Art & Discontent : Theory at the Millennium
SKU:
1313
$15.00
$15.00
Paperback, 184 pages, 5.5 x 8.5", 1993, 0-929701-31-3
In these six essays, Thomas McEvilley tackles the aesthetics of formalism and proceeds to shed new light on the roots of Modernism and the collapse of the idea of history. The world-renowned critic confronts the ideas and philosophies which for two centuries have exalted art above constructive involvement in the world, and proposes a new vision for the critical enterprise. By explaining why our Modernism was not unique and why it is being superseded, McEvilley suggests functions that art performs in a post-Modern culture and offers compelling reasons why the history of art needs to be rewritten from an altered perspective. McEvilley argues, for example, against the dominant theoretical position which removed art from contextual examination by declaring its "sublime" nature somehow elevated above ordinary life, and he goes on to effectively destroy the notion that Modernism in the larger sense is an example of the superiority of technological society. More than anything else, however, he breathes real life into the intellectual understanding of contemporary art in a way that no critic has since perhaps Herbert Read. McEvilley humanizes the undertaking; in addition his wit is evident throughout. Chapters include "Heads It's Form, Tails It's Not Content," "On the Manner of Addressing Clouds," and "The Opposite of Emptiness."
In these six essays, Thomas McEvilley tackles the aesthetics of formalism and proceeds to shed new light on the roots of Modernism and the collapse of the idea of history. The world-renowned critic confronts the ideas and philosophies which for two centuries have exalted art above constructive involvement in the world, and proposes a new vision for the critical enterprise. By explaining why our Modernism was not unique and why it is being superseded, McEvilley suggests functions that art performs in a post-Modern culture and offers compelling reasons why the history of art needs to be rewritten from an altered perspective. McEvilley argues, for example, against the dominant theoretical position which removed art from contextual examination by declaring its "sublime" nature somehow elevated above ordinary life, and he goes on to effectively destroy the notion that Modernism in the larger sense is an example of the superiority of technological society. More than anything else, however, he breathes real life into the intellectual understanding of contemporary art in a way that no critic has since perhaps Herbert Read. McEvilley humanizes the undertaking; in addition his wit is evident throughout. Chapters include "Heads It's Form, Tails It's Not Content," "On the Manner of Addressing Clouds," and "The Opposite of Emptiness."
"This is not a collection of past articles but a carefully assembled volume... In the last essay, 'Father the Void,' McEvilley offers what could well become a credo for '90s art criticism: 'The critic will come to see art as culture and culture as anthropology. Anthropology in turn will increasingly become a means of critiquing one's own inherited cultural stances rather than firing value judgments in all directions.'" — Arts
"Each of the six essays offered here... represents the author's ambitious attempt to demonstrate that contemporary criticism maintains a place in the continuum of the history of ideas." — Journal of Art
"Illuminating and insightful rather than analytic and argumentative." — Small Press Book Review
"The sort of wide-angle view of contemporary art that can help bring some of the barking and bickering [about post-Modernism] into perspective." — New York Press
"A thoroughly useful lantern in the bramble, a clear call for attention to meaning in art." — Cover
"...McEvilley is opting for a new metaphysics in which content rises above the banality of empty elitism." — MEANING
"Each of the six essays offered here... represents the author's ambitious attempt to demonstrate that contemporary criticism maintains a place in the continuum of the history of ideas." — Journal of Art
"Illuminating and insightful rather than analytic and argumentative." — Small Press Book Review
"The sort of wide-angle view of contemporary art that can help bring some of the barking and bickering [about post-Modernism] into perspective." — New York Press
"A thoroughly useful lantern in the bramble, a clear call for attention to meaning in art." — Cover
"...McEvilley is opting for a new metaphysics in which content rises above the banality of empty elitism." — MEANING
To come