Critical Perspectives On Art History

"Critical Perspectives on Art History" introduces the complexity of issues and critical debates that characterize art history today: Presents themes including postmodernism, feminist theory, gender and racial stereotypes, "political correctness," multiculturalism, and censorship Provides a wide range of authors/critics, literary scholars, art historians, and journalists Contrasts different points of view and perspectives Encourages critical analysis and debate Reflects the dynamic force of art in our lives

The name De Stijl, title of a magazine founded in the Netherlands in 1917, is now used to identify the abstract art and functional architecture of its major contributors: Mondrian, Van Doesburg, Van der Leck, Oud, Wils and Rietveld. De Stijl achieved international acclaim by the end of the 1920s and its paintings, buildings and furniture made fundamental contributions to the modern movement. This book is the first to emphasize the local context of De Stijl and explore its relationship to the distinctive character of Dutch modernism. It examines how the debates concerning abstraction in painting and spatiality in architecture were intimately connected to contemporary developments in the fields of urban planning, advertising, interior design and exhibition design. The book describes the interaction between the world of mass culture and the fine arts.

This fascinating and innovative study explores the lives of people living in early modern Ireland through the books and printed ephemera which they bought, borrowed or stole from others. While the importance of books and printing in influencing the outlook of early modern people is well known, recent years have seen significant changes in our understanding of how writing and print shaped lives, and was in turn shaped by those who appropriated the written word. The author finds that a set of revolutions took place which transformed the lives of the Irish in unexpected ways, and that the rise of writing and the spread of print were central to an understanding of those changes which have previously only been understood to have been the result of conquest and colonisation. This is a book which will be read not only by those interested in the Irish past but by all those who are concerned with the impact of communications media on social change.

This volume's unifying theme is the question: Is a concept of development relevant to art? Bringing together contributions from the perspectives of philosophical aesthetics, psychoanalysis, architecture and design, and the practicing artist, as well as developmental theory in psychology, this volume provides a unique assembly of voices from different disciplines. The twelve chapters span artistic production in childhood, transformations in the work of the individual artist, and historical changes in art, thus establishing a broad canvas for examining how concepts of development are used in relation to the arts. The contributors consider specific phenomena and questions against the background of theoretical issues, taking markedly different views on whether change in artistic work can be aptly characterized as development and, if so, what modulations of the concept may be required in light of accompanying assumptions and implications. Given the nature of this discourse, this richly illustrated book should lead to a radical rethinking among those who apply developmental concepts to artistic phenomena and aesthetic movements, and to reconsideration of the role of art in optimal human development within the individual and within social orders.

In the 1920s and 1930s, anthropology and ethnography provided new and striking ways of rethinking what art could be and the forms which it could take. This book examines the impact of these emergent disciplines on the artistic avant-garde in Paris. The reception by European artists of objects arriving from colonial territories in the first half of the twentieth century is generally understood through the artistic appropriation of the forms of African or Oceanic sculpture. The author reveals how anthropological approaches to this intriguing material began to affect the ways in which artists, theorists, critics, and curators thought about three-dimensional objects and their changing status as "art," "artefacts," or "ethnographic evidence." This book analyzes texts, photographs, and art works that cross disciplinary boundaries, through case studies including the Dakar to Djibouti expedition of 1931-33, the Trocadéro Ethnographic Museum, and the two art periodicals Documents and Minotaure. Through its interdisciplinary and contextual approach, it provides an important corrective to histories of modern art and the European avant-garde.

Situated at the crossroads of performance practice, museology, and cultural studies, live arts curation has grown in recent years to become a vibrant interdisciplinary project and a genuine global phenomenon. Curating Live Arts brings together bold and innovative essays from an international group of theorist-practitioners to pose vital questions, propose future visions, and survey the landscape of this rapidly evolving discipline. Reflecting the field’s characteristic eclecticism, the writings assembled here offer practical and insightful investigations into the curation of theatre, dance, sound art, music, and other performance forms—not only in museums, but in community, site-specific, and time-based contexts, placing it at the forefront of contemporary dialogue and discourse.

In the West, classical art—inextricably linked to concerns of a ruling or dominant class—commonly refers to art with traditional themes and styles that resurrect a past golden era. Although art of the early Edo period (1600–1868) encompasses a spectrum of themes and styles, references to the past are so common that many Japanese art historians have variously described this period as a "classical revival," "era of classicism," or a "renaissance." How did seventeenth-century artists and patrons imagine the past? How did classical manners relate to other styles and themes found in Edo art? In considering such questions, the contributors to this volume hold that classicism has been an amorphous, changing concept in Japan—just as in the West. The authors of the essays collected here are by no means unanimous in their assessment of the use of the label "classicism." Although they may not agree on a definition of the term and its applicability to seventeenth-century Japanese art, all recognize the relevance of recent scholarly currents that call into question methods that privilege Western culture. Their various approaches—from stylistic analysis and theoretical conceptualization to assessment of related political and literary trends—greatly increase our understanding of the art of the period and its function in society. Contributors: Laura Allen, Karen Gerhart, Elizabeth Lillehoj, Sam Morse, Joshua Mostow, Keiko Nakamachi, Quittman Eugene Phillips, Satoko Tamamushi, Melanie Trede.

David Bowie: Critical Perspectives examines in detail the many layers of one of the most intriguing and influential icons in popular culture. This interdisciplinary book brings together established and emerging scholars from a wide variety of backgrounds, including musicology, sociology, art history, literary theory, philosophy, politics, film studies and media studies. Bowie’s complexity as a singer, songwriter, producer, performer, actor and artist demands that any critical engagement with his overall work must be interdisciplinary and wide-ranging in its scope. The chapters are organised around the key themes of ‘textualities’, ‘psychologies’, ‘orientalisms’, ‘art and agency’ and ‘performing and influencing’ in Bowie’s work. This comprehensive book contributes a great deal to the study of popular music, performance, gender, religion, popular media and celebrity.

A collection of essays that reflect the breadth of twentieth-century scholarship in art history. Kleinbauer has sought to illustrate the variety of methods scholars have developed for conveying the unfolding of the arts in the Western world. Originally published by Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1971.