (Journal of Material Culture, 2009), Brigitte Derlon and Monique Jeudy-Ballini (Oceania, 2010).
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